Dusseldorf, Germany – “It’s essential, and it needs to be recognized,” said Cardinal Schuster in a virtual press conference today about his latest “synodal development idea”, that is, “bringing back the minor orders in a modern way.”
“I know,” he continued, “you never would have thought I’d be all for something so traditional sounding as the minor orders. If you’ve heard of them you know they sound oppressive, rigid, traditional, and all around troublesome. But in the midst of my judicious pastoral concern for all the preferences of my congregation, I realized that we aren’t recognizing the most sacrificial among us, those, who, who come to Mass still, to record it for our live-stream. They’re heroes and they need to be recognized, and while I’d be happy to do it with a life time dispensation from following their least-favorite church precept, that might be a little too much paperwork. So I’m going for bringing back the minor orders with specially blessed “cameramen”. They’ll have special vestments if they want them, a gen-err, judicious stipend, and it’ll my and our commitment to modernizing the church’s relationship to technology.”
The position will be open to all men and women capable of setting up a YouTube live stream and be adopted from May 17th in the cardinal’s Dusseldorf diocese, when beta-testing on Zoom Masses, another idea of the Cardinal, is set to begin.
“Blessings will be virtual of course, and I’m still figuring out how they can get themselves in front of the camera to perform my planned post-Communion liturgical dance, but we’ll have it all planned out by this Tuesday. Apply today on our diocesan website if you’d like right now.”
Schuster’s proposal would have to be approved by the Vatican for wider adoption by the Catholic Church and while Pope Francis has not yet commented on the proposal, he’s “intrigued” according to a high-level Church official with close ties to the pontiff as “long as it doesn’t make people feel as if they are required to attend Mass.”