Roman Catholic Church Announces IPO

Immediately asks for Federal Bailout Money

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'CASH IS KING' New Church Motto
     

February 10, 2009
Dear Investor:
The $204 trillion initial public offering of The Roman Catholic Church (“The Church”) is
scheduled to open as early as April 1st, 2009. What could be the largest U.S. initial public offering in more than 5,000 years has received a lot of attention from Congress and the press because it could also open the door for other private equity companies, hedge fund advisers, and religions to go public.

In preparation for the IPO, The Church filed several drafts of its offering documents (“Prospectus”) with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”). If you are thinking about buying shares in the IPO, you might be tempted to skip the daunting task of wading through several hundred pages of legalese in the Prospectus.  After all, The Church will be the public version of The Father, The Son, and The Holy Ghost (God.) CEO Benedict XVI made nearly $400 million last year. Who wouldn’t want a piece of those profits? But this is a situation where it pays to read the fine print. A December 16 column in The Christian Times, “Read the ‘Risk Factors’ – Far From Clean Slate, IPO Prospectuses Lay Out Debutant Religions’ Red Flags,” stated, “[The Church]'s prospectus has 62 separate risk factors listed over 34 pages.  Some of these sound distinctly alarming.
Here is a quick summary of the major risks you should consider before calling your broker to add The Church to your portfolio:
- Unlike most public companies, The Church proposes to curtail or eliminate altogether its responsibility to act in investors’ (or churchgoers')  interests.

-  Shareholders will not have voting or other traditional rights that shareholders in public companies have. God will, via The Pope.

-  Management (God, via The Pope) will exclusively set executive compensation without any input or oversight from unit holders.

-  The Church spent decades covering up allegations of child abuse, particularly the priest-on-altar boy variety. This may make for awkward conversation when discussing your portfolio with friends who have small children.

-  Congress recently proposed legislation that would tax The Church’s future income at a much higher rate. This means lower returns for investors.

-  It appears that The Church was structured in an attempt to avoid being regulated as an investment company. In fact, The Church was intended to be a ‘non-profit’ organization which bettered mankind.

-  The Church’s new motto, ‘Cash is King,’ while appealing to many investors hungry for a rapidly increasing stock in this recession, may drive away members, thus decreasing revenue.

-  Pope Benedict XVI was a Nazi Boyscout.

-  The Church, within hours of announcing its’ IPO, appealed to congress for an infusion of $250 Billion dollars, even though the SEC has yet to approve the IPO. This sends mixed signals to investors.

In summation, with a 5,000 year history, serious name recognition (God, anyone?), amazing equity (the souls of millions,) The Church stock is a sure ‘buy’ despite the risks involved.