Dr. Bryan Thatcher: Hello, everyone. My name is Dr. Brian Thatcher, and welcome to Mercy Unbound. It is a show that aims to provide hope, give an avenue for healing, and help you understand and live the great mercy of God. With me today, I am very honored to have a special guest, Bishop Athanasius Schneider. He has had so many life experiences. I could take the whole show just telling you about him, but I will give a brief overview.
He was born in 1961. He is a Catholic priest and a bishop serving as auxiliary bishop of Astana, Kazakhstan. He is a member of the Canons Regular of the Holy Cross of Coimbra. That order was founded in 1131 in Portugal. He was born in the Soviet Union. His parents were German settlers who lived along the northern coast of the Black Sea in the Ural Mountains. At the end of World War II, his family was evacuated to Berlin and deported to a labor camp.
His family was closely involved with the underground Church. The bishop’s mother, Maria, was one of several women who sheltered Blessed Alexei Zeritsky, a Ukrainian priest who was imprisoned and later martyred by the Soviet regime. As a boy, he and his three siblings would attend clandestine Masses with their parents, often traveling many miles to a family home, taking a train in the morning and returning late at night. Shortly after making his First Communion in secret, he emigrated with his family to West Germany.
As mentioned, he is a priest in the Order of the Canons Regular. He was ordained in 1990 and spent years as a priest in Brazil, and later returned to Central Asia. In 2006, he was consecrated a bishop at the Altar of the Chair of Saint Peter in the Vatican by Cardinal Angelo Sodano. In 2011, he was transferred to the position of auxiliary bishop, and he serves as General Secretary of the Bishops’ Conference in Kazakhstan. He speaks many languages and reads Latin and ancient Greek. He is known for his traditionalism and supports the liturgical tradition of receiving Holy Communion on the tongue.
There is much more that could be said. He has written a book with Cardinal Brandmüller, Cardinal Burke, and others called The Declaration of Truths to reaffirm traditional Church teaching. What I have asked him to discuss today is his book Credo: A Compendium of the Catholic Faith. It is available at SophiaInstitute.com.
Bishop, what I really enjoyed about it is that we have Divine Mercy prayer groups all over the world, and we use a similar format of reading followed by questions. That is a well-accepted way for people to learn. You have many great commentators on your work. One that most Americans would know is Scott Hahn, who has written a beautiful commentary in the book.
You have had an incredible life, Bishop, with many joys and, I suspect, many trials and sorrows. I wonder if we could start with your deep love for the Catholic faith. It seems that you had incredible parents who instilled faith in you. Did they play a big role in your love of the Catholic Church and in your faith and life?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Yes, I consider that having truly Catholic parents, both father and mother, was the greatest grace of my life, greater than the priesthood and greater than the episcopacy. The fact that I received the Catholic faith with my mother’s milk, so to speak, is something I value deeply. From my earliest memories as a child, I saw both parents praying and giving catechism to my siblings and me during the persecution of the Church in a communist society. Both parents were engaged as active members of the underground Church. I consider this one of the greatest graces that divine providence gave me, the pure Catholic faith.
Dr. Bryan Thatcher: In America, we take so much for granted, and people say I have to go to Mass, but they do not really understand the Mass and the Eucharist and these things. I listen to your story and read your story, and I am amazed at your life. What led you to the Order of the Canons Regular? I had never heard of that order, not being from Portugal. What charism or what led you to that order?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: I would say it was divine providence. Looking back, I do not know how it happened. I was already an adolescent, I think about 15 years old, in Germany. I was already seriously thinking about where I could study and receive a good priestly formation. Already in the 1970s in Germany, I saw that many seminaries and monasteries were infiltrated and affected by modernism. Since I grew up in the clandestine Church, I had an instinct against liberalism and modernism, not by my merit but by the grace of God.
I prayed that when I finished high school, the Lord would give me a sign where I could receive a good priestly formation. From the age of 13, I was convinced that I had to become a priest and a religious priest. I had a deep longing for monastic life and for the priesthood.
One day, a neighbor gave us some religious newspapers and journals. There was a flyer of a community of Canons Regular in Austria with a description of their charism and schedule. I saw that they were vested in cassocks and that there was exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. There were photos of Communion received kneeling and on the tongue, Marian devotion, and the address and phone number were included. I kept this flyer and said to myself that when I finished school, I would go there. I already had the address and made my decision based on the description of this serious and traditional community.
Six months later, I was in another church. After Mass, I left the church, and a man approached me because he had seen me during Mass. I was the only one receiving Holy Communion kneeling and on the tongue. I was about 15 years old. This impressed him. I did not know him. When I left the church, he asked me if I wanted to make a retreat with good priests. I said yes if they were good priests.
He took me on a trip of over 100 miles by bus with another group to a retreat house. There I saw the priests wearing cassocks. They celebrated Mass facing the Lord. Even though it was the Novus Ordo in German, the Canon was in Latin. Everyone received Communion kneeling and on the tongue. I was deeply impressed and said, “This is beautiful.”
I approached a priest and asked where he came from. He said he came from Austria from the Canons Regular. I told him that I had their flyer. He confirmed that it was their community. This was a second sign of providence, and I entered there.
It is a congregation founded in the 11th century in Portugal in Coimbra, where Saint Anthony of Padua, also known as Anthony of Coimbra, was a member. He was ordained a priest in our congregation before later joining the Franciscans. The order was suppressed by the Freemasonic government of Portugal in the 19th century.
In the 1970s, some Portuguese bishops asked a group of priests to restore the order with the permission of the Holy See. A group of priests in Portugal and Austria connected to the movement of the Work of the Holy Angels agreed to restore it. The charism includes solemn liturgy devotion to the Holy Eucharist as the center and veneration of the Holy Cross, especially the Passion of the Lord. Every Friday, there is a special devotion and meditation on the Passion of Our Lord. There is also a special devotion to the holy angels to spread this devotion in the Church today. Another aspect of the charism is to help priests by offering them spiritual support. These are the main points of the charism.
Dr. Bryan Thatcher: Bishop, as I mentioned, you have written this beautiful book available through Sophia Press, a compendium of the Catholic Church. And you have also got a study journal that goes with it. And it is wonderful for groups to meet and talk and share and discuss their faith. What led you to write this?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Well, it was not my idea. It was the father of a family from the United States, a large family, who asked me to do this. And so we started this project more than one year ago. And so I accepted the request and worked one year more or less on the content with the help of seven theologians from different countries, with their advice. So, with the help of God, give this catechism as spiritual help to the faithful of our day in this tremendous general confusion in doctrine, morals, and liturgy, which we are witnessing in our day. And also to address some current topics which were not addressed in the catechism of John Paul the Second, such as gender ideology, transsexualism, Freemasonry, pagan ecology, and so on. These are the current issues today, and also some other ambiguous issues that were left since the council in the life of the Church. So, to clarify this with the help of the perennial teaching of the magisterium of all times.
Dr. Bryan Thatcher: I will make a comment. Dr Scott Hahn said of your work, it is full of pure doctrine rendered in prose that is clear and direct, and that is another thing. I enjoyed looking at it because it is easy to follow for one who has no theological training. So what led you to use this type of format, where you can study and learn?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Yes, it is a proven method for centuries, the format of questions and answers with short answers, more or less. It is easier for common people to read through to go through and sometimes to memorize this truth. So it was proven. The catechism of John Paul the Second is written like a book, a theological manual, and it is sometimes difficult for common people to read. And so I chose this other method, which is easier from the pedagogical point of view.
Dr. Bryan Thatcher: Bishop, we are in this time of Eucharistic renewal, and you are such a learned person. I would like you to share some of your thoughts on the dogma of the Eucharist. Just go ahead and tell us what your thoughts are on the great gift of the Eucharist.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Oh, yes, the Eucharist is the Lord. It is the Lord living among us, truly and substantially with all his divine redeeming love, because the Holy Mass is the true presence of the sacrifice of Golgotha. It is incredible. It is deeply touching for us. And then the Holy Host contains the true, real, substantial presence of the immolated Body and Blood of Christ, his soul, and the fullness of his divinity. It is really God dwelling with us truly. And this is the heart of the Church, the sun shining in the Church of the whole universe. And therefore, from the Eucharist as we treat the Eucharist depends the spiritual health of our age in which we live in the Church. From the veneration and love of the Eucharist, even the exterior of the liturgy and so on depend on the spiritual height of a time in the Church or its decline. And now we are living in an enormous decline within the Church. No one can deny this tremendous crisis. And therefore it is a time in the history of the Church when the Holy Eucharist has never been so outraged, so desecrated by the priests and children of the Church as in our time. It is incredible to this extent. This is a mystery.
Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist is again spiritually suffering his Gethsemane and his Golgotha in some way spiritually. Of course the Lord cannot suffer more because he is glorious. But in a certain sense, he sees how he is treated by us. And therefore we have to launch a true renewal of the Eucharist. And this begins with Holy Communion because there we meet our Lord so concretely and so closely in this Holy Host in this small host. And we have to kneel down before the majesty of God hidden in this small host. Kneel down, be a child, be deeply humble, and open your mouth. Let yourself be fed by the Body of Christ and show the utmost care for the Holy Host. And then the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament to spread Eucharistic adoration or help when possible, even perpetual adoration. And also to start a crusade of Eucharistic reparation, so adoration of reparation for all these outrages and sacrileges. We can use the prayer of the Angel of Fatima, which we know.
The Angel of Fatima already in 1916 spoke these words, which at that time sounded strange. He said console your God in the Eucharist, who is so horribly outraged. What would the angel say today, so horribly outraged, console him, do reparation. These are the words of the Angel of Fatima. And it is timely as never before in our days. So I would call for a truly worldwide Eucharistic reparation crusade to console the Lord in the Eucharist.
Dr. Bryan Thatcher: Bishop in America, at sporting events, there are eighty or ninety thousand people who come, and yet at Mass, so few people, so few Catholics. If they really understood the Eucharist, they should be rushing to get in. Let us go back to some basics. Where in the Bible does Jesus talk about the Eucharist?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Well, the most well-known is chapter six of John. It is an entire beautiful theology of the Real Presence of our Lord. It cannot be clearer. In the sixth chapter, the Lord said I am the bread of life, and truly my flesh and my blood are food. And whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life. And whoever eats me and drinks my body and blood is in me and I in him. It is so deep. This is the clearest. And then of course, the Last Supper, the words of consecration of transubstantiation, which the Lord spoke with his divine mouth with his divine almighty power, transforming bread and wine into his body and blood. And this power he gave to the apostles, thereby constituting them priests of the new and everlasting covenant, and this priestly power of consecration remains in the Church until he comes.
Dr. Bryan Thatcher: When we receive, what should be the disposition of our souls?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Our disposition towards the Lord first is faith. Deep faith he requires from us in the Gospel of John. True faith belief in me that I am here, as Thomas the Apostle knelt down before him and said, “My Lord and my God also before the glorified body of Christ. And so he said blessed are those who do not see but believe. So we are seeing the host of the bread, but we are believing that this is the body of Christ. And not only the body but also the divinity of Christ. And then next, the attitude of the centurion in the Gospel who said my Lord, I am not worthy that you come under my roof which we pronounce before every Holy Communion. This is the attitude of deep humility in the face of this unspeakable presence of our Lord in this humble presence because he is humbling himself so deeply in the Holy Host that we must be touched and amazed by this divine humility and humble ourselves in this moment. And then faith, deep unshaken faith in the Real Presence, then deep humility and the attitude of a child, not of an adult Pharisee or scribe, but of a child. And then love, burning love for the Lord present there.
Dr. Bryan Thatcher: There is so much confusion in the States, and we see in our politicians there are pro abortion advocates and they are still receiving. In some ways, to me as a non-theologian, it seems incompatible to receive. But what are your thoughts on that?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Yes, these politicians who are publicly promoting horrible abominable things which contradict God’s commandment, which offend God’s commandment grievously, and in this attitude they go to receive Holy Communion, it is impossible because, as Holy Scripture says, they are eating their own judgment. And it is cruel when bishops and priests admit such persons to Holy Communion. Why is it cruel? Because they expose and push these people to a serious divine judgment. It is not for them a blessing but a judgment. So we have to, for the sake of love for these souls of these poor deceived souls, admonish them not to go to Holy Communion and to prohibit them from doing this and to call them with love and patience to conversion as Christ always called converts and believe as the apostles and all the saints called converts. This is the call of the Church. And to help them, of course, on the way to conversion, with patience, we go this way. And when there is a sincere will, God will always give sufficient graces for these people to convert and to change their lives.
Dr. Bryan Thatcher: When we go to weddings and funerals, there may be non-Christians, there may be people of other faiths. They should not receive Communion if they explain that teaching during these times of funerals and weddings, when people go up, and they do not know what they are receiving, and the priest may not make a comment.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: I think sometimes in this context it could be disturbing when in this solemn context a priest starts to speak about these issues. Maybe it would be better simply not to distribute Communion at all during weddings, maybe only to the couple of the wedding who had to confess before the wedding to purify their souls, and only they should receive Holy Communion. And simply announce that there will not be Holy Communion. And the same at funerals. Of course, there could be some pious people, the parents and brothers who are practicing Catholics, and they will regret it, but I would say to them, please make this small sacrifice of not receiving Communion. Do a spiritual Communion. You can go to Communion next Sunday. There are people who lived for years without Holy Communion and were saints.
We lived in the Soviet Union once, where people went a year without Holy Communion and kept their faith and had the graces of God. And when you do not receive Communion now at the wedding on Saturday, you can receive Holy Communion on Sunday. Why insist on the wedding or funeral? If the parents and members of the family are truly believing and practicing Catholics, they should understand this and refrain from receiving Communion during this time to avoid confusion and to avoid creating two groups of people. My opinion is simply to say that at weddings and funerals, Holy Communion will not be given except in situations where all participants are completely believing and practicing Catholics. This could occur, but in more general celebrations, it should not be given.
Dr. Bryan Thatcher: Bishop, for many years, I have read about Eucharistic miracles and our ministry. We are under the Marian Fathers Congregation of Marians of the Immaculate Conception. Our ministry is the Eucharistic Apostles of Divine Mercy. Just two days ago, I had a gentleman send me a photo and ask how they should proceed. It looked like an Eucharistic miracle. These things happen, and yet bishops do not want anything to do with it. They say consume it or discard it. Share with us your thoughts on these Eucharistic miracles and why the Lord is doing this.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Yes, the Lord is doing this in his mercy to give us signs proving his presence to help us recognize and awaken our love, our reverence, and our faith as he did miracles during his life. But you see, when he did miracles during his life, the Pharisees and the high priests saw the miracles and did not believe, but the simple people believed. And so, as you mentioned, when in our day bishops or some priests see a miracle occur and do not believe, they behave in a way similar to the Pharisees. It could be that I do not say that at all. Of course, the Church has to verify if this is a real miracle or not. It could be deception or natural causes, but they have to seriously make a test and a proof, at least this they have to do. And when there are clear signs that it is a supernatural phenomenon, these bishops have to establish devotion and worship to promote Eucharistic reverence and faith.
Dr. Bryan Thatcher: Bishop, you mentioned humility. In the real world, humility is frowned upon. It is seen as a bad thing, but in the spiritual life, isn’t humility important?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Humility is the base and foundation of all our life with God. In the spiritual life, without humility, you cannot go to God, and the greatest sin is pride. This was the sin of Lucifer, the angel. And with this poison of pride, he contaminated Adam and Eve when they sinned. The core of the sin of Adam and Eve was pride because they wanted to be independent from God and not obey. Disobedience is a kind of pride. And therefore God chose the way of humility to save us and redeem us. He humbled himself. Now we celebrate Christmas in Bethlehem. He humbled himself on the cross. He humbled himself still deeper in the Holy Eucharist for our sake to heal our wounds, especially the wound of pride. And therefore humility is the base, the foundation of all our life of faith. Our life is in God.
Dr. Bryan Thatcher: Bishop, one last question. Catholics get accused sometimes of loving the Blessed Mother too much. I look at my own mother, and I could say people could never love my mother as much as I love my mother, and I doubt we could love the Blessed Mother as much as Jesus does. But tell us your insights on the Blessed Mother and why she is so important in your life.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Well, she is the Mother of God, the mother of our Savior Jesus Christ. And Jesus, as God, gave us the commandment to honor your father and mother. And therefore, he shared with us all that he had. And on the cross, while dying, he wanted to give the last thing he had, which was his own mother. And he shared his mother with us, giving her to John and giving John as her son. And therefore, when Christ gave us on the cross his mother as our mother, then we have to love her more than our physical mother because she is the Mother of God, and she, in some way, gave birth to us spiritually. Since she gave birth to the head, she also gave birth to the members of Christ. And therefore, we have to love her deeply more than even our physical mother. And this is logical. And throughout all times of the Church, continuously, all generations of Christians, as she said herself, all generations will praise me, and so they did. And praise also includes love and honor.
Dr. Bryan Thatcher: People, I want to again mention this compendium of the Catholic faith that the bishop has put together. It is available at Sophia Press, sophiainstitute.com, and it will really help you understand and then live your faith. Bishop, any closing thoughts for those who will watch this today?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Yes, I want to encourage you to love the Catholic faith deeply. This is the greatest treasure that God gave us. Read good traditional catechisms such as the Catechism of Baltimore and the older catechisms. Why, because there the Catholic faith is clear and simple. And for this faith, we have to be ready to give our lives. We will not give our lives for something ambiguous but only for clarity. And so I recommend this to be sure, convinced and unshakable in the Catholic faith as it has always been lived and handed down by the saints, which we know through the older catechisms. Christ is the same. The Catholic faith cannot change. And then live a life of deep personal union with Christ. This is the core. It is not sufficient to know something in your head, but to live Christ as a living person present. He is your Lord and God. Live with him every day. Love him in union with him, especially through the Holy Eucharist. And then love the Eucharist. Go to Jesus in the tabernacle. Do adoration. And finally be a true child of Mary. This is the best and surest way to heaven. May God bless you.
May God bless you, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Praise be Jesus Christ.
Dr. Bryan Thatcher: Now and forever! Bishop, I thank you for joining us today on Mercy Unbound, and I hope we can have you back to give more teachings from your wealth of knowledge. I also hope my personal path will cross with yours sometime. God bless you for all the things you do.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: You are welcome.
People, I hope you enjoyed the show. Please subscribe and share with your friends, and let us spread the great gift of the faith, the Eucharist, and our Blessed Mother. We will see you back soon on Mercy Unbound.
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