By David Carlin But first a note from Robert Royal. David Carlin wisely recommends special training for America's bishops to deal with the assaults on the Church and her beliefs that are growing by the day. But it's incumbent on all of us - in some respects, even more than on the bishops - to be prepared for navigating the world in which we find ourselves. I read The Catholic Thing (when I don't write it) one day before most of you do, and I'm constantly enlightened, informed, and inspired by the writers we've been fortunate to attract over the years. We have only two days left in this funding campaign. If you value this site for the sake of your own formation, now's the time to show it. Nothing easier, and it's tax deductible. And it's The Catholic Thing. Now for today's column...

The United States Military Academy at West Point was established in 1802, thirteen years after the adoption of the U.S. Constitution. America was not then at war with any other country and had not been at war since 1783 when the Treaty of Paris was signed ending the War of Independence. But if the new nation was to become, as almost all Americans expected, one of the great nations of the world, it was almost certain that there would be wars in the future - as indeed there have been.

And so it would be wise to create a military academy to give professional training to the generals and other officers who would lead the army in these future wars.

The U.S. Military Academy has been a great success in its more than 200-year history. If the United States has for the most part been a flourishing enterprise, much of the credit for this must go to Academy alumni, who have been educated at West Point not just in tactics and strategy, but in military history and geopolitics.

So, I have a suggestion. The Catholic Church in the United States should create a clerical "West Point" to train prospective bishops, those priests who, when they rise to the rank of bishop, will have to lead the faithful in the war against Christianity that is taking place today. When a young priest is identified as episcopal material, he should be sent to Catholic West Point.

There he will be trained to understand the atheistic nature of the enemy, which will involve making acquaintance with the most influential infidel thinkers of recent centuries, e.g., Marx, Nietzsche, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand Russell, John Dewey. He will also learn about the tactics and strategies typical of the enemy. Most important, he will be instructed in counterstrategies and tactics.

I'm not sure where this Academy should be situated. Perhaps in the belly of the beast, that is, in a city with a heavy concentration of influential enemies, e.g., New York or Los Angeles. In that way, the future bishops will be able to "feel" the enemy as a concrete reality, not a mere abstraction. Or perhaps it should be located far from the "world" in the wilds of New Mexico or the woods of Maine.

This would be in imitation of Jesus, who spent forty days in the desert before confronting the world.

Only those priests who have successfully completed the multi-year curriculum of this Episcopal War Academy would be eligible for promotion to the rank of bishop.

I make this suggestion, not as a joke, but as a serious, or at least semi-serious, proposal. But why do I make it?

For the last half-century or so I have been an observer of our American Catholic bishops. Not a very close observer, I admit, almost no more than a casual observer.

The bishops are the leaders of the Catholic Church in this country. They occupy a position analogous to the CEO of a business corporation or the coach of a football team. Now the "team" headed by the bishops has not been doing well during the past fifty or sixty years. Weekly attendance at Mass has gone into sharp decline, and so have priestly vocations and vocations to the convent. Many parishes have been eliminated by being merged. Countless Catholic schools have gone out of business.

A number of ...