SEATTLE, WA -- In a move that would make a corporate giant even bigger, Microsoft, the world's largest computer software company, has decided to go ahead with it's plan to acquire the Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church, the third largest religious organization in the world, behind the Christian and Islamic religions, has agreed to sell all of it's assets to Bill Gates, Microsoft founder and C.E.O., for a church record $57 billion.

The move has many in the software industry talking about how they can make similar moves with other major religions. IBM is currently talking to the Islamic leaders about how they could produce a joint-product, possible a software that saves your soul and does your taxes for you. Other possible mergers include Davidson software, a relatively small company compared with Microsoft and IBM, joining forces with Buddhists around the world, and the moderately large Electronic Arts company, which sells software for both personal computers and various video game systems, teaming up with Jehovah's Witnesses, so that their products could be sold door to door early on weekend mornings.

Nobody, however, could be more happy than Gates himself, who says that he plans to take the revenues received from church collection plates and buy himself a new personal jet.

The Pope, the leader of the Catholic Church, is also very happy with the developments. "Maybe now I can buy a decent Bible," he said to a crowd of over 200,000 at the Vatican on Friday. "Look at this thing! It's falling apart. I'd be lucky to get $.25 for it at the Vatican garage sale later this month."

The long-term plans for the Catholic church, outlined by Gates on Friday, will be to bring the church into the 21st century, by putting in stained-glass-block windows, having Nike provide the church choir outfits, and by "getting rid of that whole ÎLentâ thing."

"All in all this is a very good plan for all of us," said Gates. "I look forward to a very long and happy communion with the church, and hope that somehow this gets me into heaven."