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 News from Around the Americas | May 2006 
Religious Phone Cards Target Us Hispanics
 Reuters
| | The Virgin of Guadalupe is Mexico's most idolized religious symbol. |
Faith knows no limits, even when it comes to long-distance phone calls.
The Catholic Church in Mexico is set to receive a cash bonanza from a U.S. company planning to sell prepaid phone cards with a printed image of the Virgin of Guadalupe, Mexico's most idolized religious symbol.
"We are not selling blessings, we are promoting benefactors," said Mexican Monsignor Diego Monroy Ponce, whose recorded voice will bless customers when they use the $3 and $5 cards to place long-distance or cell-phone calls.
U.S. Starcom, a company that sells disposable prepaid cards to Hispanics in the United States and Canada, will put 25 percent of its profits from the religious phone cards toward the maintenance of a shrine to the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico City, visited by millions of pilgrims every year.
"We are blessed with this product," said John Lennon, an executive at U.S. Starcom, which plans an initial distribution of 100,000 phone cards in June to Hispanic grocery stores in Canada and the United States.
Although the messages are prerecorded in Mexico and will be heard by callers far away, they will still be "fresh," said Monroy, who gives masses at the shrine.
"They are the same prayers I say every day during the service," he said. |
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