The following op-ed, by guest writer Mark Rose, is in the style of Paul Harvey’s “If I were the Devil.”
If I were the Bishop—if I were the successor to the Apostles, charged with the care of souls in the United States—I’d want to make the Church irrelevant. I wouldn’t do it with persecution; that only makes the faithful stronger. I’d do it with “modernization.”
I’d begin by whispering that the old ways are dead. I’d convince you that we need to “update” the Church, not to convert the world, but to be liked by it. I would invoke the “Spirit of Vatican II” to dismantle the structures that held the faith together for centuries, taking into account the data showing that the Council’s implementation triggered a worldwide collapse in Mass attendance.1 I would replace dogmatic certainty with “Synodal Listening,” ensuring we spend years talking about ourselves rather than listening to God.
If I were the Bishop, I would declare war on beauty and reverence. I would find the young people kneeling at altar rails, hungry for the sacred, and I would tell them they are wrong. I would rip out the altar rails in Charlotte and tell the faithful they must stand to facilitate “peace and unity.”2 I would issue directives in Austin banning the use of kneelers, insisting that the posture of adoration is a problem to be solved.3 I would banish the Latin Mass in Washington D.C., driving the most vibrant, growing families into the catacombs, all while claiming it was necessary to “foster unity” with the new order.
Then, I’d get organized with the state. I wouldn’t rely on the widow’s mite; I’d chase the federal grant. I would hook the Church’s budget so deeply into Washington that I couldn’t speak against Caesar without losing 53 percent of my revenue.5 I would turn the USCCB into a government contractor for immigration and social services, making the hierarchy so dependent on federal cash that a budget cut would force me to lay off my own staff.
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