Pope and Purdue
One day Mr. Purdue comes up with this great idea for the Catholic Church. Immediately he makes plane reservations to go to Rome.
When he gets into Rome he makes an appointment to see the Pope. When he sees the Pope he says this:
“It is great to meet you, your Eminence, and I have a little proposition for you. See, I was in church the other day and I thought of a great idea. Purdue Chickens is ready to give the Church $500,000 if you guys will change ‘give us this day our daily bread’ to ‘give us this day our daily chicken’. What do you think?”
The Pope pondered for a second and said:
“I don’t really think so.”
Well, Mr. Purdue was not going to be let down by this so he continued:
“Purdue Chickens is so organized that we figured that there would be a little dificulty in the first offer. Okay, we are prepared to give the Church $1 million dollars to change ‘give us this day our daily bread’ to ‘give us this day our daily chickens’.”
The Pope thought a little longer this time and responded:
“No, I really don’t think so.”
Now, Mr. Purdue was getting a little nervous. He took out his handkerchief and wiped the sweat from his brow. He said:
“Now, we at Purdue Chickens didn’t really think that the offer was going to go this far, but nevertheless, we prepared ourselves. We are willing to give the Church $5 million if you guys will change ‘give us this day our daily bread’ to ‘give us this day our daily chickens.’ What do you think?”
The Pope looked at Mr. Purdue blankly and then said:
“Sure.”
Later that day the Pope had a meeting with the Cardinals. He said:
“I have some good news and I have some bad news. The good new is that the Church has gained $5 million dollars. The bad news is that we lost the Wonderbread account.”