“The Catholic Church Has No Idea How to Win Over Young People” — Vice News
“As Millennials Walk Away from Religion, Catholic Church Hopes to Reverse the Trend” — The Denver Channel
We, the Sovereign and Holy Body of the Catholic Church, hereby announce the following Amendments to our Believers everywhere, as we seek to reach the Souls of those born after 2000 whose names might be Brooklyn, or Londyn, or even Dallas, regardless of their gender:
- We heard you, and the Blood of Christ now comes in three different flavors: Pamplemousse, iced coffee, and Four Loko.
- We’re adding new commandments! Get ready to abide by new rules like, “Thou shalt not listen to more than two murder podcasts a week,” “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s WiFi,” and “Lay off the tentacle porn.”
- In addition to suddenly deciding all dogs go to heaven, we want to add that Instagram-famous dogs with more than 100,000 followers are now eligible to become full-fledged saints — as long as they’ve never humped anyone.
- We have it on extremely good authority that the Pope is working with God to make stigmata appear as a stick-and-poke dove tattoo on your forearm.
- We know our music hasn’t really changed since 740 A.D., when most people knew someone who’d been impaled. All hymns will now be produced by Travis Scott, beginning with his “Gregorian Chants Remix (ft. Cardi B).” This is our best effort to neutralize “WAP.”
- The Church will now offer a special Easter Egg Hunt for our congregants under the age of 35. Each egg will contain a blessed recreational dose of Molly.
- Each sermon will now alternate between a reading of a Bible verse and reading of a really brutal Fiona Apple verse you might’ve missed from "Fetch The Bolt Cutters.”
- Each Station of the Cross will be rebranded. For example, “Jesus is Condemned to Die” will become “Some Personal News: Ya Boy is Pivoting to Post Mortality!!”
- Instead of having to choose a saint name like “Agnes” or “Joan” or “St. Pauline of the Suffering Heart of Jesus,” teens can now select Confirmation names from a list of vintage AOL screen names, virgin cocktails, or dead mothers from Disney movies. An example: “Sister Shirley Temple, Daughter of @Bambi’sMom_XOXO.”
- To allow more people to learn Latin for prayers, the church is creating a competitor to Duolingo called LatinLimbo. The mascot is a baby who is stuck in a spiritual waiting room forever unless you do your daily lessons.
- All confessions will now be live-streamed on Twitch. If your confession gets more than 1,000 viewers, you can skip your penance. If your confession gets remixed on YouTube, the priest will let you play a single note on the organ piano. If your confession goes super-viral and winds up on The Today Show, well, sounds like you’ll be in Hell.
- In partnership with Trojan, the Vatican is pleased to release its own brand of condoms. They’re called Holey F*cks, and each condom may or may not come pre-poked with 10,000 holes.
- We understand that some Millennials and Gen Z’ers might bristle at the idea of children singing hymns like “There Is Power in the Blood” or “Alas! and Did My Savior Bleed” or “There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood.” If you have any suggestions on how we can remedy the whole “obsession with blood” thing, we’re all ears.
- Try as we might, we’re still grossed out by periods.
- Yes, you’ll still have to get repentances ashes on your forehead on Ash Wednesday, but we’re going to replace the ash with bamboo charcoal and toss in a travel-size under eye serum if you promise to never take the Lord’s name in vain, no matter how cool it feels to swear.
- Every Mass during Lent, in lieu of processional music, DJ Khaled will hype the congregation by shouting “ANOTHER ONE!” between each minute of silent prayer.
Look. The Church understands it has a long way to go. We hear those who say that were He alive today, Jesus Christ would find many of our practices elitist and exclusionary. And after much prayerful reflection, we’re thrilled to announce our most exciting modernization to-date: we’ve decided to let Popes bone again.