The Nescafe Account

The top marketing director of Nescafe manages to arrange a meeting with the Pope at the Vatican.

Nescafe official, 'Your Eminence, I have some business to discuss. We at Nescafe have an offer for you. Nescafe is prepared to donate $100 million to the church if you change the Lord's Prayer from 'Give us this day our daily bread' to 'Give us this day our daily coffee'."

The Pope looks outraged and thunders, "That is impossible. The Prayer is the word of the Lord, It must not be changed."

"Well," says the Nescafe man somewhat chastened, "We anticipated your reluctance. For this reason, and the importance of the Lord's prayer to all Catholics, we will increase our offer to $300 million. All we require is that you change the Lord's Prayer from 'Give us this day our daily bread' to 'Give us this day our daily coffee'."

Again, even more sternly, the Pope replies, "That, my son, is impossible. For the prayer is the word of the Lord and it must not be changed."

Finally, the Nescafe director says, "Your Holiness, we at Nescafe respect your adherence to your faith, we realize that tradition is essential to your beliefs, we fully understand the importance of the word of the Lord but we do have one final offer. Please discuss it with your cardinals. We will donate $500 million."

The next day the Pope convenes the College of Cardinals. "There is some Good news," he announces, "and some bad news..... The good news is, he continues to a hushed assembly, that the Church will get $500 million."

"And what is the bad news, your Holiness?" asks a Cardinal.

"Sadly" says the Pope, "We would have to lose the Britannia Account."