Robert Moynihan: Hello. I’m Robert Moynihan, editor of Inside the Vatican magazine, and it’s Thursday, February 26, 2026, and I have the pleasure of having with me Bishop Athanasius Schneider, who is right now in Karaganda in Kazakhstan. Hello, Bishop Schneider. How is the weather there? Is it extremely cold?
Bishop Schneider: Yes, they have quite cold weather now, minus 20. It is winter.
Robert Moynihan: And are you at a seminary?
Bishop Schneider: Yes, currently teaching.
Robert Moynihan: All right. You have become quite important recently by the fact that you chose to write an open letter asking Pope Leo to consider in a wider and deeper way the problem of the proposed consecration of new bishops for the Society of Saint Pius the Tenth on the first of July. Let us go through this entire question in our conversation so that people can understand your position and what you are asking from Pope Leo. How do we begin here?
On February 2, the Society announced that it planned to go ahead and consecrate several bishops on the first of July. So we have in front of us now March, April, May, June, July, four months. Immediately, Rome said please come to Rome. The head of the SSPX came to Rome, and he was asked to hold off on these consecrations, not to perform them, and to open a dialogue with Rome on some of the questions that have been open for many years now, before consecrating bishops. Everyone was saying that if they went forward, they would end up being excommunicated by Pope Leo. Other people have commented on this situation. Pope Leo has not said anything himself, but the congregation, Cardinal Fernandez, has specifically asked the Society not to go forward with these consecrations. On the nineteenth of February, the Society said we will go forward with the consecrations. Right then, you issued your open letter. What is the essence of your open letter?
Bishop Schneider: The essence is that I asked the Pope to show a very generous approach, a real pastoral approach, in the spirit of Saint Augustine, who was always trying in his time to reconcile those who must be brought into the fuller life of the Church communities. I think that in all these discussions, even good-minded people, clerics, and so on, have, in my opinion, a very narrow view of the situation. My appeal is, please be large, learn from history, and look at the essence.
The Society of Pius the Tenth has introduced nothing new, no novelties, neither in doctrine nor in liturgy. What they do is simply what the Church did for centuries until the reforms after the council. In doctrine, they keep exactly what the Popes taught before the council. In the liturgy and the priestly formation, and the catechesis, they do what the Church did for centuries. Why should it now be wrong, why should it now be deficient, why should it now not be sufficient to be in union with the Holy See?
This is my simple question. The Holy See and the Pope should have such a wide vision. This is truly an ecclesial vision, sensus ecclesiae, to consider them. This is sufficient. If they want to be closer to the Holy See, then please. The situation must also be looked at from a human point of view, from common sense. There are people. They are not pieces of a game that can simply be moved. It is completely unrealistic.
There are already two generations who have grown up in this structure, of course, not regular, regulated in a kind of ecclesial isolation. I would not say outside the Church at all, because what is constitutive to the Church is the same faith, the same liturgy, and recognizing the authority of the legitimate Pope and the current bishop. They do this. They always recognize the legitimacy of the current Pope. They even expelled from their midst all who were sedevacantists or who had a tendency toward sedevacantism. They pray for the Pope in the Eucharist and for the local bishop.
This is already a sufficient expression of hierarchical union, even though they cannot be obedient to all current requests by the Holy See regarding the acceptance, basically, of all the teachings of the council and the post-conciliar Magisterium, according to the new profession of faith. It is required of them that the text says in this profession of faith that I promise to accept with the submission of my reason and of my will all the affirmations of the Roman Pontiff and the College of Bishops in their ordinary Magisterium, even if they do not proclaim or propose something in a definitive way.
This is a very large formulation. It includes, for example, the ordinary teaching of Pope Francis by which he approved the communion of divorced people for the Argentine bishops. The Secretary of State said that this letter, in which the Pope approved communion for divorced people in exceptional cases according to the norms of the Argentine bishops, is part of the authentic Magisterium. According to this understanding, Fiducia Supplicans is also in some way part of the ordinary Magisterium because the Pope approved it. Then Traditionis Custodes states that the Novus Ordo is the only expression of the Roman Rite, lex orandi, the only one.
These are only some examples that I gave. According to this formula, we must accept them with the submission of my intellect, in some way switching off my intellect, and with the submission of my will. This formula, I repeat, is asked by the Holy See as a conditio sine qua non, as an indispensable condition, for the Society of Pius the Tenth to pronounce this formula of faith. This is too much, and this is impossible.
Why not be content with what they ask? They ask, please allow us to make a profession of faith which all the council fathers did, the so-called Professio Fidei Tridentina Vaticana, a very detailed profession of faith where one also recognizes the primacy of the Pope and the infallibility, and so on. In this large profession of faith, it is all there. Why is this not sufficient when the whole Church for centuries has professed this formula, and it was considered sufficient?
Robert Moynihan: Well, you have now raised a very interesting point and a difficult point. You have said that the Church in recent years, especially under Pope Francis, is teaching things which people who are Catholic and in the Society of Saint Pius the Tenth, but also generally, are not entirely certain about, even though we are asked to fully accept them.
So we start at a certain level of Catholic faith with the Apostles’ Creed. We believe in Almighty God, Father, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ. These are the essential points of the faith. But you are saying that over the centuries, an increasing number of points have been added, and that these points are now causing impediments to the union which they do not need to cause, because on the essential point, people are in agreement. Am I correct in my understanding of what you just said?
Bishop Schneider: It is not exactly that the Church added something wrong. Rather, the Church developed a more detailed profession of faith. First, there was the so-called Nicene Constantinopolitan formula, which is used in the Holy Mass in the traditional liturgy on Sundays and feasts.
After this, the Church, after the Council of Trent, added specific truths to be confessed which the Protestant Reformation denied. These were very detailed. Then, after the First Vatican Council, the Church added some points to the same formula regarding the primacy of the Pope, the jurisdiction of the Pope, the infallibility, and other points which the First Vatican Council defined as infallible dogma.
Therefore, this formula was called the Professio Fidei Tridentina Vaticana. It was required of all priests, bishops, and cardinals to profess, until 1967, the official formula of the profession of faith. The council fathers also used it. In 1967, Paul VI abolished this long formula, and what remains until now is the profession of faith with the Nicene Constantinopolitan Creed and then three general paragraphs.
The first says that I accept all the truths which were proclaimed infallibly as dogma. This is without problems, and the Society of Pius the Tenth accepts this.
The second says that I accept all the teachings which the Church proposes in a definitive way. This is also not a problem for the Society of Pius the Tenth.
But the third point is the problem that I explained previously. It says that I accept with the submission of my intellect and of my will all the pronouncements which the Pope and the College of Bishops make in their ordinary or authentic Magisterium, even when they do not intend to propose something in a definitive way.
This is the difficulty. As I gave an example, how can I myself submit my intellect and my will to accept what Pope Francis did in his ordinary Magisterium when he allowed divorced people to receive Holy Communion? How can I accept with the submission of my intellect and of my will the document Fiducia Supplicans about blessing same sex couples?
Even in the Second Vatican Council, there are some expressions, not many, but some, which are honestly difficult for many Catholics to accept with the submission of their intellect and their will. For example, Lumen Gentium number 16 states that we Catholics, together with the Muslims, adore the one God. The word adore is used.
I cannot accept this phrase in a simple way. How can I adore together with Muslims the same God? The act of adoration is substantially different. Christians and Catholics pray on a supernatural level as children of God. Muslims, if we acknowledge that they have a natural religion, adore on a natural level, not on a supernatural level. They do not have the sonship of God through baptism. It is a substantial difference.
This phrase of the Council seems to place both acts on the same level, at least when you read it. It is highly ambiguous. How can I simply submit my intellect to something which is evidently ambiguous? This is only one example.
Why not leave such expressions from the Council or from the post-conciliar Magisterium open to calm discussion without pressure? Why not be content that the Society of Pius the Tenth proposes to make the so-called long and very detailed Professio Fidei Tridentina Vaticana, the same profession used by the fathers of the Second Vatican Council? It would be sufficient.
The problem is that the Holy See wants to compel them to the new formula with the third paragraph, which is very broad and vague. Everyone must accept that for the Society of Pius the Tenth, this is impossible.
I repeat that many Catholics outside the Society of Pius the Tenth, and I think even clergy and bishops, when I ask them privately if they could accept with full submission of intellect and will documents such as Amoris Laetitia and the communion for divorced people, they say no. But publicly, they do not dare to say this.
This is our problem. We must be thankful to the Society of Pius the Tenth because they raise these questions publicly. We are a family, and the Society of Pius the Tenth belongs to this family.
This is my appeal to the Holy Father. Please consider them also as members of the great family of the sons and daughters of the Catholic Church, even if their canonical status is not fully regulated. Be generous and consider them as your sons and daughters and priests who want to be with you. They state this clearly, and their bishops also say it.
Be content if they make the profession of faith which the fathers of the Second Vatican Council made. Then give them a sign of paternal understanding and generosity, truly a kind of synodal approach. Give them the permission, the apostolic mandate for the consecrations, and then say that now we have better conditions to be more integrated in the family.
It is better to discuss and debate in a family atmosphere psychologically, rather than to keep this group in some way outside, saying that they are still outside the family because they do not have permission to ordain and are still considered illegal.
Please take the first step from your side, Holy Father. You are the father. They are the children. You must have a wider and more generous heart and give them permission to ordain. It is not psychologically possible to change them at once in a few weeks or months and to put pressure on them, saying that first they must accept doctrinal discussions. These discussions are complicated and may last a long time.
When the Pope grants permission for the ordinations, it will be a considerable and remarkable step, more integration into the great family. In this context, the discussions would be more fruitful. They want discussions, but not in the current context.
We have examples from history where Popes were too strict and alienated some groups, and later the Holy See regretted it. Why were we too strict at that time?
A famous example is the Indian Saint Thomas Christians in the sixteenth century. They had their own Syriac oriental rite. At that time, the Jesuits, supported by the Holy See, imposed a Latinization of their rite and Latin bishops. The Saint Thomas Christians asked to have their own clergy and bishops. They accepted the Pope and the primacy and were ready to remain united, but they were approached too harshly. As a result, a part of them separated from Rome.
This separation was not necessary. If Rome had been more generous and had allowed them to keep their own bishops and liturgy without Latinization, there would not have been a schism.
Another example comes from my experience in the East. I live among many Russian Orthodox and have done so for twenty-five years. I know the so-called Old Believers in Russia personally. One of my relatives, the wife of my cousin, belongs to the Old Believers, so I know their feelings.
They were treated too harshly. The Patriarchate of Moscow did not have a sufficiently broad pastoral approach. They demanded that the Old Believers accept the Council of Moscow of 1666 and 1667 with submission of will and intellect before discussions, in a way similar to what is now asked of the Society of Pius the Tenth.
The Old Believers then closed themselves and became more distant as time passed. Because the Patriarchate was not pastorally generous enough, alienation grew, and mistrust increased.
I think this is a parallel with what is happening now. Therefore, I appeal to the Holy Father to learn from history. You will never regret being a little more generous in this case with the Society of Pius the Tenth.
But if you are harsh and do not give the apostolic mandate and allow them to go ahead with consecrations without papal permission, you will push them further to the margins and the periphery.
If you make a generous gesture, it is possible because they are Catholics. They have the Catholic faith, they believe in the primacy of the Pope, they want to work for the Church, and they venerate the Pope.
If you give them the apostolic mandate in a generous gesture, the entire Church will gain. Holy Father, you will never regret it if you give it. Later, you will see that it was the right decision.
Robert Moynihan: So Bishop Schneider, I appreciate everything you have said. You are proposing something that you hope could be accepted by Rome and would allow a tragic division between Rome and the more traditional Catholics to be avoided. You are comparing this situation to the Old Believers in Russian Orthodoxy, who, after 1667, split away and became a separate entity in Russian Orthodoxy.
You are saying that we are at a dramatic moment when people of deeply shared faith in Jesus Christ and in the sacraments are divided over some teachings that have come forward since the Second Vatican Council, a kind of modern period in the Church. The Vatican is asking that people submit in mind and in will to what has now become part of the conciliar teaching of the Second Vatican Council. You are asking Pope Leo to allow the members of the Society not to submit quite yet and to continue a dialogue in order to clarify precisely what the teachings are and to what extent they conform to the teachings handed down from the beginning.
You have written your request, and you have also visited and spoken with Pope Leo. For the record, I will read what you wrote, which is more or less what you just said.
You write at the end of your appeal, an open letter to Pope Leo:
With sincere concern for the unity of the Church and the spiritual good of so many souls, I appeal with reverent and fraternal charity to our Holy Father Pope Leo the Fourteenth. Most Holy Father, grant the apostolic mandate for the episcopal consecrations of the SSPX. You are also the father of your numerous sons and daughters, two generations of the faithful who have for now been cared for by the SSPX, who love the Pope and who wish to be true sons and daughters of the Roman Church.
Therefore, stand aside from the partisanship of others and, with a great paternal and truly Augustinian spirit, demonstrate that you are building bridges. You promised to do this before the whole world when you gave your first blessing after your election. Do not go down in the history of the Church as one who failed to build this bridge, a bridge that could be constructed at this truly providential moment with generous will, and instead allowed a truly unnecessary and painful further division within the Church, while at the same time synodal processes that boast of the greatest possible pastoral breadth and ecclesial inclusivity were taking place.
Your final statement in the letter is this. Most Holy Father, if you grant the apostolic mandate for the episcopal consecrations of the SSPX, the Church in our day will lose nothing. You will be a true bridge builder and even more an exemplary bridge builder, for you are the Supreme Pontiff.
Athanasius Schneider, auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Saint Mary in Astana, 24 February 2026, two days ago.
So you have composed and published this appeal to Pope Leo. Have you had any reaction?
Bishop Schneider: No, first because he is now in retreat in the Vatican. Even if he were not in retreat, he would not necessarily react to my appeal. It was simply a gesture of fraternal charity toward the souls and also toward the Pope, to help him in some way and to make a larger audience in the Church aware of this topic.
Perhaps also those in the Vatican who still have goodwill regarding this issue might see the need to be pastorally broad in their approach. But my concern or my doubt is that there are people who have influence in the Vatican and who can influence the Pope, and who do not want at all the presence of the Society of Pius the Tenth.
They may prefer that the Society remain in some way outside our family. They may think that we should continue with our modernized Vatican Two family with synodal methods and so on, and keep them outside. They may feel uncomfortable with their presence because the Society reminds them of the necessity of the purity and integrity of the faith.
So they may establish very high criteria, certain impediments which they know the Society will not accept. In this way, they would remain outside. I have a suspicion that such an attitude exists among some influential people in the Vatican.
Robert Moynihan: Okay, you have made a statement which is very worrying, but not surprising. The history of the Church is filled with ecclesial battles and conflicts between prelates, some stubborn, some with narrow vision, some with a broader and more ecclesial vision.
What you are saying is that there is the presence of a group which would be pleased if the Society is prevented from reconciling with Rome by placing high criteria, as you said, that they cannot accept. Then they would be excommunicated and placed outside the body of the Church, and that strong conservative traditional group would be expelled.
You say some people want this to happen, and you are appealing to Pope Leo to rise above this and try to build a bridge and keep the Church together. That does mean he faces very delicate internal opposition. In that sense, do you believe that
Bishop Schneider: Probably, at least partly. When we look at some concrete persons in the Vatican and their positions, we see that they want a modernized Church, a synodal Church. They strongly oppose tradition. They say that the traditional Latin Mass must be expelled from the life of the Church, and they make such statements openly.
So it is not a secret. We can assume that this attitude is also present in their approach toward the Society of Pius the Tenth. The Pope must be above all this and act before God and history, following the example of Saint Augustine and learning from history. He should make a paternal, generous, and calm gesture.
The Pope can allow the consecrations. He can give the apostolic mandate and say that this is already a step closer. Why not? We cannot resolve the entire canonical situation immediately. It is not even so important if they continue for some time in a kind of partial canonical situation with only partial recognition. For the moment, this could be sufficient.
Then the doctrinal dialogue and debates can continue. These things take time, and they also take psychological time for the people involved. There are already two generations who have lived within this structure. Now they could come one step closer to the normal life of the Church. It would give them time.
This is a request of common sense and psychology. Do not press them. Give time, and then take the next step slowly. With goodwill and intellectual honesty, an agreement can eventually be reached.
I repeat that Archbishop Lefebvre himself desired very much to remain with the Pope and to work within a legal situation in the Church. It must also be stated that Archbishop Lefebvre and the Society of Pius the Tenth do not reject the entire Council. That is not their official position.
Archbishop Lefebvre himself was a council father. He signed all the documents, even though he voted against some decrees. In the end, he signed them. This is a fact, and he never denied it.
His approach to the Council was more or less this. First, the Council was legitimate. Second, the dogmas expressed in the council texts are accepted. The council texts quote many previous dogmatic teachings of the Church, and the overwhelming majority of the texts simply repeat the previous Magisterium. Of course, the Society accepts all of this.
The second criterion is that when expressions in the Council are ambiguous or not clear, but can be interpreted in a traditional way, then they can be accepted in that traditional interpretation.
The third point is that when some expressions appear to be incompatible with the traditional teaching, they cannot be accepted. This was Archbishop Lefebvre’s position.
These problematic statements are not numerous. They are not proposed as dogmas or as definitive teachings. Often, they have the character of explanations or pastoral expressions. Such formulations can be discussed, improved, or even corrected because they are not definitive.
I do not see a problem here from the point of view of the Catholic faith. We must be intellectually honest and admit when there is a difficulty. Then we can discuss it and ask for clearer formulations.
In this sense, the Society of Pius the Tenth may have a providential role for the Church, historically speaking. It pushes the Church to examine these questions honestly and to clarify certain formulations that are few but still present, both in the Council and in the post-conciliar period.
This process takes time. Perhaps it will take a generation. Maybe a future Pope will convoke a synod or another form of consultation with the bishops to clarify these matters. I do not mean another council, since councils are rare, but perhaps another form of authoritative clarification.
This could be very helpful. But it will be a process, and we must be patient.
Robert Moynihan: Okay, so you’re touching on a lot of controversial points, but your position, I think, is essentially correct, that the Vatican II Council was a pastoral Council. There were compromises made in the construction of the texts by bishops who had their experts with them. They used phrases, for the most part, that are absolutely acceptable. They are citing traditional church teaching in certain passages. They use new phrases, and those can require interpretation. In the end, even Monsignor LeFevre signed all the documents, but he recognized that if there were developments on some of those passages in a very progressive direction, in a way that increasingly separated from the tradition, then there would be a problem, claiming the council as the basis of the teaching, but already developed in an excessively nontraditional direction. That, I think, is a logical result of human wrestling with phrases and words to try to express the faith. I think you’re right that it takes decades, and we return to some of these questions again and again, after 50 years, after 100 years. There is a phrase, “the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life.” In a way, we’re seeking the Holy Spirit to keep the body of the church together, and to believe that there is goodwill, to some extent, in the Society of Pius X. These are Catholic people. They have deep faith in Jesus. They have deep faith in the church, and the pope himself, a missionary priest who grew up in South Chicago and became an Augustinian, steeped in the theology of St Augustine. You’re asking that a bridge be built between Pope Leo and the society, with all goodwill, to prevent a schism and the end of communication. I think it’s a reasonable, actually brave, and needed request. You had a meeting with Pope Leo. We have some 200 people with us right now, bishops watching live, and some of them are asking, how do you regard Pope Leo? How much confidence and trust in him do you have? You had a meeting with him in December. We have people asking. One person asks, James from Texas, “Is Pope Leo a modernist? It seems so.” You may not want to even enter into this, but you did have a meeting with him for half an hour in December, just two months ago. You can maybe talk to this point.
Bishop Schneider: Well, we always have to give a kind of positive. Firstly, we have to think positively about a person, and the more a pope has the intention really to serve the Lord and to serve the church as the successor of Peter. This is my approach, and so I cannot in advance distrust him. It was my first meeting, and as I already said last time, he was very careful, listening really. I had an impression of benevolence towards me, fraternal even. This created a good atmosphere for our talk, for our conversation. But I don’t know what he will do now. It is upon him. Probably he prefers to take time about these questions, to reflect, or to consult others, which will still take time. This is my assumption, and therefore we have to wait and to pray for the Pope, that God illuminates him, and that he can have suitable and really good-minded, ecclesiastically minded people in the Vatican, whom he will consult.
Robert Moynihan: When I speak with you, I almost have a chill, because you come from the former Soviet Union. You grew up there; was it in Kazakhstan or Kyrgyzstan? Which place?
Bishop Schneider: Kyrgyzstan.
Robert Moynihan: Kyrgyzstan, which was part of the Soviet Union, is in the south of Kazakhstan, just next to Kazakhstan, right? Yeah. There will be the Nomad Games there in the first week of September, and I’m thinking perhaps of going. They ride horses, they shoot arrows. This is Central Asia. It’s the bridge between the world of the Oriental, the Chinese, the Japanese, and the Westerners. You’re sort of in the Turkic peoples, through whom the old Silk Road passed between Turkey, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan, and went on to China.
What happens in your region of the world, and what happened there with the atheist communism that came to power in 1917 and 1918? There was a civil war, the whites and the Reds, and then this iron regime, and Homo sovieticus was created. It deeply affected John Paul II, who was born in 1920 and experienced in the 1940s the coming of communism to Poland. During the 1950s and 1960s, he realized they wanted to slowly strangle and destroy the church. This was a precursor, in some way, to the softer, more velvet ideology in the West now, which is kind of Marxist in origin, but no longer possesses the same political and police power.
Although the church now faces again a tremendous challenge to the idea that Jesus Christ is the center of human history, instead, they make man the center and keep God out of it. The fact that you come from there and that you are engaged in this battle for the church today makes me almost wonder if it connects with the prophecy of Fatima. I wonder if you, coming from territories connected to Russia, reflect on the prophecy that in the end, Mary’s Immaculate Heart will triumph, Russia shall be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world. Do you ever reflect on this in your own life?
Bishop Schneider: Yes, of course. I grew up in the Soviet Union. I know the ideology of communism. I had to learn it in my school. My parents were suffering. My grandfather, Sebastian Schneider, was a victim of this regime. He was killed when he was a young man, 27 years old, a young married man. My father was a child, and he was simply killed by the communists because he was Catholic, he was German, and he had some land. It was sufficient in the so-called terror years of Stalin, and so on.
After the war, my parents were considered the so-called enemies of the Soviet Union. These Germans were deported to forced labor places and had to suffer. My parents also suffered in the Ural Mountains. By the grace of God, they survived, and they transmitted to me all that they and my grandparents suffered. I know this.
As you very aptly mentioned, communism transformed itself into the so-called woke anti-culture in the West, especially in Europe and the United States. I would say the European Union has now become a kind of vogue dictatorship of neo-communist, neo-Marxist ideology, hidden or covered with this veneer of decadence, completely undermining humanity and culture. Unfortunately, the church in the West is collaborating with these new vogue elements, LGBT, and all this, becoming a collaborator with the Western regime, similar to the communist times in some Eastern Bloc countries. There were bishops and clergy who were later discovered as collaborators of the regime. I am convinced that in the future, generations will name these cardinals and bishops as collaborators of the vogue regime.
The church and the Holy See must be very careful and recognize the historical hour, to avoid any collaboration with this moral, cultural, and human degradation of the so-called vogue elements, with all these manifestations that penetrated the church. The blessing of homosexual couples, the so-called LGBT pastoral, the materialistic ecological ideology of climate, and so on. It takes courage to resist it. The Holy See must inaugurate a calm but strong, self-confident independence from this new vogue Western dictatorship. In history, this will be remembered, and so many brave Catholics all over the world are only waiting, like soldiers. They wait for the order of the general. The army will follow the order, and they will protect peacefully, with dignity and self-confidence, to safeguard human dignity from this degradation.
I think this is the prophetic hour of the church in our day, not to conform to the world, as unfortunately, in some naive attitude, started with the Second Vatican Council. During the council, there was a tendency to conform to the elements of modern values or anti-values of modern man. Now, 60 years later, all this has collapsed. It was demonstrated that trying to be closer to the modern world revealed itself, after 60 years, as a complete disaster, an illusion. I think it should already be a lesson, an hour of reflection. We pray and prepare. With the help of the Society of Pius X and other good forces, united with the Pope, we embark on this new prophetic mission of the Catholic Church in the world, to protect humanity from these new Marxist woke regimes and dictatorships.
Robert Moynihan: Well, I thank you, Bishop Schneider, because you’ve now outlined the entire problem and the crisis we face. You say the hour has come of decision, the church must not be conformed to the world. At the same time, you’re calling for people to unite to defend against the degradation of humanity and finally the loss of human dignity. It’s a type of enslavement. It can be emotional, mental, and spiritual. As you spoke, I still remembered that certain powers are very influential, and they wanted to ensure we had the WikiLeaks from 2010, 2011, and 2012. Before Pope Benedict resigned, there were calls by some in the circle of Obama in the United States, the president at that time, that the Vatican and the Catholic Church needed to experience a kind of springtime, where tradition would be overthrown, and it would be made adequate to participate in this process of humanization, which you and I both think has a lot to do with Marxism. This essentially eliminates the transcendent, eliminates the divine, eliminates the holy, makes everything material, makes everything dependent on economic forces, eliminates God, and therefore eliminates Christ. Your family and your grandfather experienced this when he was killed. But the powers in our European Union and even in the United States have tended to try to get control and influence over the Catholic Church, correct?
Bishop Schneider: Yes, this is a demonstration, but nevertheless, I think, and we must keep it in mind, that we Christians, Catholics, will never lose courage. We will not be depressed. We are confident because we are the winners. We are on the team of the winners. Christ is the winner. Christ is the king, and we must continue with this very deep confidence and supernatural hope in the midst of trial. This is Catholic.
Robert Moynihan: Okay, so we have a comment here. We’re nearing the end of our conversation. This is from Charles Brooks, Robert. “You have to believe what your spiritual eyes are telling you, but you don’t want to believe them. We are living in the end times, and Satan has unleashed an all-out assault on Holy Mother Church.” Well, that’s one of our viewers right now, Bishop Schneider. What can we say?
Bishop Schneider: Well, first, we don’t know the times exactly. Our Lord said to the apostles, “It is not upon you to know the time which the Father established.” We can know the signs, and they are very scary signs, which remind us of some apocalyptic elements, which we can read in the Revelation of John. We must also be vigilant. But in spite of these, we don’t know the exact time of the end. It can last for generations. Still, we must be ready every moment. Nevertheless, in spite of this, continue confident, confident.
Robert Moynihan: Thank you. We have someone named Nicole Yara. “Greetings from Sweden to the Cardinal.” They call you a cardinal, but you are still a bishop. “He gave us a blessing after just being married to my husband in Argentina. After that blessing, we got four children.” I’m not sure if this is something you remember, Bishop Schneider, but this is what this person has written.
Bishop Schneider: Yes, I’m very happy to read it and to hear. I remember them. May God bless you, dear Nicole, and your family.
Robert Moynihan: Okay, very beautiful. We have someone asking for information about the retreat that both of you are attending in Croatia in June. Thank you. We just wanted to mention that, in order to talk things through and to gain more confidence, we invited you to lead a three- to four-day retreat on an island, which has one monastery on it, a Franciscan monastery from 1390. We are also trying to assist the Franciscans to rebuild that monastery, because under the Tito government, the communist government in Yugoslavia, they took possession of the island and let the church fall into severe disrepair. There were birds and bats flying around inside the church, leaks in the roof, but the rooms have been modernized in the last 25 years, and there is even air conditioning. The island is very small, and the only building is the monastery, so it is very quiet, with no cars. Bishop Schneider is going to come, talk through some of these points, and pray with us, celebrate Mass with us, the Tridentine. We hope he will get some rest. We wanted to invite all of you to consider attending. The island is called Baja, B, A, D, I, J, A. It has only the Franciscans there with their monastery, and it would be several days of retreat from the world to gain confidence and clarity on the situation we face.
Bishop Schneider: Very good. Now, at the end, I will give to all the participants the blessing and encourage all to pray as I formulate what the miracle is, so that Pope Leo will grant the permission for the Episcopal consecrations of the Society of Pius X. For this, I pray, and let us pray. Now I give you the blessing: Benedictus Otentis, Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti, super vos et maneat semper. Amen.
Robert Moynihan: Amen. Thank you, Bishop Schneider. Thank you, everyone with us. We appreciate all of you.