Exclusive interview with Bishop Athanasius Schneider

God uses the little ones to keep the true faith and to renew His Church

INTERVIEW WITH Bishop Athanasius Schneider

Bishop Athanasius Schneider O.C.R. is already a familiar figure to readers of Calx Mariae. His tireless defense of the central truths of the Catholic faith, at this time when they are very much under attack, means that he is internationally known and well loved by the faithful. He is the auxiliary bishop of Astana, Kazakhstan and titular bishop of Celerina. A member of the Canons Regular of the Holy Cross of Coimbra, his book “Dominus Est” is a beautiful plea for the worthy administration of Holy Communion. We are very pleased that His Excellency was able to answer some pressing questions ahead of the synod for the Amazon region in this exclusive interview for Calx Mariae.

CALX MARIAE: The synod in its modern form was introduced about 50 years ago. Yet, since the Synods on the Family (2014 and 2015), it seems to have become a vehicle for change. How should the synodal process be understood within the current context of the problems within the Church?

BISHOP SCHNEIDER: According to the authentic meaning of the Church, the main aim of a Synod consists “in the defence and increment of faith and morals and in the preservation and strengthening of ecclesiastical discipline” (Code of Canon Law, canon 342). All the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council had professed on oath the following: “I condemn, reject, and anathematize all things contrary thereto, and all heresies which the Church hath condemned, rejected, and anathematized. This true Catholic faith, outside of which no one can be saved, which I now freely profess and to which I truly adhere, I do so profess and swear to maintain inviolate and with fi rm constancy with the help of God until the last breath of life”. It is highly desirable and most topical that the participants of the upcoming Synod for the Amazon region would take to heart the above-mentioned aim of a synod and pronounce on oath the quoted words, used by the Fathers of the Second Vatican Councils and of previous Councils.

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CM: A great deal of concern has been expressed about the Amazon Synod. Its working document, Instrumentum laboris, seems to aspire to an egalitarian and ecologically minded society – a vision which draws its spiritual foundation from Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato si, proposing that care for “our common home” be at the heart of our religious and moral life. The environment is not an area in which the Church has traditionally issued authoritative teaching, so how do Catholics need to understand the increasing emphasis on the environment in the modern Church?

BISHOP SCHNEIDER: In stressing the care for the earth, expressed in the formula “our common home”, the Church in our days deflects from her supernatural mission, from her primary and irreplaceable task to preach the Gospel, to teaching all nations to observe all that Christ has commanded (see Mt. 28:19-20), which is the most urgent task at all times. The Apostles did not yield to the temptation to diminish their supernatural mission in caring for temporal and corporal affairs, as they said: “It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. ... But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” (Acts 6:2,4) The faithful should say to the Pope and to the bishops of our days: “It is not right that you diminish your dedication to prayer and to the preferential option of preaching the revealed truths of God in order to serve and promote naturalism, environmentalism and materialism!”

CM: Setting aside the environmental movement’s involvement in population control, this ideology has virtually made an idol of the natural world. Many commentators have warned of a danger that the false idea that God positively wills “the diversity of religions” may lead to the synod promoting pantheism or pagan religious practices. Are these concerns justified? BISHOP SCHNEIDER: They are fully justified, as one can discover at various places throughout the text of the Instrumentum laboris a pagan sacralisation of “Mother Earth”. The Instrumentum laboris supports a pagan-like myth in affirming: “The image of life and ‘good living’ as ‘a way to the holy hill’ implies a communion with fellow-pilgrims and with nature as a whole. ... The new paths are based ‘on intercultural relations where diversity does not mean threat, and does not justify hierarchies of power of some over others, but dialogue from different cultural visions, of celebration, of interrelationship, and of a revival of hope’.” (no. 18) In another place, the Instrumentum laboris states in a positive manner the following: “The family is where one learns to live in harmony: between peoples, between generations, with nature, in dialogue with the spirits.” (no. 75)

CM: The post-Conciliar Church lost much of her missionary zeal but does the Instrumentum laboris reflect an even more fundamental crisis in the Church if its authors believe that she must be evangelised by the non-Christian people of the Amazon?

BISHOP SCHNEIDER: Since the Second Vatican Council, the so-called interreligious dialogue with the stressing of positive elements of non-Christian religions weakened in a considerable manner the missionary zeal of the Church. Over time this method led in theory and in practice to the erroneous opinion of the positive or divinely willed character of the diversity of religions. As a culmination of this movement one can see the affirmation in the interreligious document of Abu Dhabi from 4 February 2019 that states: “The pluralism and the diversity of religions, colour, sex, race and language are willed by God in his wisdom.” Although Pope Francis spoke during the General Audience from 4 April 2019 of the “permissive will of God” regarding the fact of the diversity of religions, he, unfortunately, did not make a reference to the Abu Dhabi document. Furthermore, this document was sent to the Pontifical Universities without a necessary doctrinal clarification note. Therefore, the error that says, that God wants positively the diversity of religions, is daily becoming ever more widely spread within the Church. The error of the Abu Dhabi affirmation finds its logical consequence in the idea, expressed in the Instrumentum laboris, that says, that the Church must be evangelised by the non-Christian people of the Amazon. One can read the following incredible affirmations: “The Amazon – or another indigenous or communal territory – is not only an ubi or a where (a geographical space), but also a quid or a what, a place of meaning for faith. ... Thus territory is a theological place where faith is lived, and also a particular source of God’s revelation: epiphanic places where the reserve of life and wisdom for the planet is manifest, a life and wisdom that speaks of God.” (no.19). Such affirmations come close to apostasy.

CM: What should we expect from a Church with an "Amazonian face”? What meaning does this expression have? BISHOP SCHNEIDER: The expression “a Church with an Amazonian face” is a code word and a trick to promote within the life of the Church the theological errors and practices, as for example: pagan superstitions as sources of Divine Revelation and alternative pathways for salvation; intercultural dialogue instead of evangelization; postulating worship ministers of either sex within the Church to perform even shamanic rituals; a tribal collectivism that undermines personal uniqueness and freedom; the practical abolition of priestly celibacy.

CM: The shortage of priests in the Amazonian region seems to be the pretext for raising questions about priestly celibacy and the ordination of women to the diaconate or some other ordained ministry. Could such changes be proposed in one region, separately from the universal Church? What do these proposals mean for the Catholic priesthood in the Amazon and in the whole world?

BISHOP SCHNEIDER: It is a revealed truth and infallibly taught by the Church in her Ordinary Universal Magisterium, that the sacrament of ordination is by divine will reserved to men (males). Priestly celibacy with perpetual sexual continence belongs to a tradition, which was established by the Apostles according to the teaching of the Roman Pontiffs and various local synods in the Eastern and Western Church from the first centuries. It is obvious, that the introduction of married and sexually active clergy in the Amazon region, will then naturally, and step by step, become a universal practice in the Latin Church.

CM: The Instrumentum laboris has provoked an unprecedented level of criticism. Do you think this reaction will cause synod officials to reconsider the agenda that has been set for the meeting?

BISHOP SCHNEIDER: Based on the experience of the Synods on the Family (2014 and 2015) one can assume that this time again there will be applied manipulative methods in order to impose on the participants of the Synod previously established and desired results. Such methods reflect worldliness and are unworthy of a synod, of an assembly of the

PHOTO CREDIT: JOHN ARON

successors of the Apostles. One must again fear that over time a synod may become a kind of parliament, where strategy and ecclesiastical power of worldly and careerist clerics will win rather than the perennial and unchangeable truth of Christ.

CM: The recent “Declaration of the truths relating to some of the most common errors in the life of the Church of our time” that you signed, makes clear that the development of dogma cannot contradict what has previously been taught. This obviously applies to the teaching on the reception of Holy Communion. Although structures and disciplines are not dogmatic, wouldn't decentralisation and democratisation, ongoing themes of recent synods, also contradict what the Church has always taught about herself and the Real Presence of Christ?

BISHOP SCHNEIDER: In the issues regarding the revealed truths, the constant discipline of the sacraments which touches the essence of the sacraments and dogma itself, the proven apostolic rule of priestly celibacy, the centuries and even millennial old laws and forms of the liturgy of the Holy Mass, there should not be a decentralisation and democratisation. One has to recall the following words of St Irenaeus: “The Church, although scattered throughout the whole world, yet – as if occupying but one house – carefully preserves the Faith of the Apostles. She also believes these truths just as if she had but one soul, and one and the same heart, and she proclaims them, and teaches them, and hands them down with perfect harmony, as if she possessed only one mouth. For, although the languages of the world are dissimilar, yet the import of the tradition is one and the same. For the Churches which have been planted in Germany do not believe nor hand down anything different, nor do those in Spain, nor those in Gaul, nor those in the East, nor those in Egypt, nor those in Libya, nor those which have been established in the central regions of the world.” (Adversus haereses 1,10, 2)

CM: Some commentators have described the “Declaration” as a modern syllabus of errors. Do you see any signs that the hierarchy of the Church is coming to understand the real depth of the crisis and may return to its divinely ordained mission to save souls?

BISHOP SCHNEIDER: So far very few of the hierarchy of the Church reacted positively to the “Declaration”. I believe that a great part of the bishops is orthodox and they agree in their hearts with the truths described in the “Declaration”, since these are truths which the Magisterium itself taught. Yet, they are living in an atmosphere of a general intimidation and remain in their behaviour, therefore, silent or extremely prudent. On the other side, one has to state the reality that there are bishops in our days, who without blushing undermine, distort and suppress the integrity of the Catholic Faith; whereby they do this for different reasons, as for instance: political correctness, personal comfort and personal advantages, careerism, doctrinal relativism, acceptance of heresy, membership of Freemasonic organizations, and even apostasy.

CM: Prayer is obviously very important but what else should the laity do at this time of crisis? What responsibility does the laity have for the restoration of the Catholic Faith?

BISHOP SCHNEIDER: We should react in deepening our knowledge and convictions in the richness, beauty, solidity and immutability of the Catholic Faith. Every faithful Catholic should be able to say to a heretical or apostatized priest, bishop or cardinal: “I know my Catholic Faith!”, “I know in Whom I believed.” (2 Tim. 1:12) “I will not allow myself to be confused by you or be deprived of my Catholic Faith, which the Apostles and all the Saints lived. I am ready to die for each dogma of the Catholic Faith, as did innumerable Martyrs.” We should spread good and convincing apologetic theological materials through various printed forms and especially through the mass media and the internet. We should organize specific theological conferences and talks. We should organize pilgrimages of Faith, where we publicly and prayerfully proclaim the truths of the Catholic Faith and do reparation for the sins against the Faith, committed in our days by members of the clergy and even high clergy. We should respectfully, courageously and lovingly admonish those priests and bishops, who distort and betray the Catholic Faith. In the current tremendous crisis within the Church, God uses, I believe, preferentially the ecclesiastical periphery of the little ones in the Church in order to keep the true Faith and to authentically renew His Church. Paraphrasing the words of St Paul, I would say: “God chooses what is foolish in the eyes of unfaithful and worldly bishops to shame them, since they want to be wise in the eyes of this world, but not in the eyes of God; God chooses what is weak in the eyes of unfaithful and worldly bishops to shame them, since they want to be strong in the eyes of this world, but not in the eyes of God; God chooses what is low and despised in the eyes of unfaithful and worldly bishops to shame them, since they want to be strong in the eyes of this world, but not in the eyes of God.”