In a release issued Friday, Sprint said it was chosen by the Archdiocese of New York to provide "critical communications support" for the Pope's visit to New York City, including 600 Sprint phones featuring Nextel's push-to-talk service, MediaPost reports.

Of those, "40 phones will be used by the Elite Fleet, including the Pope's Caravan, all Cardinals and the Vatican VIP personnel," Sprint's release said.

As the MediaPost report wryly noted, however, "nothing short of a miracle will keep Sprint from hemorrhaging subscribers. The company has already said it expects to lose 1.2 million customers in the first quarter of 2008 and a similar amount in the second quarter." Ouch.