In this episode of the John Henry Weston Show, we have with us in our main studio in the U.S. Bishop Athanasius Schneider. He is the Auxiliary Bishop of Astana in Kazakhstan, but he is so well-known as the greatest voice on life, faith, family, and freedom live in the world today. For this episode, Bishop Schneider joins us in the studio in Front Royal to discuss some of the most pressing issues and developments in the Church and the world around us.
00:04:07.480It is so good to be with you, Excellency, and thank you for visiting with our studio there
00:04:13.300in Front Royal. It's so beautiful to be with you. Now, I have a question for you. You just
00:04:17.540wrote a book on the Holy Mass. What's the name of your book?
00:04:21.540The Catholic Mass, and the subtitle is Steps to Restore the Centrality of God in the Liturgy.
00:04:31.760Beautiful book, beautiful cover. I witnessed your conversation about it a little bit on
00:04:37.180Raymond Arroyo's program on EWTN. I had a question, and it's quite a difficult question with regard
00:04:42.940to the liturgy right now. We know it's being restricted with Tradiciones Custodes and how
00:04:49.140that's playing out. We've already seen various bishops apply to the Vatican for permission to
00:04:55.140say the Mass, the traditional Mass, had that permission granted, but only in very limited
00:05:00.860parishes, and then a permission only lasting two years. So, very much with the giving the sense that
00:05:10.520even that permission will be removed and it might not be renewed. So, it very much seems like the want
00:05:16.700to fully stop the traditional Mass is very much there. It's very evident. So, in these situations
00:05:23.640where now many, many, many traditional faithful who don't have access to the fraternity, which
00:05:29.380right now is still able to offer the traditional Mass, but I think the vast majority of people who
00:05:35.740experienced the Latin Mass were able to do so at their parishes, their normal parishes in diocesan
00:05:41.140communities where they're now being massively restricted. So, for a good portion of Catholics
00:05:47.220who love the traditional Mass, it's no longer available. In these situations, at least in the
00:05:53.040past, I remember in the 80s when people were looking for a traditional Mass, couldn't get to them.
00:05:59.700The Vatican gave permission to attend the Mass of the Society of Pius X, even though there was
00:06:07.080consternation with it. They were not regularized with Rome. But certain bishops, certain cardinals
00:06:14.100even, have suggested that such a thing is not possible, that the society is now in schism and
00:06:24.200therefore any participation in the Mass with the society is a schismatic act, so that even if you have
00:06:31.840no access to the traditional Mass at all, you must forgo such a thing because you're participating in
00:06:37.920schism. I ask you this question because, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you were
00:06:43.520the official visitator to the SSPX, to the Society of Pius X, for the Vatican. And so, I think your voice
00:06:54.000on this matter might be quite important. I think that the Vatican will not succeed to
00:07:03.680forbid totally the traditional Latin Mass. Even if they will try to do this, they will not succeed. They
00:07:11.840will cause a wide, large counter-reaction because they will be, the good Catholics, they will go underground.
00:07:24.560And they will not stop them. They cannot, because those already two generations at least,
00:07:31.680grown up in this traditional Latin Mass. And they were shaped all their spiritual life. They will not
00:07:39.920abandon this. Their faith is so strong. And this prohibition will be probably a dead letter.
00:07:50.160And it will not last long. This is my perception. The second question about the Society of Pius X is
00:08:00.000truly not schismatic in Norway. This is simply not true. Or if someone is saying this, it's a very narrow,
00:08:11.120legalistic view of the reality of the Church in which we are now. Such a view is putting the
00:08:18.240letter of the canon law above the importance, the primary importance of the fullness of the
00:08:29.280Catholic faith and of the Catholic faith and of the traditional liturgy. This is above a pure letter of
00:08:36.880a canon in the canon encoder of canon law. And the concept of schism is also not clarified, not
00:08:43.680not yet good. We have to clarify this concept also. Because one can have a very narrow view of schism and a broader view.
00:08:56.240And all these terms are subordinated to the greatest law in code of canon law, which is
00:09:05.600the salvation of souls. It's the greatest law.
00:09:09.760And so we have to look this. Schism is only traditionally in the first centuries, in the first millennium,
00:09:20.800when there was a concrete intent of a bishop, of a priest, to build up his own parallel Church.
00:09:30.320Not naming more the Pope, refusing any connection with the Pope. It's not only the question of
00:09:39.200subordination. It is the question of the will to have, to desire to have canonical
00:09:48.160community with the Pope. And this is expressed in, firstly, in the Holy Mass, when a priest and a bishop
00:09:56.800is naming the Pope, the current Pope, in the canon of the Eucharist. Because the Holy Eucharist is the
00:10:03.600greatest expression of the unity in the Church. Also naming the local bishop. And the Society of
00:10:11.840Paisatans is doing this, always. And even publicly praying and chanting for the Pope Francis. And so
00:10:20.240those people who are saying that they are schismatics, I would wish to them to visit at least
00:10:27.680the seminaries of the Society of Paisatans. I would wish that they visit the big parishes,
00:10:34.400the great parishes, and the lay people, the families, the youth of the Society of Paisatans.
00:10:40.880And I cannot, they will be moved by their true, true, authentic Catholic faith and by their respect for
00:10:48.720the Pope Francis, for the local bishop. This, you will be moved by this. And after you have visited
00:10:56.080them, in my case, I was one of the visitators six years ago, sent by the Holy See, you will not be able
00:11:03.920to say they are schismatics. And then another aspect we have to
00:11:12.480to take into account. Pope Francis granted ordinary faculties of confession,
00:11:22.560habitual, ordinary, universal faculties of confession to the priests of the Society of Paisatans.
00:11:28.960How are the Roman Pontiff could grant such faculties, which is a jurisdictional faculty,
00:11:36.640to a schismatic priest? It is a contradiction against the canon law. And so in this case, the Pope
00:11:43.520is de facto interpreting the canon law and saying, by granting them the ordinary faculties of Holy
00:11:54.240confession, by granting them the possibility to assist canonically the marriages with the approval of
00:12:03.760the local parish or the ordinary, by these acts of the Roman Pontiff. It's declaring them de facto,
00:12:11.280implicitly, they are not schismatics, but they could not be schismatic priests doing such acts of
00:12:18.320jurisdiction. And, I repeat, by their own intentions and facts, they are not schismatics, because the situation of the crisis of the church is so extraordinary.
00:12:32.720It is so an emergency situation that the temporary,
00:12:37.840unregularized situation of the Society of Paisatans is justified temporarily. And they all desire so much, and Archbishop Lefebvre I desired deeply to be full recognized by the Holy See.
00:12:56.880This was the only desire to, and this desire continues, and this matters. And because of the presence of this desire of to be fully under the control of the Holy See, which they also was always had, Archbishop Lefebvre, and I assume the superiors of the Society today.
00:13:19.920But, at the same time, because of the Holy See is occupied by hostile takeover, said Cardinal Muller recently. The Holy See is takeover, hostile, by those who like to dilute the Catholic faith and the Catholic liturgy.
00:13:40.920Because of this temporary situation that the Holy See is occupied since decades, more or less, by powers who like to adapt the Catholic faith, or to the Protestants, or to, and even worse, to the unbelieving world.
00:14:01.920This is our situation. This is our situation. And the situation that the Society of Paisatans is not able currently, temporarily, to be fully under the control and submission to the Holy See is justified, and is in no way schismatic.
00:14:22.920Just a quick note before we return. If you would like to stay up to date on LifeSite's coverage of the latest life, family, and culture news, subscribe to one of our many newsletters by going to lifesitenews.com slash subscribe.
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00:14:49.360It's now also been some time. We spoke of communion in the hand, which was forced by most of the Church, most of the bishops, even on the traditional mass priests, refusing it either altogether or permitting it only on the hand.
00:15:08.920Some diocese still having that in place right now.
00:15:12.140But you spoke of the abuse that that is in and of itself because of the trampling of our Lord under people's feet, as happens when the particles of the host, the communion host, is, you know, consumed from your hand, and then the particles go onto the floor.
00:15:31.220In addition to that, we also had the Church closures for so long.
00:15:37.920But I've heard many priests say, I won't do that again.
00:15:41.980What is your take now, having gone through and lived through this and watched so many of your brother priests suffer this way, of your brother bishops mandate this kind of thing?
00:15:53.120What's your take on this situation and where we are now in the Church, on both communion in the hand and Church closures?
00:16:00.820First, communion in hand is one of the grievous phenomenons and evils within the Church.
00:16:11.880I would say the most grievous, because we are trampling our Lord under feet in our Churches, that the Lord, His Majesty, hidden in this tiny, small fragment of the host, or a particular part of the host, is trampled.
00:16:30.320And this is so grievous and evil, we cannot simply continue.
00:16:37.040We must, as soon as possible, stop this, uncompromisingly stop, enough.
00:16:43.880We cannot continue to trample our Lord under feet and to treat Him like a cake and so on.
00:16:55.020The lockdowns and the closing of churches and so on was even made by bishops, where the government did not require it even, sometimes.
00:17:09.320It was a demonstration, a lamentable demonstration of the state of faith of these bishops, and in this way also of the Holy See,
00:17:18.640that they preferred the temporal to the eternal, they considered more important the short temporal life to the salvation of souls.
00:17:33.620And it was, in some way, a logical consequence of the last decades since the Council, where the Church leadership turned one-sided to the temporal affairs, to the temporal life,
00:17:52.500to the detriment of the eternal life, of the supernatural life.
00:18:00.280And this was simply a logical consequence, the lockdowns or the closing of the churches.
00:18:08.860I hope that those priests who collaborated in closing the churches will, in future, learn from this and gain more courage not to do this in the future,
00:18:23.180because they have to respond to this before the eternal judge, Jesus Christ.
00:18:30.700He will show them how all these closed holy masses, all these closed sources of graces, which these priests and bishops closed to the faithful,
00:18:45.140who had famine to the sacraments, to the eternal life.
00:18:50.260And so I think, I hope that they will not repeat this, and also reminding that in the times of epidemics and the plague, let us say,
00:19:05.300the Church, the bishops, on the contrary, increased holy masses.
00:19:10.840They were creative, St. Charles Borromeo, in the time of the plague in Milan, he ordered that almost in every corner of the city in public,
00:19:24.960and the open air will celebrate at the Holy Mass, that people could assist from their windows, the Holy Mass, to participate in the sacrifice of Christ.
00:19:34.360And this was an example, and he himself went, at the risk of his life, to administer the sacraments to the dying plague people.
00:19:47.720But the COVID epidemic, it was not a plague, we have really to distinguish this, but not at this extent.
00:19:56.420And so it is basically a question of faith, it was a question of what is the priority in the Church.
00:20:05.860And the COVID lockdown situation demonstrated openly to the entire world that the majority of the leadership in the Church preferred the short, temporal, material life to the eternity.
00:20:21.880We have to return to the primacy of Christ and the primacy of eternity.
00:20:51.880Thanks for watching, and may God bless you.