The Young Bishop Speaking for Traditional Catholics

Born in Kyrgystan, raised in Austria, ordained in Brazil and teaching in Kazakhstan

Please Note: The following article contains political incorrect terms used by Bishop Athanasius Schneider to describe the divorced and remarried and the homosexual. They are included here to give an accurate view of his positions. Those specific words, which some may find offensive, are his words and not the writer’s.

Bishop Athanasius Schneider is one of the more traditional voices on the Catholic scene. Part of the group of bishops and cardinals who signed the Dubia asking for a clarification of various points in Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia, he demands dogmatic clarity. One can read his teaching and his ideas in his latest book Christus Vincit Christ’s Triumph Over the Darkness of the Age (2019 Angelico Press) — a series of interviews by journalist Diane Montagna.

With a brashness without a hint of finesse, he pulls no punches in his teaching. For example, the bishop refers to the divorced and remarried as “adulterers”. He lays the blame of the current crisis in Catholicism on what he calls “morally deplorable” candidates for the leadership of the Church in the bishops and cardinals. They belong to “a kind of ideological clerical club and even maybe a Masonic clerical old-boy network,” he claims. He adds that “the spiritual corpses of pedophile, sodomite and plainly heretical bishops and cardinals have been exposed for the whole world to see.” (cf Chapter 19)

Contrary to those who uphold his teaching and stream interviews with him, he is not part of the movement calling for the resignation of Pope Francis or the rejection of the Vatican II Council. His concern is in the lack of clarity in certain documents by the pope and the council. It should surprise no one that he promotes the catechism of the Council of Trent from the sixteenth century. I found no mention in his book on the catechism of the Vatican II Council including the YouCat.

Though still in his fifties, Bishop Schneider was one year old when Pope John XXIII opened the Vatican II council. He now represents those members of our Church that want to see a return to much of the Mass the Vatican II Council changed or eliminated. The current liturgical calendar, for example, includes three years of Sunday readings and two of daily readings, which the bishop considers too much an emphasis on the academic and the Word of God as opposed to the Eucharist. He prefers the older one year liturgical calendar with an emphasis on the sacred and not on the dissemination of a variety of biblical teachings during the liturgy.

He also rejects the current practice of communion in the hand and would like to see the reverence of the Eucharist returned with receiving on the tongue while kneeling.

His major concern, however, is with what he calls doctrinal confusion and highlights it with his teaching on marriage. He explains that the prime responsibility of a married couple is to bring forth children and then grow in the love of God and unity with each other. He laments that although Vatican II did not change that order neither did the council emphasize it. The 1983 canon 1055, for example which describes the purposes of marriage as unitive and pro-creative — is written in the reverse order of the long history of Church teaching. The canon is not reflective of a change dogmatically but Bishop Schneider claims many perceive it that way. This, he explains, opened the door to the full acceptance of contraception and a contraceptive morality. The bishop teaches that it fosters a selfish void of self-sacrifice that families and societies need. The Catholic Church rejects all forms of artificial contraception.

Born in Kyrgyzstan, his family emigrated to Austria when he was in his thirteenth year. In his early twenties, he entered the Order of Canons Regular of the Holy Cross and studied at the seminary for the order in Portugal and then in Brazil. There he was ordained a priest and lived his early priesthood. Later he received a doctorate in Patrology in Rome and began to teach in a seminary in Kazakhstan.

While in South America, he had exposure to the two extremes of Brazilian Catholicism — Liberation Theology and the Charismatic movement. He shows no affection for either. Bishop Schneider explains that when Mary and the Apostles received the Holy Spirit on the First Pentecost, they spoke in intelligible languages and “did not fall to the floor and rest in the spirit.” (Chapter 13) Neither does he care for the politicization of the Gospel found in liberation theology. It is nothing more than “sociological naturalistic religion,” he says. (ibid.) He seeks a return to a liturgy that fosters the sacred, not the political or the emotional.

He also maintains the traditional Catholic condemnation of Masonry and blames the Masons for being part of a centuries long march to a one world order which will include eliminating the Catholic Church.

Schneider does not call for the elimination of the Vatican II Mass also known as the Novus Ordo, though he admits he is not happy with elements of it. He corrected members of the separatist Society of Pope St Pius the Tenth who call it an evil Mass, that they are wrong as that would mean that he is sinning by celebrating it. (chapter 10)

Like many of the younger people who identify with him today, he wants to promote what is known as Ad Orientem which means celebrating the current Mass facing the same direction as the people and so with his back to them.

His words can be challenging for those of us who grew up in the days of following the Vatican II Council because it was that generation that saw the older speak about one understanding of the Church while we understood another. He seems to want to return to the earlier days without addressing some of the problems of that time. In fact, in his elementary years, he lived in the Soviet Union which was a far different experience than those of us from the West. He does not address an understanding of the problems of the generation raised before Vatican II in the United States and Western Europe for example. They often had a more simple faith that made it difficult to deal with a complicated world. In some cases, their understanding was so focused on sin they entered into the realm of the heretical.

I know of one case of a man who strongly embraced his Catholicism but believed in reincarnation because “one could not possibly be good enough to go to Heaven in one lifetime,” he said. This lack of understanding of God’s mercy reflected a poor teaching emphasizing sin. Others affirm the concept of God for many Catholics in the United States in the Mid Twentieth Century was more similar to the tyrannical holographic green Wizard of Oz in the 1939 movie than the merciful savior of St. Faustina.

My own father was one of many I knew who explained that he grew up learning to fear God and did not learn about the love of God.

Even George Carlin, who attended Catholic school but rejected his Catholicism, described the teachings at the time, in one of his routines, as of a God who casts you into Hell because he loves you. This all reflects bad teaching which many, including myself, blame on the classes using the Baltimore Catechism and an unbalanced focus on sin without a similar focus on the mercy of God. The bishop, unsurprisingly, promotes this once common question and answer series. Of course, we both would agree what came afterwards in religious education was worse.

The black and white education many received led to even more confusion that the Bishop does not seem to remember or know. Many young adults in the 1960’s asked their parents why they could not live with their girl/boyfriend instead of getting married. Parents, often caught off guard by the question, responded that it was a sin and were not able to explain anything beyond that simple teaching. This actually made co-habitation more acceptable because no one could explain then why it was wrong besides: “God said so.”

The true answer begins with: marriage is about more than co-habitation and in the Catholic Church it is a vocation in Christ. The dynamics behind the sacrament of marriage do not exist in co-habitation or any other form of non-sacramental marriage.

Bishop Schneider, to his credit, also invites people to read the Catechism of the Council of Trent and opens them to a more comprehensive understanding of what we believe. It is explained well and more comprehensively than the Baltimore Catechism. The Vatican II Council did not supplant the Catechism of the Council of Trent. It is just as valid now as when it was first published.

It is clear that this episcopal voice many hear on the international scene is part of the newer generation of bishops embraced by the newer generation of Catholics. They raise challenging words to an older group who understood Catholicism in a new way and never expected to see the older way be embraced so passionately by the younger men and women of the Church. He is clearly their bishop and speaking for them in their voice. He, as do they, wants a church that is more reverent, more holy, but also less pastoral, academic and more firm in dealing with those who do not fully embrace the faith. A good question will be: is his voice the one Jesus is calling his Church to have or is there another?

photo: Marko Tervaportti [CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)]