Marketing Advice for the Catholic Church

On every street corner there are new churches popping up daily so much so that churches with traditionally strong congregations are losing their members to other faiths. One in particular is the Roman Catholic Church who recently reported a fifteen percent decline in Mass attendance. As a marketing guru I'd have to say that the Holy Mother Church has lost touch with the younger Christian. For centuries now they've kept things pretty stale aside from the Priest/Paritioner sodomy allegations, when Pope John Paul II ripped up a picture of Sinead O'Conner when he guest hosted Live with Regis and Kelly, and when the current Pope challenged Dr. Phil to a cage match at a UFC fundraiser event. So here are some suggestions for the Church to spice things up and increase their membership...

1. You Need More Patron Saints!

Time was when the Holy Mother Church would add other religion's dieties as Patron Saints to convince other congregations to join the Catholic flock but there hasn't been a new Patron Saint added in years. Here are my suggestions for new Patron Saints:

• The Patron Saint of Supervillains: this would include The Joker, Lex Luthor, Magneto, and Cher.


• The Patron Saint of Sunday Afternoon Football. This Saint would earn you an extra rosary bead (shaped like a football of course) and would grant forgiveness when you skip mass in favor of the Colts-Patriots Game or the Super Bowl.


• The Patron Saint of Fast Food Forgiveness. This one is handy for those who fall off the bandwagon and eat a cheeseburger when they're supposed to be dieting.


• The Patron Saint of Electoral Forgiveness. Let's face it we've all done things we're not proud of...how many people would like to earn forgiveness for voting Obama? This is a no brainer.


• The Patron Saint of Guilt...although they may have this one already. Sometimes we get too comfortable and realize we haven't experienced guilt in some time. A Patron Saint of Guilt would help cure us of that.


• The Patron Saint of Reality TV. Sometimes it helps to have a Patron Saint to ask special graces from when we really want DaQwam to win Project Runway.


• The Patron Saint of Credit Card Debt. Did you just spend next months rent buying a Nintendo Wii on your nearly maxed out Visa? Getting that funny feeling like maybe you shouldn't have? Well, this Patron Saint is perfect to ask forgiveness from. While she won't lower your interest rate (which is currently sitting at 21% APR) she will lower your chances of buyers remorse!

2. Use your Patron Saints to your advantage and create a new Role Playing Game

The basis of this is simple, you want to appeal to the marketing holy trinity: College students, the morbidly obese, and Homosexuals. Both morbidly obese men and college students love role playing games: Magic the gathering, Dungeons and Dragons, Pokemon, etc. Why not take all of your Patron Saints and assign them special energy and stamina points and powers and then put them on a deck of cards and...the rest practically writes itself! Have special tournaments before each mass and then you've got converts!

I can see it now "My Saint Argus of Hippo takes 20 transsubstantiation points and wipes out your Patron Saint of Armed Aggression card!"

3. Spice up that Mass service!

Would it be so bad to let the enthusiastic black ladies shout out an "Amen" or a "Praise Jesus" once in a while? And would it kill you to let elderly women drop their walkers and fall to the ground rolling around, mumbling jibberish thinking they've been overcome by the Holy Spirit? You're losing way too many black people to Pentacostal Churches, let them Brothers and Sisters get roudy!

4. Change the look of the Rosary Beads

Rosary Beads just aren't that stylish to wear around town (unless you're a country singer from the Bible Belt) so why not make them more like the 80's charm bracelets? Each Patron Saint would have a specific bead shaped like the thing they represent. The Patron Saint of Fast Food Forgiveness, for example, could have a cheeseburger charm as her bead. You get the idea!

5. Create an on-line confessional

Remember Ask Jeeves, the search engine from years back? Well what if Catholic Members could look up their sins through an on-line confessional called "Ask Saint Anthony" and it would tell them what Patron Saint to pray to for forgiveness, how many Hail Mary's to do, or if they want to shortcut all that "Ask Saint Anthony" would let them use their Pay Pal account to make a sin offering. Then it could be linked to the persons Facebook page or Twitter account to let their friends and family know what sin they were just absolved from.