Michael Matt: Hello again, ladies and gentlemen. I am Michael Matt for Remnant TV. We are not, obviously, in the Remnant TV studios. We are on the road this week. The reason for this interview, I wanted to find out beforehand, when I asked His Excellency to be with us briefly, to comment on the Consistory in Rome, which had a bigger buildup with respect to the Latin Mass at that point than actually turned out to be the case. And I’m sure His Excellency will, I hope, comment on that as well. But since we have this interview set up, I’m so happy because there’s so much going on in the church. There’s so much uncertainty about the direction of the church, the direction of the Vatican under the new pontificate, that it seems very providential to me that we still have this opportunity to speak with His Excellency today. We’re just going to dive right in. I don’t have any prepared questions because I want to get a feel from His Excellency about the way things are going and his recent experience. Good morning, Your Excellency. How are you? Happy New Year, still, I guess.
Bishop Schneider: Thank you, good morning, for me, good evening, and to you also a good and blessed New Year 2026. Thank you for all your good work, which you are doing.
Michael Matt: Thank you so much. Your Excellency, it’s quite warm here, but I don’t think it’s warm where you are. What’s the temperature in Kazakhstan right now?
Bishop Schneider: Apparently, in Astana, we have minus 25 degrees below zero, so it is quite cold, with a lot of snow, but it is usual for our region.
Michael Matt: Do you like winter, or are you miserable?
Bishop Schneider: Yes, we have to be. We have to have the heat in our hearts, then we can support the heating in the rooms as well.
Michael Matt: Coming from Minnesota, I appreciate that. I feel the same way, but it’s never quite that cold. Your Excellency, I know you’re busy, so I want to get right into it. Everyone wants to know, of course, the subject matter of your recent discussion with His Holiness. I understand how delicate that is, and that it was a personal and private conversation between you and the Pope, and hopefully, Almighty God was overseeing everything. I’m not going to ask for any details, but are you in a position where you can share with our audience just the general feel for Pope Leo, having now sat down across the desk from him? What is your impression of the man?
Bishop Schneider: Well, he was very kind and fraternal to me. It really impressed me, and he was very attentive and carefully listened. I had the impression that he was really seeking to listen to others. We had a very fraternal conversation. I could share with him some concerns regarding the current situation of the church. I asked for the audience myself, and he graciously granted me. I basically asked him about two issues.
First, the most important, that he may strengthen the entire church in faith through a possible act of his Magisterium, which could be a profession of faith, as Paul VI did in his famous Credo of the People of God in 1968. I mentioned it because it is urgent to profess the faith regarding so many uncertainties, ambiguities, and errors spreading in the life of the church. I made him a proposal, and he really listened with much attention.
The second motif was the liturgy. I asked him to grant the church, or to establish within the church, a liturgical peace, to grant the traditional Latin Mass the same rights and dignity as the Novus Ordo Mass. I proposed this idea and even left him a written proposal. When he acts on it, it would be like a good and wise house father in the Gospel, which our Lord mentioned, bringing from his treasure out new and old things.
This was the main subject, and now we have to pray that God will give him light and illuminate him to act, to recognize the necessity of these two acts of his pontificate: to strengthen us in faith with the greatest clarity possible and to grant us liturgical peace.
Michael Matt: Your Excellency, in all sincerity, I know it’s not typical to start an interview with an expression of gratitude, but I want to say this. I want to thank you for what you’re doing because there’s a sense of helplessness, not only now, actually. The helplessness that we as lay people feel on the ground is less than it was 40 years ago, when we felt like no one was representing the traditional Catholic cause. No one cared. No one was speaking on our behalf.
So I sincerely want to say thank you for staying at the forefront of this and making our voices heard to the Holy Father, so that he knows that millions of people genuinely do not want to be against the Pope or against Peter. They simply want to practice the faith the way we have for a long time. So thank you for that.
I wonder if you could say something along those lines about the necessity of a diplomatic approach when a bishop is invited to speak, or when a bishop is allowed to have an audience like this with the Pope. It’s important to observe certain rules of behavior, I would imagine. Could you speak about that? In other words, you couldn’t go to Rome and condemn Vatican II or condemn the new Mass. There has to be a certain appreciation for the negotiation aspect of all this, which I think should trickle down to all of us. How do we deal with hierarchs, bishops, and the Pope? Could you say something about, in your own mind, what it means, how you prepared to speak with the Holy Father, and how important it is to have some legitimate compromise within the context of your conversation with him?
Bishop Schneider: Well, I prepared with much prayer, and I asked many to pray, and they did. I felt that the atmosphere in the audience, which lasted more than half an hour, was very blessed. The atmosphere was very positive. The Pope was very open and friendly, even though I addressed some difficult issues, such as certain documents and the situation of the church, and explained some causes.
Of course, we must always speak the truth with charity. This is the method of the saints, always with respect for authority, but with clarity. I spoke to the Pope clearly, and I asked him to do the same. It’s not a matter of compromise, but of clarity with charity. This is the task of a bishop. I am a bishop, a member of the College of Bishops, and it is my task to help the head of the College fraternally. This fraternal love includes giving concrete advice or counsel to the Pope, because as a bishop, it is my responsibility to contribute to the good of the church and the faithful.
We must avoid two extremes. On one side, continuous polemics with bitterness do not help. On the other side, silence or interpreting obvious errors in the church through sophistry is also harmful. We must be in the middle, speaking the truth as it is, with love, and asking church authorities to correct errors and provide remedies. We are concerned with the health of the entire body. I cannot say, as a bishop, that it is not my concern. We are members of the same body. We are one family, and bishops must be concerned.
Therefore, I think more bishops should go to the Holy Father and offer help through good advice and counsel so that the church can return to clarity in tradition, doctrine, liturgy, and pastoral life.
Michael Matt: So, for the Holy Father to agree to meet with you, somebody like Bishop Athanasius Schneider, who is known to be of the traditional leaning, shall we say, this requires some courage on his part, I would imagine, to say, I want to hear from the traditionalists. It would be wrong to say, well, this is a trap, and Pope Leo is just trying to fool us by having meetings with people like Bishop Schneider. The charitable thing is to presume that the Holy Father wants information and a better understanding of the church over which he is now the visible head. Did you sense, then, that in talking with you, that was at least part of his objective in having an audience with you: to gain a better understanding of the whole situation that he is now overseeing?
Bishop Schneider: Yes, I could perceive that. He was really listening with much patience and attention to my concerns. Other bishops and cardinals who met the Pope said the same, that he was very carefully listening. We have to believe that he is trying to listen well to all. But ultimately, he must act. That is his responsibility. He is the head of the church, and a head of the church must act, bearing in mind that he cannot please all. This is realistic. The highest aim is not simple human harmony. That is not the method of Jesus Christ, the apostles, or the history of the church.
We must take into account that when the Pope or a bishop pronounces the truths of Christ and promotes the glory of God, he will be criticized, even by his own. He must not fear critics and must have only God before his eyes, the eternal judge, and his courageous predecessors as patrons. Leo the Great, for example, was a courageous Pope, very attentive to the precision and purity of the faith. He wrote his famous dogmatic letter to the Patriarch of Constantinople and then to the Council of Chalcedon in 451. Upon reading this dogmatic letter of Pope Leo the Great, all the bishops, almost 600, stood up and spoke with one voice through the mouth of Leo, speaking as Peter.
From all my heart, I wish and desire that Pope Leo could do the same today, and that the people of our time could also say these words through the mouth of Leo, speaking as Peter. This would be his chance, his true glory.
Michael Matt: Turning to your personal motivation for the work that you do, with respect to never giving up on the Vatican or the established Church. The Abbé Georges, many years ago, had this famous expression: they will give you the Mass so long as you swallow the counsel of Vatican II. Now I want to ask you, is that your position? Are you saying, I’m going to Rome to fight for the right to have the Latin Mass, and I’m fine with Vatican II, I’m fine with the revolution in the church, as long as they give me my Mass? I will be silent on the issue of the council. First of all, is that your position? And secondly, were you able to say anything about Vatican II, or get an impression, or get an idea of some of the problems with the council to Pope Leo?
Bishop Schneider: No, this is not my position, and I try to be honest. The papal letters are a great treasure, but the clarity and integrity of faith are, in some ways, still more important. This is the foundation of our prayers. Therefore, I am not continuously speaking about what you can do, and I think we also must not overestimate what one can do. I would say speak less about Vatican II, not giving it extraordinary importance. It was only a pastoral council, one of the twenty-one councils.
If necessary, if I am asked about concrete topics, then I will speak honestly. For example, when they say Vatican II teaches that Catholics and Muslims together adore God, I will say this is not correct. At least it is highly ambiguous and cannot stand, because it causes misunderstanding. The acts of adoration for Catholics are always supernatural, while Muslims, at least the honest ones, perform a simple, natural religious act. This is substantially different. That is only one example, but I will not speak continuously about such topics.
Yes, some affirmations in the council are ambiguous. Thanks be to God, many are fine, but some had a very negative impact, causing relativization of the uniqueness of Jesus Christ in the Catholic faith. Ecumenism, when wrongly interpreted, also contributes to the relativization of the uniqueness of the Church and Catholic truth.
I would address this in another way: for example, creating a text of a profession of faith regarding the most widespread ambiguities and errors of our time. I could incorporate such affirmations of the council, not necessarily quoting it, but explaining positively that statements such as “together with Muslims we are adoring God” are not correct, and why. In this way, we could correct some ambiguous and dangerous formulations in Vatican II without much polemics. This would be my method, I think.
Michael Matt: Yes, do you have a book? I know we do not have time to go into Vatican Two. Is there a book that comes to mind that people could read to learn more about the history of Vatican Two and better understand what the issues were? Is there a book that you would recommend?
Bishop Schneider: Well, in general, of course, there is the famous book by Professor Roberto de Mattei about the history of Vatican Two and its documents, with good documentation. Regarding the liturgy, a book was recently published by Angelico Press in the States, an excellent book. I rarely read such a revealing and interesting book on the topic of the liturgy.
Almost the overwhelming majority of clergy, priests, and bishops today say that the Novus Ordo as it is practiced is really the implementation of Vatican Two, of the liturgical document decree. This is not true, because when we honestly analyze it, it is not so.
Therefore, recently I would recommend a book that was published with the title A Wider View on Vatican Two, by a Belgian abbot who participated in all sessions of Vatican Two on the liturgical debates and was a member of the liturgical committee that reformed the Mass after the Council. His name is Abbot Boniface Luykx. He was an abbot and a very solid liturgical scholar. He left his memoirs, his memories of his work in the liturgical committee, which was presided over by the famous so-called Father Bugnini. He wrote down all his impressions and observations during these meetings, and it is really revealing.
To quote some expressions, he wrote, I quote, this steamroller of man-centered horizontalism, as opposed to God-centered verticalism, has flattened all liturgical forms after Vatican Two. All liturgical forms after Vatican Two, but its main victim is the Novus Ordo of the Mass. The main loser in this process is the mystery, which should be, on the contrary, the main object and content of the celebration.
He then continues to say, the Novus Ordo is manifestly contrary to the intent of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy of Vatican Two and would not have been approved by the Council Fathers. Rather, it was forced upon the Western Church by the order of Pope Paul the Sixth to assure the goodwill of our Protestant brethren.
This is a quotation from Abbot Boniface, who was a peritus, a counselor of Vatican Two. He participated in all sessions of the Council itself, and after the Council, for four years until the reform of the Mass, he was a member of the liturgical committee. So he knows. Besides this, he was a serious liturgical scholar even before the Council and a missionary in Africa.
He also noted that the egocentric horizontalism has been perhaps the seminal principle of the post-conciliar crisis. Into this vacuum moved the egalitarian relativism of feminism. Then came pagan inculturation that adapted everything to the measure of man, not God.
He continues by saying that the liturgical renewal after Vatican Two has become like a miscarriage or a stillborn baby because of the man centered impatience of those appointed to bring it to its rightful maturity. The only creativity of this rebellion consists in pulling down the sacred and with it culture to the street level.
This is an affirmation of a council peritus, a famous, serious, and holy man, Abbot Boniface. To conclude with another quotation, no hierarchy, from a simple bishop to the Pope, may invent anything. Every hierarch is a successor of the apostles, which means that he is, first of all, a keeper, a servant of holy tradition, a guarantor of continuity in teaching, worship, sacraments, and prayer.
So maybe this is sufficient, some quotations from this excellent book, A Wider View on Vatican Two, Angelico Press.
Michael Matt: It is a great segue, because I wanted to ask you about the Consistory. But before I get to that, I am sure you are aware of Cardinal Arthur Roche writing a letter about Traditionis Custodes after the Consistory, and it pertains to what you just read to us. He says, quote, we can certainly affirm that the reform of the liturgy wanted by the Second Vatican Council is not only in full symphony with the true meaning of tradition, but constitutes a singular way of putting itself at the service of tradition, end quote.
I want you to comment on that, because we both know that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger himself, as head of the CDF, was very clear that he did not believe the reform of the liturgy was instituted properly in the Church. He spoke about how it opened the door to creativity and how the sense of the liturgy was lost. That is what he meant by saying we need a reform of the reform.
So it seems that from what you just read, and from what we remember of Cardinal Ratzinger, and from Summorum Pontificum, there is no consensus that everything was beautifully implemented with the reformed liturgy, the new Mass. Can you comment on that? Cardinal Ratzinger would have been the first to say this was not done right and that we need to go back and do a reform of the reform.
Bishop Schneider: Yes, there exists, I possess, a copy of a letter from Professor Joseph Ratzinger from 1976, some months before he became Archbishop of Munich and a cardinal. He wrote this letter to Professor Wolfgang Waldstein in Salzburg, and this professor gave me a copy of the letter. He has already died. He was very aged.
In any case, in this letter Joseph Ratzinger wrote that from his own knowledge, participating in and assisting at the debates of the Council, he could say for sure that the Novus Ordo as we have it does not correspond to the intentions of the Council Fathers and would not have been approved. These are the words of Joseph Ratzinger, who, I repeat, participated in the debates. He was present, as was Abbot Boniface, whom I mentioned.
So these are very authoritative eyewitnesses. Cardinal Roche was not an eyewitness to the debates. He was still a boy during the Council, a schoolboy, and could not attend it. Therefore, he does not have the same authority to speak, whereas those who truly witnessed it should be heard.
Another point that is often forgotten is that the true Mass of Vatican Two was not that of 1970, but that of 1965 already. At the beginning of 1965, Pope Paul the Sixth published and promulgated the Novus Ordo Missae, saying that this was the implementation of the Council. When the Council Fathers came to their last session in September 1965, they already celebrated this renewed Mass of Vatican Two, and it was substantially the same as the old Mass, with almost no difference.
Michael Matt: The introduction of Saint Joseph into the canon was that about it?
Bishop Schneider: I will explain it. The Missal was changed only in that Psalm 42 was removed. But this was not a great novelty, because even before the Council in the old rite, Psalm 42 was also omitted in certain Masses, for example, Requiem Masses and during Passiontide. So it was not a revolutionary novelty.
The second change was that the Last Gospel was removed. The rest was not touched. The entire Mass and the Canon remained, only the Roman Canon, and it had to be in Latin exclusively, not in the vernacular, and it was said in silence. Even in 1965, it was all in silence. All the crosses and genuflections were the same as in the old Mass.
The main difference was that the first part of the Mass, until the Preface, was spoken aloud and could be in the vernacular, though Latin was still permitted. One prayer after the Our Father was spoken aloud. The rest remained the same.
You see, this was the true Vatican Two Mass. What we have now was a revolution. Evidently, when one compares these two, every honest person must admit that this was a revolution. Tradition was not kept. It even went against an important affirmation of Vatican Two in the Constitution on the Liturgy, which says in number 23 that there should be no novelties, and that if new things are introduced, they must organically grow from existing traditional forms, and only when it is guaranteed that they will be of true benefit for the Church.
You see how carefully and with what preconditions this was formulated. Therefore, Cardinal Roche’s arguments simply cannot stand. They are against the evidence.
Michael Matt: Excellency, that is such an important point. Again, you just appealed to authority. I also appeal to authority when I say to people that the Pope himself, when he was Cardinal Ratzinger, described the new Mass as a banal on-the-spot product. In 2013, on October 14, when he was speaking to the Roman Curia, he said that the spirit of Vatican Two, what he called the Council of the media, banalized the liturgy and ended up leading to terrible consequences for spiritual life, religious life, and the seminaries. He said this about what he called the spirit of Vatican Two.
So when we talk about this, we are actually appealing to authority. We are saying that what we have going on right now, as you say, is a revolution. We are not the ones being rebellious. We are the ones saying that even according to Vatican Two, according to the experts of Vatican Two, and according to the Pope himself, something went wrong in the interpretation or implementation of Vatican Two. Correct?
Bishop Schneider: It is evident that we cannot play the game of the new clothes of the Emperor. It is evident, and we must be honest and return to the true intention of the Council Fathers.
There is also another aspect that must be taken into account. One must read the debates during the Council. There are the so-called Acta Concilii. There is a volume on the liturgy where all the speeches of the Council Fathers regarding the liturgy are printed, in Latin, of course. When you read it, and I read it twice, I was astonished. There was almost nothing requested in terms of concrete or radical reform.
The main issue debated was the vernacular language. That was mainly debated, and also concelebration, but not so much the order of the Mass. There was no word in the debates of the Council about facing the people. There was no word about altar girls, female readers, or women distributing Communion. It is completely absurd. The poor Council Fathers could not even imagine it.
I remember one debate when they spoke about giving more room to the vernacular language. One of the traditional Council Fathers opposed this proposal and said that if we now introduce even a greater part of the Mass in the vernacular, then after some time, the entire Mass will be celebrated in the vernacular. Almost all the Council Fathers were laughing and said that this was unrealistic. They said it was unrealistic to imagine that the entire Mass would be completely in the vernacular. But it happened, you see.
So we have to be honest, I repeat, and to do what is for the greater, truly objective honor of God’s worship and adoration, and for the benefit of souls, for prayer, for lifting up souls to God.
As the Church has always done, and as stated in the beginning of the text of Vatican Two on the liturgy, there are principles. One very important principle says that in the liturgy, in the worship of the Church, the divine must be primary. The human in the liturgy must be subordinated and oriented toward the divine. The eternal must be primary, and the temporal subordinated. Contemplation and adoration must be first and primary, and action or activity must be secondary and subordinated.
This is formulated in Vatican Two, Sacrosanctum Concilium, number two, as a principle of the liturgy. You can see that these principles fit exactly with the traditional Latin Mass, and that the Novus Ordo exactly undermines and perverts these principles.
Michael Matt: Excellency, along the lines of what you just said, I think there is a great deal of concern, probably even among millions of people, who realize that something is wrong in the Church and who want to go back to tradition. But they do not want to be schismatic, and they do not want to appear to be in a situation that is untenable for a faithful Catholic.
This takes us back to the beginning. I know we do not have all day, so I will try to ask one or two more questions before we wrap up. Going back to the beginning, when I thanked you for being on the front line, for speaking to the Pope, for praying for the Pope, and for leading us, we have recent examples again, such as Cardinal Zen. Cardinal Joseph Zen, speaking about synodality at the Consistory in the Vatican, was very outspoken in expressing and sharing with the world his opposition to the agenda of Pope Francis with regard to synodality.
I would imagine, and I want you to comment on this, that no cardinal of the Church would run the risk of that kind of scandal, of actually speaking out against an important policy or agenda of the Pope, unless it were a state of emergency, unless there were a certain urgency. We now have cardinals and bishops like yourself who are speaking out.
I wonder if you could say something specifically about Cardinal Zen, and then more generally about how people can be at peace, especially lay people, when bishops and cardinals are trying to do the right thing with regard to tradition and the Vatican.
Bishop Schneider: Yes, I am very grateful to Cardinal Zen for his honest words, sincere, courageous, and clear, crystal clear. He put his finger on the wound, and he will go down in history with this speech as one of the few voices who dared to point out this wound, this trickery, I would say, connected with the word synodality.
This word is used as a kind of code word, a form of trickery, to transform the Catholic Church through continuous debating, through a parliamentary style, into another religious institution, and not the Catholic Church of all times. This we must clearly state, and I hope that other bishops will also speak.
Cardinal Müller has also spoken critically on these matters, thanks be to God. Now it depends on the Pope, and therefore we must pray for him that he recognizes the dangers of this method. The synod itself is traditional. Even the Council of Trent commanded very frequent synods in dioceses and metropolitan provinces to give remedies to abuses, to be watchful for things that might creep in, and so on. This is normal, and in this sense, the synod itself is traditional.
But the way it is practiced now, simply sitting around a table and debating, and as it was with Pope Francis, allowing even lay people to vote together with bishops in a synod, is contrary to the divine constitution of the Church. It has no concrete aim, but simply endless debating. This does not correspond to the tradition of the Church.
Michael Matt: Do you think that the idea of the Consistory, which had not been used in a number of years, I think since 2014, gives some indication of Pope Leo’s agenda moving forward, which may differ from Pope Francis’s, in that he wanted to bring the Consistory back? It seems it was sidetracked a little because they voted down the discussion on the liturgy. But is that a good sign in general, that he wanted to try this Consistory model again?
Bishop Schneider: Yes, yes, I think so. The cardinals are, in some way, the presbyteral college of the Bishop of Rome. The meaning of the cardinals is that they are the counselors of the Pope. He has to hear them, to listen to them, to be counseled, and to ask their advice. This is the meaning of the College of Cardinals, not only to wear red vestments and have the title of eminence, and then not be consulted. That would be contrary to the institution of the College of Cardinals.
Therefore, I am happy that Pope Leo convoked the Consistory and even said that the next Consistory will be in June, and probably even regularly every year. This is a very good method. The Pope needs his closest counselors, the cardinals.
Michael Matt: Do you think the traditional Latin Mass will not die, that the question of the Latin Mass will not die? It would have been quite easy, I think, for Pope Leo to simply continue into his new pontificate, to have his Consistory and say nothing about the Latin Mass, to ignore the issue of liturgy altogether. But it keeps coming back and keeps coming up, and people are wondering about that.
That has to be a sign of hope, if not because of the men involved, then at least because of the role that the Holy Ghost is playing in the Church, that this issue of the traditional Latin Mass continually comes up and will not go away. What do you think? Why is it still such a hot-button issue all these years after the Council?
Bishop Schneider: Yes, because the traditional Latin Mass is a work of God, of the Holy Spirit. No human power can destroy a work of God. Because it is a work of God, it is powerful. The traditional liturgy has been sanctified by millennia, by numerous generations of saints, and truly sanctified by martyrs.
No Pope has the power to destroy it. It will survive. The more it is persecuted, the more it will grow, just as the Church itself grows when it is persecuted. The more the traditional Latin Mass is persecuted, the more it will grow and attract new people, especially young people.
Therefore, we must be hopeful and pray that the Pope recognizes this and himself becomes the promoter, the first promoter, of the traditional Mass, and that he himself celebrates it publicly in Saint Peter’s Basilica, to build a bridge to all his predecessors, to the saints, and to show empathy with all his sons and daughters who love, grow up with, and cherish this venerable form of the Church’s liturgy.
Michael Matt: Your Excellency, I should probably let it go at that, because it was beautifully stated. But I want to follow up with one final question, based on the look on your face right now, a face filled with hope about the future. You are not talking about something vague or unrealistic, that the Pope might someday do this. I know you, and I can see from looking at you that you fully expect this to happen in God’s providence.
So here is my final question. What can you say to people who are heartbroken, battle-scarred, weary, and tired of the war, who have been in the trenches for too long, and who have also been affected by what might be called the spirit of the Enlightenment, the politicization of the Church? In other words, people who say, he is not my Pope, I want nothing to do with him, whether it is Francis or Leo. What do you say to people in terms of the theological outlook on the battle we, as soldiers of Jesus Christ, are engaged in right now?
We do not get to simply absent ourselves from this war. It is important to keep spirits high and to recognize that this is God’s will. It is God’s Church to save, but we have to stay and continue to do whatever we can. Walking away from the Pope, or from bishops or priests who are deeply disoriented, is not an answer. What can you say to people about that?
Bishop Schneider: I think what you described shows a lack of faith, a lack of Catholic faith. When you have a true and deep Catholic faith, you cannot speak or react in such a way. This reflects a lack of supernatural vision. You are viewing the Church as a party or a human organization, where you can say that this leader does not please you.
This is not the attitude of a true traditional Catholic of all ages. We remain. Basically, this is a hidden revolt against the cross. We must accept that this is a cross, a heavy cross, and the entire Church is suffering. It is a revolt against suffering. We must suffer for the Church, offer it, and not go away or react with bitterness.
Yes, it was a real and huge trial with Pope Francis, but he was the true Pope. He caused enormous confusion, but the more this happened, the more I personally felt pity for him. This is true love of neighbor. We must love all, even those who are in error, even when it is our superior or part of the hierarchy. We must have compassion for their souls.
I truly have much compassion for Pope Francis. I continue to pray for his soul in purgatory and to celebrate Masses for him. This is true love. At the same time, I admonished him during his pontificate.
Therefore, we remain with our mother. When a mother is suffering, and her hands are bound by modernist clergy, we will not abandon our mother. We will stay and say that we will suffer with her. Of course, we do not obey wrong commands from unbelieving clergy or bishops. But we pray for their conversion. We offer acts of reparation for their errors, without bitterness, with love.
We remain faithful to the Catholic faith. We have the catechisms; read the old catechisms. We have the Mass. We have Holy Communion, Our Lord Jesus Christ. What more do we need? Travel to good Masses, even if the distance is long. We did this in the Soviet Union, in the clandestine Church.
Pray and offer sacrifices, so that God will again send us truly traditional Popes, so that the See of Peter will shine again to the entire world in purity, integrity, and beauty of the Catholic faith and liturgy, in the spirit of the apostles and the holy Popes. This is your contribution.
Michael Matt: Thank you, Your Excellency, from the bottom of my heart. Thank you. It is so much easier to stay with our suffering mother when we have successors of the apostles like yourself who are willing to lead. God bless your work, and please keep going. Thank you so much.
Bishop Schneider: You are welcome. God bless you and all your beautiful work. Thank you.