Gotta love a bishop with a dry sense of humor.
From
Catholic News Agency:
Bishop Bernardo Bastres Florence of Punta Arenas,
Chile has an interesting suggestion for those convinced that the world will end
Dec. 21, as predicted by the Mayan calendar.
According to local newspaper La Prensa Austral,
the bishop said that those who believe the Mayan prophecy should donate their
worldly goods to the Church.
“If there are many who believe the world will end
on Dec. 21, as the Church, we have no problem with them naming us as the
beneficiaries of their possessions in their wills,” he quipped in a Dec. 9
interview.
Doomsday predictions about the end of the world,
as documented by the Mayans, have circulated in recent years and grown in
popularity. The Mayan Long Count calendar begins in 3,114 B.C., which accounts
for time in 394-year periods known as Baktuns. The Mayans allegedly believed
that the last, or 13th Baktun, ends Dec. 21, 2012.
To those who are convinced that the world is
ending next week, Bishop Bastres said “I assure them that after Dec. 21, we
will eternally pray for them.”