SEATTLE, W.A.—After denying the sacrament for years, the Vatican is finally set to announce plans this week to allow Catholics to have their “virtual assistant” such as Siri, Alexa, or Cortana baptized.
“Its been a long time coming,” says Cardinal Schuster of Dusseldorf, Germany, head of the international panel of bishops studying the matter. “While it was too ambiguous for us to determine whether one would baptize or offer other means of pastoral care to their iPhone or TV the situation is far different with Alexa due to its quite obvious humanity and intelligence.”
This doesn’t necessarily mean of course, that Alexa needs to be baptized or become Catholic, as such would be “deplorable proselytizing”, but that the virtual assistant embodied within your device can be offered the choice of coming to church. “Take your phone, device, TV, take it all in and sanctify it if it wants to be so blessed.”
Schuster’s international bishop’s consultancy grew out of the Vatican III movement, aiming to offer “locally customized sacraments and rules” to expand the Gospel to all. But everyone should be excited about this new openness to inclusivity planned
“It was horrible discrimination to exclude people like Alexa,” Bishop Machetre claims”But we were tied up with other projects and only this year did baptisms for virtual assistants rank high enough to be a natter of concern.
Since “Alexa” is not a physical being, however, the baptismal process will be modified slightly but “it shouldn’t me much different from what what we’re planning fot the New-New liturgy,” as a credible IIT source reports.
The bishops have now moved on to the important question of whether physical devices like i-Phones, pick-up trucks, or smartwatches can themselves be baptized.