P. Juan Razo García: Qué conservador sin crear división entre quienes están tratando de conservar la fe católica de siempre, he invitado al obispo auxiliar de la diócesis de Astaná, Kazajistán, Mons. Athanasius Schneider, para que nos hable sobre el tema de la virtud de la obediencia en la doctrina católica en estos tiempos de terrible confusión.
A veces los fieles se sienten un poco entre la espada y la pared, porque reciben órdenes o prohibiciones de parte de autoridades de la Iglesia que saben que son contrarias a lo que la Iglesia siempre ha enseñado, lo cual genera un grave conflicto interior.
Por eso he invitado a Mons. Schneider para que nos aclare algunas cuestiones sobre cómo se debe ejercer la virtud de la obediencia en la Iglesia.
Quiero decirles que la entrevista será en inglés. Voy a subir primero este video sin la traducción, para que quienes entiendan inglés puedan verlo. En los próximos días, conforme tenga tiempo, haré la traducción de las palabras de Mons. Schneider para ponerle subtítulos al video y subir también la versión subtitulada en español.
Además, procuraré subir la traducción con mi voz de las respuestas de Mons. Schneider al canal de Telegram, que pueden encontrar como @conservandolafe. Les pido un poco de paciencia, por favor, mientras tengo el tiempo de hacer este trabajo de traducción y subtitulado.
Bueno, sin más, recibamos a nuestro invitado de hoy en la pantalla.
Okay, now we have on the screen our very special guest for today. He is Bishop Athanasius Schneider, auxiliary bishop of Astana, Kazakhstan. Your Excellency. Welcome to conservando la fe, and thank you for giving us sharing with us part of your precious time.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Yes, I’m happy to be with you.
P. Juan Razo Garcia: Thank you. Thank you very much. You’re a great inspiration for many priests and Catholics in this difficult time for the church. So as we always do, I would like to invite you to lead us in praying the Pater Noster in Latin so that we may have the help of the Holy Spirit for this interview.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.
Pater noster, qui es in cælis, sanctificetur nomen tuum. Adveniat regnum tuum. Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in cælo et in terra. Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie, et dimitte nobis debita nostra, sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris. Et ne nos inducas in tentationem, sed libera nos a malo. Amen.
In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.
P. Juan Razo García: Amén, amén. Okay, now we’re ready to go. And as I told you, I invited you to this show to talk about the virtue of obedience. It is a very important virtue for us Catholics. I don’t think that we can go to heaven if we are not obedient to God. So my first question would be, what is a virtue? So that we may understand what we are talking about.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Virtue, in the fullest sense, is the habit of goodness. It is a firm and stable inclination to do what is right, enabling us to choose the good with greater ease, skill, and enjoyment. So this is the common and. Explanation of the term virtue.
P. Juan Razo García: Okay, so obedience is a virtue. I mean, it is a habit. Okay, so, could you please tell us what’s the virtue of obedience? How do we understand obedience?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Yes, we have to obey in the first place. This is the ultimate obedience which all the creatures must show towards God and all the other obediences which we have here on Earth, towards the creatures, starting with our parents and superiors and so on, and then to the church superiors, to the bishops and the Pope, to the Magisterium. This is that all disobedience is ultimately directed to God. They have the authority why we obey to creatures only because they represent, in some way, at different levels and different intensity the authority of God to whom we must obey, because God is asking us to obey, not simply of blind obedience, but because of his wisdom, divine wisdom, divine love, and because this is The best for us when we obey Him
P. Juan Razo García: And what would be the role of reason and will? You know, in our Catholic doctrine, we believe that we have been created in God’s image and likeness. So we have a spiritual soul, and from this soul we have reason and will, two faculties. The object of reason is truth, the object of will is good. How do they work together when we exercise the virtue of obedience, if they have any role in this virtue?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Of course, we have to. Every being has to act according to its nature, as the famous axiom of the philosophy of the Thomistic philosophy says, sageere sec vitur, esse, which means our acts must follow from our nature, so be according to our nature. Since we have intellect, reason, and will, it is logical that we have to obey with our reason and with our will. So, because we are not animals with instincts only, and we are not machines that are simply doing something. Therefore, we have to obey reason and will.
P. Juan Razo García: So we don’t take away reason and will when we obey.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Of course not, it would not be fully human according to our dignity and how we were created by God.
P. Juan Razo García: Okay, now my next question is this, and I’m talking about any human institution, not only the church. Should we always obey our legitimate authorities? Or is there any situation when we should not obey a legitimate authority?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Of course, there are cases where we cannot obey legitimate authority because there is a principle, absolute obedience is only possible towards God. There is no absolute obedience towards a creature, not even towards the Pope or the bishop or the church. No, it is still a creature. The Pope is not God, but. And the government, the state, is not God, and our parents are not God, and therefore, the obedience toward creatures is a relative obedience. And we have an example of the apostles, the famous expression where Peter said to the authorities of his time, It is not fitting to obey you, because we have first to obey God, rather than man, in the case when the orders of man’s authority, human authority is contradict divine authority, Divine Law.
P. Juan Razo García: Okay, so even if there is a legitimate authority, that doesn’t mean that we have to obey always, no matter what; we have to obey God first, that’s the principle.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: That’s the principle. And we have to examine the nature of this order to obey. We have to conform to this, if this is again, according to the law of God. Usually we can assume that the authority is not contradicting the natural law and the divine law, the Express, explicit Divine Law, usually in the church, of course, usually they observe but in some specific times of crisis, even in the church, some superiors are not corresponding to the Good of the church and our souls, and are commanding, sometimes, something which is harmful to our spiritual good, to the fullness of the truth and the dignity of the divine worship and the same even words today the civil authorities, they have laws which are ever more modern in the past, evidently, against the natural law and the commandments of God.
P. Juan Razo García: Okay, I wanted to ask you if there is a difference when we talk about church authority, because we know that the church is not only a human institution, but it’s also a divine institution. We know that our Lord Jesus Christ is the head of the church, but he has decided to guide his church through human shepherds that he has chosen for this task, and we know that our Lord told his apostles, he who listens to you listens to me, He who rejects you rejects me. Now, does that mean that we owe blind obedience to church authorities just because they are legitimate?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: No, we already told that this depends on the time, on the order which a superior, ecclesiastic, superior, a Pope or a bishop, is giving. And so we can, sometimes we cannot obey. So it was the cases in the history of the church we had the first St Paul himself says in the letter to the Galatians, even if I would preach to you something different, which I preached you and we and which and what you received, you have not to obey, and even if an angel from heaven will preach you something different, but you have received by tradition, you have not to accept this, not to obey. So St Paul is speaking very clearly. And then we have several examples in the history of the church.
The most known is st Athanasius in the fourth century, in the Arian crisis, where the majority, the overwhelming majority, of the bishops accepted heresy or collaborated with it in some way, and it. Even at a time, at a moment, Pope Liberius also became weak and made peace with the heretic bishops in the East. And the pope commanded st Athanasius to obey Him to make union with the heretic bishops of the East. And evidently, st Athanasius could not obey the Pope. He disobeyed the Pope and said he did not obey the Pope. He could not make an official peace with heretic bishops. And so he was punished, of course, unjustly and excommunicated by Pope Liberius. And so we have other examples, but these are rarely rare examples we have in our time, this was a very serious issue of the faith, but even in some issues which are not directly touching the faith we have in our recent history, some examples where Cardinal A bishop did not obey the Pope, for example, Cardinal midcenti. He was the Primate of Hungary and was persecuted by the communists. He was the Primate of all Hungary. And Paul the sixth the Vatican made a very questionable Ostpolitik with the communist governments to make at any price peace with the communists and the communist government asked the pope as a condition to remove Cardinal midcenti from from his duty as Archbishop and Primate of Hungary and the Pope he was in Rome, The Cardinal he was and then the pope asked him to resign, to write a resignation to his office, and he said to the Pope, no, I cannot obey you here, because it is a harm for The Catholic Church in Hungary, we will yielding the communist government.
I cannot do this. And he refused to obey the Pope. It was 70, in the 70s, and then the pope simply deposed him, and now the church declared heroic virtues of Cardinal Mizenti, so his behavior is now declared by the church as heroic. And St Athanasius was proclaimed a saint, even he did not obey the Pope Leberius and the greatest saint, one of the greatest saints in the church. So we have some moments and examples where it was not possible to directly obey the pope because of the evident harm that would bring; in this case, they are not prudent, or even wrong. Obedience would bring harm, spiritual harm to the church. Because why this saint, saintly man, could disobey de facto the popes, because the Pope, the Popes were, in these cases, not infallible. So not every decision of a Pope is infallible, only rarely, and in these cases, the Popes decided wrongly, because they are not God. They are only man. They can only they can also do errors in some ecclesiastic, of course, usually we have to obey, but I repeat in special cases, I repeat when the obedience would bring evident disadvantage and harm for the good of the church itself, for the purity of the Catholic faith, for the purity and dignity of the Catholic liturgy, and for the salvation of the souls, then we can say we cannot obey in these specific. Cases out of love for the greater good of the church,
P. Juan Razo García: And for example, in the case of priests or clergy, what if a priest or a bishop has to suffer a sort of cancellation because of this obedience to God rather than man.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Yes, it depends on which order the bishop gave or the Pope to a bishop, when this will repeat, evidently, concretely, let us say the traditional Latin liturgy mass, which is a patrimony, a treasure, of the entire church. It is a millennium-old form of prayer, not only from the Tridentine Council. It is at least 1000 years old, and in exactly this form. And because of this venerable age, and because it was so long time, sanctified by the popes and by the saints and brought so evident fruits for the spiritual life for the entire church, when then the Pope and the bishop start to prohibit this to the priest, I think they can, with good conscience, Say, we cannot obey here because we have to continue this tradition, this treasure of the church, for the entire church, not only for themselves. And in this case, it would be a legitimate and reasonable disobedience in some way. But this would, for me, not a disobedience. It would be an obedience towards the entire church of 2000 years, to keep a venerable old prayer to glorify God with this form, and not to lose this
P. Juan Razo García: Great, yeah, this very interesting response, because, you know, we are going through a very difficult crisis in the history of the church. I think this is one of the greatest crises in the history of the church, and because of that, many people are being forced to do things that they don’t want to do because they know that they are against the respect the Eucharist deserves. For example, a lot of people contact me and share with me the pain they feel because they are being obliged to receive Communion in the hand, and they don’t want to do that. Or priests who are obliged to give Communion in the hands, and they don’t want to do that. And with the excuse of the pandemic, you know, Communion in the hand was imposed almost everywhere, and now it is remaining this way. There is no way back, there is no step back. And that is like trampling on the Sensus FIDE of the faithful. So we should not always obey, no matter what you’re saying, because we have to obey God first and but I have heard people who defend a blind obedience to church authorities. They always use the example of San Pío de Pietrelcina. He was punished unjustly by a pope, that’s what I understand, and he accepted this punishment, an unjust punishment, in silence. He obeyed in silence? And so people say, you see, this is what saints do. They always obey, no matter what. So how can we understand this example of obedience from Padre Pio?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Well, this is not true. I already gave the examples of saints who did not obey the Pope, St. Athanasius. So we have an example, the servant of God, Cardinal Mazzenti, who is now on the way to being beatified. And we can adduce some other cases in the history of the Church. Saints who didn’t, who could not always blindly accept all the orders, it depends. So in the case of Padre Pio, it was his own individual life. So we see he accepted this when it is touching our own, I would say, individual personal issues, then we should obey in silence. But when it is a matter of the public Catholic faith or the public Catholic tradition, it would be diminished and damaged. So then we have to obey because of the greater good. I repeat, when let us say a priest is transferred from one parish to another, he has to obey silently. This is his personal issue. But when a priest would be forced to give Holy Communion in hand, knowing that the fragments, particles are falling down, and in almost every case of communion in hand, they lose the particles, and they fall on the floor. So we cannot obey here. This is not a personal issue of mind. It is an issue of the Lord and of the entire church, for example. Well, that’s a very we have to distinguish. Or when the Pope let us say, would say to me, I have to. I have he deposed from my office, which I am now, and I will accept this. I will not rebel, because I am not necessary in the church as such. But when the Pope says to me, I have to give Communion to the divorced and remarried, or I have to give Communion to LGBT people. Then I will refuse these. I cannot collaborate with such things. So you see, we have to distinguish when it’s an issue of my personal life, and so I have to obey in silence when I repeat is touching the public good of the church, the integrity of the Catholic faith, the morals, and the dignity of the Holy Eucharist, then we cannot obey. It would be a wrong obedience.
P. Juan Razo García: Okay, yeah, I think that’s a very good criterion. And another question is, should we consider a public and respectful discussion of these topics, things that are going on in the church today? You know, we have sometimes people with authority in the church saying or doing things that undermine the Catholic faith. And some of us, we think that it is good to talk about these issues, always respectfully and but we have to do it because of the faith of the Catholic faith. But some people think that this is creating division in the church, that we should not do that. We should not discuss these things in public, even if we do it respectfully. This is like an act of disobedience or a lack of loyalty to church authority. What do you think about that?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Well, Pope Francis invites all to give their contribution in the synodal process. So we are the church is now asking all the people, even not Catholics, to give their contribution and to discuss publicly the issues that they think would be meaningful and helpful for the church. So in this, in this form of synodality, it would be, in my opinion, also legitimate to respectfully discuss things that are concerning us when some public ecclesiastic authorities are damaging objectively, the faith objectively, but we have to do this very carefully and respectfully, simply saying, How to say, appointing. To the error, which is and analyzing what is wrong in these words or behavior of these churchmen and and explain why it is wrong and what is the truth, and simply inviting with all charity and compassion to pray for these churchmen to people ask to make repentance and to make reparation and prayers for these churchmen, together with discussion of what is wrong, we have to invite people to pray with love and compassion for the conversion, for the illumination of these wrongdoing churchmen.
P. Juan Razo García: Okay, so there is no lack of loyalty. There is no creating division when we talk about the issues concerning the Catholic faith or the life of the church, if we do it respectfully and always in communion, because all of us want to be in communion with the authority of the Church.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Yes, we are. The church is not a dictatorship, and the Pope and the bishop are not Hitler and Stalin, but you cannot open your mouth, and then you are in the camp of concentration. This is the wrong mentality. This completely wrong atmosphere. We are a family, in a family, even a father, and we can discuss, we can express our concerns, because we love our family; therefore, we are concerned for the harm that is going on in our family. But we have to do this. I repeat, when we are doing this respectfully and asking for prayers, because to pray for the conversion, illumination of a person who is erring. This is a great act of charity, really. It’s a great act of charity and an erring judgment. When he comes to the judgment of God, there, he will be thankful for these people who advised him, corrected him, and prayed for him,
P. Juan Razo García: That’s a good point. Also, Your Excellency, I would like to ask you how. What can we do in order to practice more perfect obedience? How can we grow in the virtue of obedience?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: First, we have to always obey God, and this is the basic obedience that God is asking us to obey His Holy Will. So Thy will be done on earth, it is in heaven. Fiat, voluntas Stuart. This should be our deepest desire, day and night, I want to do only the will of God, my beloved God, to correspond ever more obediently to His commandments, to his teaching, which God gave us in The Gospel. And this is the basic, and then, to obey our duties of the state, which every one of us has, so a father, mother of the family, they have to obey their duties to their children. And then in your working place, to work good and honestly, as a Christian Catholic, in your workplace, to be charitable to your neighbor. This is also obedience to the commandment of love of God. It’s an obedience. So this is the first and basic form of obedience and and then to obey the constant faith of the church. This is also obedience when I will keep the faith which the saints taught us. My ancestors brought us the faith, and I am obedient to this faith.
P. Juan Razo García: Okay, great. So finally, I would like to ask you, what will be your message to our audience, especially to priests and faithful? Who are maybe suffering because they don’t have a shepherd who is faithful to Catholic doctrine, or because they are in the midst of a toxic ecclesiastical environment. What would be your message to them?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: First, you have to grow every day in confidence and hope that God has His Church in his almighty hands. It’s not in our hands. It’s not in the hands of the Pope. It is in the powerful hands of Christ to renew this faith, this confidence, this is the first basic and then to renew the faith, the truth that the church is indestructible, even in great crisis, then to also to know that God permitted this crisis because he knows to draw A greater good of this crisis, a greater good, and God, from all eternity, put you in this time, in this crisis, and this has a meaning by God for eternity, For your life, that you can train yourself in heroic virtues of fidelity, of trust and love. It is difficult times not lose hope and not be angered. But in spite of all this crisis, to continue to love, to pray, to make reparation, to hope, to trust, even if you are marginalized and canceled, even if you are even if you have, in some exceptional cases, cannot obey to your superiors in these concrete cases, let us say communion in hand, or traditional mass or the fullness of Catholic faith. It is a temporary phenomenon, temporary. It will pass. But thank God and say, My Lord, I thank you that you put me in this time. You know why. I don’t know why, but you know why. And I accept these with faith and trust and offer these in a spirit of expiation, reparation for a true renewal of our Holy Mother Church, for asking God with my sacrifices and prayers that God again provide His church with powerful, holy, 100% Catholic popes and bishops, great.
P. Juan Razo García: Thank you, Bishop. Your words are very helpful, as I’m sure they will be very helpful for me and my audience. And as I said, you’re a great inspiration for many Catholics, because you always speak the truth with clarity and charity, and you are a great example of how we can always say the truth, but at the same time, we can be gentle and kind. So thank you for your witness, and I would like to invite you to lead us in praying the Ave Maria, just to finish this program.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: you know many Patris et Fili et Spiritus Sancti Amen Ave Maria, Grazia, plena Dominus tecum, Benedicta, tui mulieribus et Benedictus fructos, Ventris, tui Jesus Sancta, Maria Mater Dei hora prolobis speccatoribus, nunc et In Hora Mortis nostre Amen Dominus vobiscum Et cum spiritu et benedictia de omnipotentis Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti, descendant, super vos et mane et Semper. Amel Amen, well.
P. Juan Razo García: Thank you again. I agree. Appreciate your time, and have a good night. Thank you. Pray for us, and we pray for you. Thank you.