Dr. G. Ashenden: Hello and welcome. I am about to share with you an interview I had with Bishop Schneider.
He is one of the most impressive bishops in the Catholic Church, and as a man driven by conscience, he has gone to see Pope Leo to ask for an audience with the Holy Father. Essentially, he is asking him to heal the ruptures in the Church by one single act, and that is the issuing of an apostolic constitution. This is significantly more powerful than the motu proprio. What he wants to do is ratify Pope Benedict’s Summorum Pontificum, which said that the Latin Mass, the Mass of the ages, had never been abrogated.
The argument is over the role of the Second Vatican Council, and the strange contradiction is that those who are most faithful to the traditions of the Church are being cast as schismatic villains who will not accept the authority of Ecumenical Councils. That is not true, of course, and one of the reasons it is presented this way is because of a false reading of history, a false presentation of what the Second Vatican Council actually did.
One of the things Bishop Schneider has done, particularly in written form, in an interview with Diane Montagna today, where you will find this in text, is to say that in 1965 the fathers of the Council were presented with a new liturgy which was very much the same as the old. The issue was all about the vernacular, not the changing of the prayers, not the canon. That was the big question.
Should the Church get with the spirit of the age by giving different communities the opportunity to understand the Mass in their own language? It is a restricted and very simple question. But behind the scenes, the priest in charge of the liturgical revision, Father Bugnini, was playing a different game. As you will hear Bishop Schneider say, on the authority of the memoirs of Louis Bouyer and Cardinal Ratzinger, what Father Bugnini did was to say to the Pope, when he presented him with this radical new order, that it was being presented because the fathers of the Council wanted it.
When the fathers of the Council were presented with it, they said, What is this? We do not like it. Father Bugnini then said, You are being presented with this because the Pope wants it. Out of deference to each other, the Pope and the fathers of the Council accepted the new order that had been produced by Father Bugnini.
It is not my purpose to explain his reasons for doing so, but it is my purpose to make clear what the history of the Second Vatican Council was about. The reason this matters is that the fathers of the Council proposed a Mass in the vernacular, but with the same shape, the same theological preferences, the same vertical axis as the Mass of the ages, but in the vernacular. In 1965 and 1967, when they were presented with the work of Father Bugnini, they said they did not want it. That is the Second Vatican Council.
It turns out that those Catholics who want liturgical continuity and access to the Mass of the ages are the ones who are most authoritatively endorsing the work of the Second Vatican Council. The accusations made against them, that they are schismatics and will not accept proper authority in the Church, are misplaced and based on a misreading of what the Second Vatican Council actually wanted.
Bishop Schneider has been to Pope Leo to say, this is history. We can prove it and document it for you, and ask him to heal the Church of these liturgical divisions, to heal the Church of a civil war that should never have taken place and is not required, with an apostolic constitution.
In this interview, I ask Bishop Schneider what he thinks of Pope Leo. This matters enormously because the last twelve years or so have been so traumatic that people have lost trust and are full of anxiety. It has been my reading of Pope Leo as a man that he is sincere, devout, holy, intelligent, experienced, administratively competent, and a wise leader of the Church. One who is faced with solving a problem that seems to be the equivalent of squaring a circle finds it impossible.
What Bishop Schneider has done is go to him and say, this is entirely solvable if you repudiate the revisionist history presented by those who are more in love with the spirit of the age than with the traditions of the Catholic Church.
What follows is my conversation with Bishop Schneider, so you can hear it from him directly. I am very grateful to him for speaking with me, and I hope you find this conversation as encouraging as I do. As you will find at the end, we are encouraged to play our part by invoking the Holy Spirit, with the help of Our Lady, and bringing this about through prayer.
Bishop Schneider, thank you so much for joining me. It is lovely to see you again, and thank you very much for having this conversation. I remember at our last meal together, we spent the evening talking, and I would give you my opinion, and you would say, I know you are wrong, Gavin, and I would give you another one, I know you are wrong. Only towards the end of the meal did you say, Ah, no, that is right, I agree with that.
So this time I am going to ask you for your opinions, and I want to start by asking you what you thought of the Consistory. One of the questions that divides people, and this can only be a matter of opinion, is the extent to which Cardinal Roche either operated as the last desperate representation of a gerontocratic see losing power, or whether it happened under the direction of the Pope.
What was your impression of the politics that lay behind the provision of his note to the Cardinals?
Bishop Schneider: Well, it was first a very short time, only one and a half days. I think it was too short to have a very deep and serious discussion. My observation of the method is that it was not fitting and not worthy for the cardinals to sit around tables like high school students. That was really my impression.
There was not enough possibility to express meanings in front of all bishops, as it should be in a synod or in a council, to have a real appreciation of what colleagues state. This was lacking, of course, as a method. Then the topic of liturgy was eliminated.
Maybe this was providential, because in such a short time, with such a method, sitting around tables in small groups, it was not appropriate to discuss and to give responsible advice to the Pope on this matter. I hope that at the next Consistory in June, there will probably be a discussion of the topic of liturgy. In the meantime, many serious discussions have now started.
I think by divine providence, Cardinal Roche threw the ball for discussion with his very questionable paper. He showed himself in front of the entire world as really manipulative, twisting evidence, facts, and historical facts, and presenting himself as a true ideologue, already aged and quite rigid, and only in one direction, against the traditional Latin Mass.
With this, he revealed himself as profoundly rejecting the liturgical tradition of the Roman Church in this form. When I would meet him, I would say, Your Eminence, you remind me of the behavior of Patriarch Nikon in the seventeenth century in Moscow. I have lived already twenty five years here in Kazakhstan with many Orthodox priests and bishops, and I know the problems of the old rituals.
There is a striking parallel with traditional Catholics all over the world who love this form of the Mass of the Church, and the so-called Old Believers, with their old rituals, which they call in Russia staroobryadtsy. Even in my family, the wife of my cousin comes from this group. They later moved to Germany, but she came from this group.
So I know personally these faithful of the so-called old rituals, and the method is exactly the same. Cardinal Roche is now advocating to basically eliminate their rights, or at least to treat these Catholics and priests as second-class Catholics, as the Old Believers were treated very harshly by the Orthodox Church. Those divisions were frozen, even sending the Old Believers to frozen Siberia.
Dr. G. Ashenden: That brings in a new sense of what the word frozen would mean. One of the things I was very struck by in your conversation with Diana Montagna was your sense that the cardinals may not have as much knowledge of the history of the liturgy as they would need in order to have an informed discussion.
I wonder if you could tell the people listening about the points you made concerning the Ordo Missae of 1965 and the rejection of the new order by the synod fathers in 1967. One of the strange facts for those who promote Vatican II as an authoritative council, as indeed it ought to be, is that it is inconceivable that the synod fathers were signing the death warrant of their own liturgy. It would be impossible to believe that they either intended or desired that.
It was very helpful when you described the history, suggesting that the Ordo Missae of 1965 was what they validated and wanted, and that they specifically found fault with the new Ordo in 1967, which was then imposed through the political machinations of Father Bugnini and others.
Could you talk about that? I am not sure whether there may be some cardinals listening, but even if there are not, there will be many people who do not know this and would be glad to hear the historical facts.
Bishop Schneider: First, I would say that it is also necessary to read the acts of Vatican II. I mentioned Joseph Ratzinger, Professor Ratzinger, who stated this himself. He was present at the council debates, and later he reread the talks and debates of the council fathers. Therefore, he said that this new order of liturgy was not intended in this form. He was an eyewitness, and not only himself.
Then I mentioned Dom Boniface Luykx, an eyewitness and member of the Consilium. We also have to mention another very important witness whom I did not mention before. This was Cardinal Antonelli, who was a member of the Council and also a member of the same commission for the reform of the Mass under Father Bugnini, together with Dom Boniface. There is a very revealing book, published, I think, about fifteen years ago in Rome, the memoirs of Cardinal Antonelli. He gives a very striking critique of the method of Father Bugnini and of the machinations during the work.
Cardinal Antonelli was an authority, so this book must be read. The newly published book of a wider view on Vatican II by Dom Boniface is also striking, revealing simply facts, contra factum non stat argumentum.
Another eyewitness was the famous liturgist Father Bouyer. He was also a member of the same council committee. After his death, his memoirs were published, and he also revealed many trickeries and dishonesties of Father Bugnini in the work of the commission to achieve the revolution, which was the new order of 1970.
At least, I think every honest scholar or bishop or cardinal who wants to speak about the reform of the liturgy must necessarily read these eyewitnesses, at least these three books. Ratzinger, of course, is also essential.
Then we must read the debates themselves. There is a book published in the Libreria Editrice Vaticana, I think at least twenty years ago. I possess this book. It contains all the speeches of the council fathers regarding liturgy, collected in Latin, as they spoke. I read it twice, and it is striking that no one proposed any concrete radical change in the order of the Mass.
The main debates and struggles concerned the use of the vernacular language. There was no word on celebration toward the people, no word on introducing new Eucharistic prayers, no word. Imagine, no council father proposed such things.
In one discussion on the vernacular, the proposal was for a wider use of the vernacular in the Mass. One conservative cardinal stood up and said, If we vote for this, then after some years we will have the entire Mass in the vernacular. All the council fathers were laughing and said, This will never happen.
Then the president of the committee said, to calm the cardinal, Your Eminence, this will never happen. The entire Mass will not be in the vernacular. This was the situation of the council fathers, and we have to return to this true spirit, not to the fake spirit of the council.
Dr. G. Ashenden: Can I pick you up on that, because I think that is such an important point. Very often, people talk about the distinction between Vatican II, the council fathers, and what they call the spirit of Vatican II, the latter being the imposition of a particular version of it.
But that is not adequate, is it? Because it is not the spirit of Vatican II. What we are talking about is manipulation, or even a conspiratorial reorganization of Vatican II. We need a stronger word than a distinction between the fathers and the spirit, because this was, as you have been describing, a matter of sophisticated manipulation that took the council fathers by surprise.
Bishop Schneider: Yes, in any case, the acts must be read. I would suggest that His Eminence read the large Latin volume containing the texts of the fathers. It is not yet translated into other languages, so please read it to understand the true intention.
At least these three books, which I mentioned, must be read. Now we come to your question about the Mass of 1965. As we know, it was a very balanced reform. Only Psalm 42 was removed, but this was not a novelty, because it was already omitted during regular Masses and during Passiontide, and the Last Gospel was removed, and nothing more.
All the crosses, all the genuflections, all remained. Only the vernacular language was allowed up to the Preface. Even in 1965, the Preface was still obligatorily in Latin, and only the Roman Canon was used, in Latin and in silence.
You see, this was a wise and balanced reform. There was a letter from the Secretary of State at that time to an abbot, I think to the Abbot of Beuron or to Solesmes. In any case, the letter stated that this Mass was the implementation of the Second Vatican Council.
This was at the beginning of 1965. When in September the council fathers returned for their last session, they were already celebrating this Mass, and they were generally satisfied with it.
Dr. G. Ashenden: And then this is the Mass of the Second Vatican Council. This is the authentic Mass.
Bishop Schneider: Yes, yes. This is a fact, evidence. We cannot deny it. It would be simply dishonest to hide it, to downplay it, or to engage again in sophisticated sophisms.
The next fact is that two years later, in 1967, at the first Synod of Bishops, the members were almost all still council fathers. Those participants in 1967, more than one hundred bishops, were two years earlier members of the Council. When Father Bugnini presented to them the Novus Ordo, almost in the form we have today, the majority rejected it. This is a fact. It is hidden, silenced, and removed.
We must again state these two facts. In spite of this, Bugnini used tactics of revolution with his friends and through his close relationship with Paul VI, and implemented a revolutionary Mass which is not at all the Mass of Vatican II.
I believe, and I hope that in the future a pope should declare authoritatively, with his pontifical power, that the Mass of 1970 is not the Mass of Vatican II, but was introduced because of several circumstances and through trickery imposed upon the entire Church. We must return to the true intention of Vatican II, at least with the wisdom of 1965.
Dr. G. Ashenden: By saying this, we defeat the accusation that people who want liturgical continuity are rejecting the authority of the Council. In fact, it is the opposite. They are affirming the authority of the Council, because this was the intention of the Council.
I would like to ask you two questions, which are really human-interest questions. The first is that we understand Father Bugnini, as you say, with his special relationship with the Pope, did not keep the Pope fully informed about the decisions of the committees he was involved with. I wonder if you have any way of expanding on that.
The second question is whether you have spoken to the Holy Father, Pope Leo. I wondered if you had any sense of how he received your suggestion, which is clearly a way of cutting through the Gordian knot of misunderstanding and civil war. Could you address these two issues?
Bishop Schneider: Yes. Regarding the first question, there is a fact described in the book of Louis Bouyer, in his memoirs. Louis Bouyer participated in the meetings of the so-called Consilium, the commission to reform the Mass, which was presided over by Father Bugnini.
You can read this in the book. I will illustrate one episode. Father Bugnini proposed a drastic reform of one element of the Mass. The majority of the members were against it. They said this was drastic and revolutionary. Among them were Cardinal Antonelli, Dom Boniface, Bouyer, and others.
Then Father Bugnini said to them, This is the will of Paul VI. They were put in a position where they said, If this is the will of the Pope, then we agree. He then went to the Pope and said, Holy Father, we ask you to approve this change because it was the will of the majority of the committee.
He basically lied to the Pope. The Pope said, If this were approved by the majority, then I would approve it. You see how he played this game. This is described in the book of Louis Bouyer.
Louis Bouyer later spoke with the Pope and expressed his concern about the disapproval surrounding the new order. The Pope said, But Father Bugnini always told us that this was your will and your decision, the decision of the majority. Louis Bouyer replied, Holy Father, no, he told us that it was your will.
Dr. G. Ashenden: I do not think enough people know that. Effectively, when Cardinal Roche passed his memo around, he was rewriting history. One of the tasks you are suggesting is that we have to be faithful to the real account of history and confront the manipulation and deception that have brought us to this place.
Bishop Schneider: Now to your second question. Yes, I had the opportunity, and I was very grateful to the Holy Father for granting me a private audience of more than half an hour. He was very attentive, very kind, and listened in a brotherly way.
I asked him to establish a liturgical peace and to grant justice and peace through a generous provision, to grant the same right and dignity to the older form of the Mass of the Roman Rite, together with the Novus Ordo. He listened very carefully. I even proposed to him a text with some points, and he accepted it.
Concretely, I suggested doing this through a more solemn form of a pontifical document rather than through a motu proprio. In my opinion, one motu proprio followed by another and then another was not appropriate. It is better to move beyond this and to make a separate, more solemn document above these, to treat the entire matter of liturgy in this case anew, with a regular regulation done calmly, precisely, and with a wider view of two thousand years of Church history and of reason.
This would allow for a truly generous and truly pastoral provision. This is what I suggested to the Holy Father. Let us pray that the Lord will give him the light and the courage to do this. We must implore this of the Lord. It would be a truly historical event if he were to do it, but it is necessary. It is a question of justice.
Dr. G. Ashenden: And justice and truth. I think people will be very inspired and reassured by the fact that you had the opportunity to do this.
If I may, I would like to add an anecdote. First of all, the Holy Father said several weeks ago, when asked about the problem of the liturgy, that he thought the liturgical conflict reflected a deeper conflict about the authority of the Second Vatican Council. He suggested that this was not just a liturgical matter, but a wider matter of ecclesial authority.
The fact that you have been able to speak directly to him may give reassurance that he is now better informed about the intentions of those who want liturgical continuity. This is not in any way rebellious or schismatic, but rather faithful to the Council itself.
Bishop Schneider: I mentioned in my written suggestion that the majority of people, families, young people, and youth who are attracted to this form, or who have grown up in this form, and even younger priests, have no issues with this at all. They are not interested in these typical clerical debates and discussions.
I said to the Holy Father that this is the case for the majority. I used an image. It is like in a large family where one or two children have stomach problems and need a special diet, and the mother then gives the entire family that diet. This is unjust.
We cannot treat everyone by giving special food meant for the sick to the entire family that is not sick. This is the same when people say they are against Vatican II and its authority. This is not true.
Dr. G. Ashenden: And it is so important that we…
Bishop Schneider: It is a minority, yes, but we cannot, because of this minority, treat everyone the same way. Figuratively speaking, we cannot give the food for the sick to all the rest. This is unjust.
Dr. G. Ashenden: I think the importance of your bringing the accurate history of the Council to people cannot be underestimated. I was invited to a small dinner with a French diocesan bishop and one of his more prominent curés, both wonderful men, admirable men for whom I had great affection and respect.
We were discussing signs of hope in the Church in France, and I immediately said how wonderful it was to have Chartres and the pilgrimage to Chartres, with twenty thousand young French Catholics who want to reinvigorate the Church with their fidelity, courage, and sacrifice. My hosts looked at me as though I had said something very unpleasant.
They said this was not a sign of hope because these people were schismatics. They were rebellious and were only on the pilgrimage as an act of defiance against the Vatican Council. I said that this was very unlikely. I said that if you asked any of these people what they knew about the Council, first of all, they would know very little about it. They had simply discovered the liturgy, the Mass of the ages, and found it a vehicle for establishing a relationship with God that had revived their hearts.
They insisted on this narrative, which we now see is not just a misinterpretation but is based on a contradiction of history. They were sure that affection for the Mass of the ages was a sign of renunciation of the Second Vatican Council.
I think your presentation of the true history is enormously important because only by reversing the revisionism of Cardinal Roche and those who share his view can we heal the unnecessary division between the authority of the Council and the fidelity of people who want liturgical continuity.
Bishop Schneider: What you have told me, the words of this bishop, manifest deep prejudice and injustice. I would suggest that this bishop or Cardinal Roche, please go one day on foot with these families on the Chartres pilgrimage. I did it twice. Speak with them and look at them.
They are not interested in ecclesiastical debates. They come with faith. They are not schismatic. They were so happy when the Bishop of Chartres came. I was present with the Bishop of Chartres when he greeted the pilgrims. Their childlike and filial reverence toward the bishop was very moving. You had to see it.
What these people said is unjust. To this French bishop, I would say, you commit a grave sin by condemning innocent children, youth, and families with such prejudice and injustice. You will have to respond to this before God. Please stop such uncharitable, rigid statements. This must be said.
Dr. G. Ashenden: I am not in a position to judge them, but my sense was that this was simply received history. It had never been challenged. It was part of the folk history of their understanding of ecclesiological issues.
That is why this is so important. The truth must come through. This is a very human question, and perhaps you cannot answer it, but you had the opportunity to address the Holy Father. My view of him is one of affection and hope, that he has an open heart and an open mind.
Was it your opinion that he heard you, that he was able to receive what you were saying, so as to give people some hope for the outcome of the next Consistory in June?
Bishop Schneider: Yes, he was very sincere with me, very kind, and truly fraternal. I felt very good with him. We had a simple and honest fraternal conversation. I had the impression that he listened very carefully.
I left him my suggestions in written form, and he gave me his blessing.
Dr. G. Ashenden: That is very encouraging. I think people will be relieved to hear that. One cannot ask anything more of the Holy Father.
Bishop Schneider: I think I did my duty of conscience as a bishop, to go to the Pope and ask him this. Now I am relieved in conscience. I did it.
I said to myself, if he grants me an audience, I will be happy. If he does not grant it, I will accept it as divine providence. But he did grant it. He was very kind, very open, and very sincere.
Now the work of God must begin. I have done my part. The next step is the work of God. Only the Lord can truly illuminate him and give him light to recognize the truth, the situation of the Church, and the necessity to act in the spirit of two thousand years of Church history and of his holy predecessors, Saint Leo the Great and Saint Augustine. He is an Augustinian. We spoke about Saint Augustine as well.
Now we must pray for him and support him with our prayers.
Dr. G. Ashenden: That is the right note to end on. Our work now is prayer, love, and support. I know people will want me to thank you for your courage, your conscience, and your clarity. We are very grateful.
We get on our knees, we pray, and we wait to see what the Holy Spirit brings in June. Bishop, thank you so much for joining us in this conversation. I am sure this will be a source of hope and consolation to many people, and we are very grateful to you.
Bishop Schneider: God bless you and your work.