That's a good question. I don't know what would happen if you got rid of the cat and left the rear O2 in there. The Monte I tuned on didn't have a rear O2 or a cat so I never got to try it.
I would say go ahead and try disabling the catalyst codes only (leave the post-O2 codes enabled) and then watch your fuel trims as you drive and see if it tries to run the cat diagnostic. It may try to run it but should soon quit running it as the rear O2 would show rich immediately as the test begins.
Give it a try and let us know what happens.
-ryan