Michael Voris: Turning our attention to many of the episcopacy in Germany with the upcoming Synod and somebody like Cardinal Marx, or what Cardinal Kasper has already said, it hurts the church to say, yes, you can be in a state of sin, mortal sin, and we’ll still give you Holy Communion. What’s going on in their minds?
Bishop Schneider: I don’t know. Only God knows what is going on in the minds of these cardinals and bishops. For me, it is a contradiction, a kind of schizophrenia. These cardinals state and confess, yes, we confess the indissolubility of marriage, the indissolubility of marriage. And then they permit the divorced and those who live outside of marriage to go to Communion. Holy Communion is the sign of the marriage of Christ and the Church. This sacralization of both sacraments, the sacrament of the Eucharist and the sacrament of marriage, in a very grave manner, makes this a continuous contradiction for me.
I could only explain this in another way: they have a form of thinking, in Latin, we say formamentis, a way of thinking similar to Gnostic thinking. For the Gnostic, it was okay to think one thing in theory and act differently in practice. The practice was not important, only the thought. So when you theoretically admit the indissolubility and sacramentality of marriage, in practice, you act contrary to it, and you appear at peace with this, as these bishops and cardinals show. This could be a real Gnostic mental attitude.
Michael Voris: It’s a dualism, body and soul.
Bishop Schneider: It is a dualism, yes. Theory and practice are separated. This was a typical diagnostic attitude of relativism as well. For me, it is a grievous situation. It is also, for me, a revelation that these bishops and cardinals had already adopted a relativistic attitude of mind toward the truth and lived with it.
Michael Voris: Would you say that comes perhaps from a lack of formation when they were in seminary?
Bishop Schneider: Yes, it is, of course, a lack of formation, a deformation they received in the seminary. In my opinion, this is one of the causes: the lack of formation. Not only a lack of formation, but also deformation. They were deformed. They were taught, I suppose, relativistic theology. This goes back, in many cases, even before the Vatican Council.
Michael Voris: Even in many cases, even before the Vatican Council.
Bishop Schneider: Yes, in some areas, before the Vatican Council. Even Pope Pius XII had to correct this, issuing the famous encyclical Humani Generis in 1950, where he enumerated the main errors. It was a kind of syllabus, but it was not applied in practice. This relativism in seminaries became evident after the Council and continues today. Another cause, I think, is the lack of a personal relationship with Christ. If I take Christ and His Word in the Gospel seriously, I cannot be a relativist. I cannot think or act in a relativistic manner if I take my spiritual life with God seriously, if Christ lives in me with the Holy Spirit. It is impossible. They have built an image of Christ which is not Christ, an agnostic Christ.