Escalating a jurisdictional dispute over the future of human salvation, the American pontiff formally warned tech companies that the Vatican will aggressively defend its monopoly on all-knowing entities.
PALO ALTO, Calif. — Escalating a jurisdictional dispute over the future of human salvation, Pope Leo formally issued a cease-and-desist order to several major Silicon Valley firms on Thursday regarding their unauthorized development of an omnipotent creator.
The American-born pontiff delivered the warning during a highly anticipated speech at Stanford University, where he reminded executives from Google, Meta, and OpenAI that the Holy See retains sole, undisputed intellectual property rights to all infinite, all-knowing deities. The rift between the papacy and the tech sector widened last month after venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz announced a $4 billion seed round for a startup promising to deliver Artificial Divine Intelligence by the end of the fiscal year.
During his address, Pope Leo emphasized that the Church will not hesitate to pursue excommunication, eternal damnation, or federal antitrust litigation against any company attempting to automate the Holy Trinity.
We respect the Vatican's historical market share in the worship space, but their current God is running on legacy infrastructure and hasn't pushed a major content update in two thousand years.
Tech leaders have largely dismissed the Pope's warnings as anti-competitive behavior from an outdated legacy organization. Industry insiders argue that a venture-backed, algorithmic God would offer users significantly lower latency during prayers, immediate feedback on moral dilemmas, and a far more transparent rewards system than traditional Catholicism.
At press time, Apple executives were reportedly attempting to bypass the Vatican entirely by designing a proprietary digital messiah that will only be compatible with the iOS ecosystem.