Transcript:
Mr. Met: Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. I will close these welcoming remarks to you tonight for this Catholic Identity Conference 2017 with a reference to a Catholic bishop, a Catholic bishop who is a survivor of the Gulag in the Soviet Union, literally a survivor of the Gulag, and who recently noted in another interview that the Catholic family is key to survival.
He said that in order to survive this crisis, we must, and I quote, see persecution as a grace from God for becoming purified and strengthened. We must pray with our children every day. We must turn our homes into domestic churches. We must withdraw our families from parishes that are spreading error and find another alternative, even if it means going great distances. We must be prepared for persecution in protecting our children and keeping the old faith. And I am assuming you are ahead of me because you know who this bishop is, this bishop who has real-life experience in the underground church and whose advice, as I have just quoted to you, is something that the worldwide traditional movement is in one hundred percent agreement on.
His name was Anton. He was born in Tokmok in the Soviet Union. His parents were ethnic Germans from Odessa in Ukraine. After the Second World War, they were sent by Stalin through the Gulag in the Ural Mountains, where his family became closely involved with the underground church. This bishop knows what it means to suffer for the faith. When his family was finally released from the concentration camp, they left Central Asia for Estonia, where they lived in Tartu in 1973, shortly after he made his first Holy Communion in secret. They emigrated with his family to Rottweil in West Germany. In 1982, he joined the Canons Regular of the Holy Cross of Coimbra, a Catholic religious order in Austria. He took the religious name of Athanasius upon joining the order, and then he was ordained in 1990.
On June 2 of 2006, Father Athanasius Snyder was appointed a bishop by Pope Benedict, and later that same year, he was consecrated bishop at the Altar of the Chair of Saint Peter in the Vatican.
The first time I met Bishop Athanasius Schneider was in Rome, and he gave a little presentation right on the Borgo Pio just down the street from the Vatican. I was very impressed with his presentation, and I timidly walked up to him afterwards and said, Your Excellency, do you think you ever might be interested in offering the traditional Latin Mass? He said, But of course, I offer it all the time.
I am telling you, I was filled with hope at that moment because, as you all know, the Church is not a democracy. The Church is hierarchical. We are not a democratic organization. It is not going to change the Church from the bottom up. The Church must be reformed from the top, as she was designed by Christ. We are sheep, and sheep must have shepherds.
So in a day and age when shepherds are too often wolves in sheep’s clothing, we are honored this night in this catacomb to have among us a faithful shepherd, a prince of the Catholic Church, a successor of the apostles, living proof that God has not left us orphans.
Ladies and gentlemen, England had their John Fisher. Ireland had their Oliver Plunkett. China had its Joseph Kung. And I am so proud to say that we have our Athanasius Schneider. Please rise if you would and welcome Bishop Athanasius Schneider.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Thank you very much, Mr. Met, for your kind words and your deep words. You spoke not only from your head but from your heart, and from which you suffered for the love of the Church. And maybe also you all, my dear brothers and sisters, I greet you all. I greet you here in this clandestine Church. I like the clandestine Church because I grew up in the clandestine Church. And in the history of the Church, as we know, the clandestine Church was the very strength of the Church in times of crisis. It was the clandestine Church. And so we are in some way called by Divine Providence to be a kind of clandestine Church. So it is a privilege in some way.
I would like to address you this evening about the theme, the Crisis of Faith in the World Today. The doctrines of rationalism, naturalism, and anthropocentrism shape the frame of mind of the world today, which has conquered, since the French Revolution, almost all sectors of public life and which has invaded in progressive stages large areas of Church life.
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, we are witnessing such an apostasy in civil society that resembles a direct and apocalyptic revolt against God Himself and against the divinely established order of the natural law. In former times, crises of faith, even when they had an almost universal reach, were nevertheless limited to a specific truth of faith, as for example Arianism in the fourth century. Even so, it had a universal reach but was limited to a specific theme.
Now, in times of enormous moral grievances and sin in the history of the Church, sin was theoretically never justified under the pretext of maybe pastoral reasons or under the pretext of mercy, or as they say today, the tenderness of God. In those times, even with enormous moral sins in the Church, even from the clergy and even of Popes, one knew that sin was sin and one called a spade a spade.
In our days, however, the dogmatic, moral, and liturgical relativism has reached unprecedented proportions inside the Church. In such times, some groundbreaking and clear words of the supreme Magisterium from modern times reveal themselves as truly prophetic, which I will present to you.
And so in a situation which is marked today by obfuscation and in which the faithful receive not really an insipid spiritual nourishment on behalf of a culture of arbitrariness, such words of the constant Magisterium of the Church, even of the Church of modern times, have the effect, I would say of a healthy strong country bread and of a fresh sigh of relief. Indeed, they contain the true spirit of the gospel and of the apostles and fill our mind and our soul with a heavenly unction and give us a supernatural certainty and firmness.
Now I will present some of these affirmations of the perennial Magisterium. I say of the modern times, not of the Middle Ages or the Council of Trent, of our times. In some way, I will start with the First Vatican Council, the immutability of the Catholic faith. The council said there came into being and spread far and wide through the world the doctrine of rationalism and naturalism. This text is from 1870.
I continue, utterly opposed to the Christian religion since this is of supernatural origin, which spares no effort to bring it about that Christ, who alone is our Lord and Savior, is shut out from the minds of people and the moral life of nations. Thus, they would establish what they call the rule of simple reason.
The abandonment and rejection of the Christian religion and the denial of God and His Christ have plunged the minds of many into the abyss of pantheism, materialism, and atheism. The consequence is that they strive to destroy rational nature itself, reason itself, to deny any criterion of what is right and just, and to overthrow the very foundation of human society.
I repeat this was written in 1870. It is up to date to destroy rational nature, reason itself. We are witnessing this today, even inside the Church, to destroy reason. So this is only my remark.
I continue with the quotation. With this impiety spreading in every direction, it has come about, alas, that many even among the children of the Catholic Church have strayed from the path of genuine piety. As the truth was gradually diluted in them, their Catholic sensibility was weakened, led away by diverse and strange teachings and confusing nature and grace, confusing human knowledge and divine faith.
They are found to distort the genuine sense of the dogmas which Holy Mother Church holds and teaches and to endanger the integrity and genuineness of the faith. Since human beings are totally dependent on God as their Creator and Lord, and created reason is completely subject to uncreated truth, we are obliged to yield to God the revealer full submission of intellect and will by faith. This faith, which is the beginning of human salvation, the Catholic Church professes to be a supernatural virtue.
Consequently, the situation of those who, by the heavenly gift of faith, have embraced the Catholic truth is by no means the same as that of those who are led by human opinion to follow a false religion. Those who have accepted the faith under the guidance of the Church can never have any just cause for changing this faith or for calling it into question.
Hence, all faithful Christians are forbidden to defend as the legitimate conclusions of science those opinions which are known to be contrary to the doctrine of faith, particularly if they have been condemned already by the Church in the past.
Furthermore, they are absolutely bound to hold them to be errors which were the deceptive appearance of truth. So I repeat, errors which were the deceptive appearance of truth. Again, very up to date. I continue, for the doctrine of the faith which God has revealed is put forward not as some philosophical discovery capable of being perfected by human intelligence but as a divine deposit committed to the spouse of Christ to be faithfully protected and infallibly promulgated.
Hence, it is true that the meaning of the sacred dogmas is ever to be maintained, which has once been declared by Holy Mother Church, and there must never be any abandonment of this sense under the pretext or in the name of a more profound understanding.
I repeat, this is all very, very important.
The council says that those dogmas which we declared the Holy Mother Church, there must never be any abandonment of the sense of the dogma, the meaning, under the pretext of a profound understanding. We recently heard these theses under the pretext of a most profound understanding, they state the contrary sense of which the Church always taught.
So these were my remarks. Now I continue with the Council, the First Vatican Council. May understanding, knowledge, and wisdom increase as ages and centuries roll along, and great and vigorous flourish in each and all, and in the individual and in the whole Church.
But these are only in its own proper kind, that is to say, in the same doctrine, in the same sense, in the same understanding. So Vatican First, Vatican Council. Now the next is Pius the Tenth, Saint Pius the Tenth, in his first encyclical, 1903. You will discover the same statements, which are really prophetic and up to date.
He says, in the beginning, war is now almost everywhere. War, war, battle, fight again stirred up and fomented against God. I quote him to eliminate all vain delusions. We say with emphasis that we do not wish to be, and with the divine assistance, never shall be, ought before human society but the minister of God, of whose authority we are the depository. The interests of God shall be our interests, says Saint Pius the Tenth. I would now remark, not the interests of the world should be our interests as bishops and shepherds of the Church.
So he continues. And for this, we are resolved to spend all our strength and all our very lives. A sacrilegious war is now almost everywhere stirred up and fomented against God. And as might be expected, we find extinguished among the majority of men all respect for the eternal.
Art and no regard paid in the manifestations of public and private life to the supreme will of God, nay, every effort and every artifice is used to destroy utterly the memory and the knowledge of God. Such in truth is the audacity and the wrath employed everywhere in persecuting religion, in combating the dogmas of the faith, in brazen effort to uproot and destroy all relations between man and God.
Why? While, on the other hand, and this according to the apostle Paul is the distinguished mark of Antichrist, man has with infinite temerity put himself in the place of God, raising himself above all that is called God. In such wise that although he cannot utterly extinguish in himself all knowledge of God, he has contemned God’s majesty, and as it were made of the universe a temple wherein man himself is to be adored. He sits in the midst of the temple of God, showing himself as if he were God. St Paul, Second of Thessalonians, two, two.
We shall never, however much we exert ourselves, succeed in calling man back to the majesty and empire of God. It is Christ alone through God and through man, without whom nobody can know God with the knowledge for salvation. Hence, it follows that to restore all things in Christ and to lead man back to submission to God is one and the same aim.
So he explained what it means to restore all things in Christ. Restaurare omnia in Christo does mean, and Pius the 10th says it does mean to lead humankind to submission to God. Then it behooves us to devote our care. The Pope says it is his duty as Pope to lead mankind back under the dominion of Christ, not under the dominion of the United Nations.
This was my remark because in 1903, the United Nations did not exist yet. But I say I hope that Pius the 10th agrees with me now, so we can continue. He says when we say God, we do not mean that inert being that God is not, as the people say, an innate being heedless, which the dream of materialists has imagined, a false image of God. But we mean a true and living God, one in nature, three persons, the Most Holy Trinity. This is the true God, says Pius the 10th.
So the duty that has been imposed alike upon us as Pope and upon us bishops consists in bringing back to the discipline of the Church all human society. This is the task of the bishops, to bring back all human society to the discipline of Christ. He continues, but if our desire to obtain this is to be fulfilled, we must use every means and exert all our energy to bring about the utter disappearance of the enormous and detestable wickedness so characteristic of our time. And this is the wickedness of our time, the substitution of man for God, very prophetic.
So he continues this done, it remains to restore to their ancient place of honor the most holy laws and counsels of the gospel, to proclaim aloud the truth taught by the church and her teachings on the sanctity of marriage. He says that our first duty is to proclaim aloud the truth taught by the church and her teachings, especially concerning the sanctity of marriage and the education and discipline of youth. We will use all our industry to attain it.
He says that as a pope, an insufficient and defective religious instruction has the result for a great many the loss of the faith. For it is not true that the progress of knowledge extinguishes the faith, the knowledge of human beings, but rather it is ignorance. And the more ignorance in the doctrine of faith prevails, the greater is the havoc wrought by incredulity.
The times we live demand action, but action which consists entirely in observing with fidelity and zeal the divine laws and the precepts of the church in the frank and open profession of religion in the exercise of every kind of charitable works without regard to self-interest or to worldly advantage. Such luminous examples given by the great army of soldiers of Christ will be of much greater avail in moving and drawing man than words and sublime dissertations.
Oh, when in every city and village the law of the Lord is faithfully observed, when respect is shown for sacred things, when the sacraments are frequented in their right disposition, and the ordinances of the Christian life fulfilled, it will also contribute largely to temporal welfare and the advantage of human society. It will be clear to all that the church, such as it was instituted by Christ, must enjoy full and entire liberty and independence from all foreign dominion. And we, he speaks as a pope, speak in demanding the assembly, but they are defending not only the sacred rights of religion but are also consulting the common will and the safety of nations.
So, Pius the 10th, you see, his words are very prophetic. Now the next witness of the constant Magisterium is Pius the 12th. Again, his first encyclical, 1939. He speaks first. I quote The Thronement of Christ. I quote at the head of the road that leads to the spiritual.
Moral bankruptcy of the present day stands the nefarious efforts of not a few to the throne of Christ, the abandonment of the law of truth which he proclaimed and of the law of love which is the life breath of his kingdom. In the recognition of the royal prerogatives of Christ and in the return of individuals and of society to the law of his truth and of his love lies the only way to salvation.
And then Pius the 12th speaks about how the denial of the moral law destroys the unity of Europe already in 1939. I quote, the present age by adding new errors to the doctrinal aberrations of the past has pushed these errors to extremes, which led inevitably to a drift towards chaos. We are living in chaos even inside the Church.
Pius the 10th and the 12th continue, before all else, it is certain that the radical and ultimate cause of the evils which we deplore in modern society is the denial and rejection of a universal norm of morality, as well for individual and social life as for international relations. We mean the disregard so common nowadays and the forgetfulness of the natural law itself, which has its foundation in God.
When God is hated, every basis of morality is undermined. The voice of conscience is stilled or, at any rate, grows very faint. That voice which teaches even to the illiterate and to the uncivilized tribes what is good and what is bad, what is lawful and what is forbidden, and makes man feel themselves responsible for their actions before a supreme judge.
The denial of the fundamentals of morality had its origin in Europe in the abandonment of dead Christian teaching, of which the chair of Peter is the depositary and exponent. That teaching had once given spiritual cohesion to Europe, which educated, ennobled, and civilized by the cross of Christ, and had reached such a degree of civil progress as to become Europe the teacher of other peoples of other continents.
But cut off from the infallible teaching authority of the Church, not a few separated brethren have gone so far as to overthrow the central dogma of Christianity, the divinity of our Savior, and have hastened thereby the progress of spiritual decay.
The Holy Gospel narrates that when Jesus was crucified, there was darkness over the whole earth, a terrifying symbol of what happened and what is still happening spiritually wherever incredulity, blind and proud of itself, has succeeded in excluding Christ from modern life, especially from public life.
Faith has undermined faith in God as well as faith in Christ. The consequence is that the moral values by which in other times public and private conduct was guided have fallen into disuse and the much wanted civilization of society which has made ever more rapid progress withdrawing man, the family and the state from the beneficent and regenerating effects of the teaching of Christ has caused to reappear in regions in which for many centuries have shown the splendors of Christian civilization in a manner ever clearer, ever more distinct, ever more distressing, the signs of a corrupt and corrupting paganism.
There was darkness when they crucified Christ. So Pius the 10th tells in 1939 of a new, corrupt, and corrupting paganism in Europe.
He continues, many perhaps, while abandoning the teaching of Christ, were not fully conscious of being led astray by a mirage of glittering phrases which proclaimed such estrangement as an escape from the slavery in which they were before held. Nor did they then foresee the bitter consequences of bartering the truth that sets free for error, which enslaves.
They did not realize that in renouncing the infinitely wise and paternal laws of God and the unifying and elevating doctrines of Christ and of Christ’s love, they were resigning themselves to the whim of poor, fickle human wisdom. They spoke of progress when they were going back, of being raised when they groveled, of arriving at man’s estate when they stooped to servility; they did not perceive the inability of all human effort to replace the law of Christ by anything equal to it. They became vain in their thoughts.
With the weakening of faith in God and in Jesus Christ, and the darkening in man’s minds of the light of moral principles, there disappeared the indispensable foundation of the stability and quiet of that internal and external private and public order which alone can support and safeguard the prosperity of states.
The Catholic Church is the city of God, whose King is truth, whose law is love, and whose measure is eternity. Here, Pope Pius the 12th quotes St Augustine: so preaching fearlessly the whole truth of Christ and toiling as the love of Christ demands with the zeal of a mother stands as a blessed vision of peace above the storm of error and passion, awaiting the moment when the all powerful hand of Christ the King shall quiet the tempest and banish the spirits of discord which have provoked it. In 1939, these words were very current for us. We have to invoke Christ. They are not my words now. We have to invoke Christ, as Pius the 12th said that he may with his powerful hand quiet the tempest and banish the spirits of discord which are now in the midst of the Church and provoke the tempest which we are all witnessing.
You see again the prophetic words of the magisterium. I continue quoting him. And then the Pope, Pius the 12th, in the end of his encyclical from 1939, addresses the little children, the innocent ones in the Church.
And he says, and you white legions of children who are so loved and dear to Jesus, when you receive in Holy Communion the bread of life, raise up your simple and innocent prayers and unite them with those of the universal Church. The heart of Jesus, who loves you, does not resist your suppliant innocence.
Pray everyone. Pray uninterruptedly. Pray without ceasing. So he ended his encyclical. So, today, also my dear brothers and sisters, I am convinced that this unprecedented crisis of the Church, our Lord will resolve it with the little ones in the Church, with the little ones, the innocent, and the other little ones who are not part of what I call the nomenclatura, or the Church, or the administrative power.
So we are, as a clandestine Church here, not part of this administrative power. In some way, we also belong to the little ones. And so I believe that our Lord is also using today real, pure, innocent souls in the Church to overcome the crisis, and He will do this.
So these were my words. I continue with Pius the 12th on the occasion of the canonization of John Fisher and Thomas More. Pope, excuse me, it is now not Pius the 12th, but Pope Pius the 11th.
He said, as Jesus Christ, according to the words of St Paul, is eternal and immutable, yesterday and today and the same forever, so the Church founded by Him is destined never to perish, whereas human institutions give way and disappear before the leveling tide of time, and human sciences reflecting in constant light undergo repeated transformations.
The cross of Christ, reared steadfast above the engulfing billows, never ceases to illumine mankind with the beneficent splendor of eternal truth. From time to time, new heresies make their appearance and, under the guise of truth, gain strength and popularity, but the seamless garment of Christ can never be wrenched in twain.
Unbelievers and enemies of the Catholic faith, blinded by presumption, may indeed constantly renew their violent attacks against the Christian name, but in resting from the bosom of the militant Church, those whom they put to death become the instruments of their martyrdom and of their heavenly glory.
No less beautiful than true are the words of St Leo, the great Pope, who said the religion of Christ, founded on the mystery of the cross, cannot be destroyed by any sort of cruelty. Persecutions do not weaken, they strengthen the Church in some way.
Now, this is my commentary: even the persecutions inside the Church of the true Catholics, of the clandestine Catholics, strengthen the Church. Ultimately, this is my commentary. I continue Pius the 11th. The field of the Lord is ever ripening with new harvests, while the grains shaken loose by the tempest take root and are multiplied. So, Pius the 11th, a great Bishop of our days, the venerable servant of God, Archbishop Fulton Sheen, an American Bishop, made some very striking affirmations which perfectly confirm the prophetic voice of the supreme Magisterium which we quoted.
So I quote Fulton Sheen. Maybe you have already heard these words, but it is good to repeat them. He says the Antichrist will not be so cold. Otherwise, he would have no followers. He will not wear red ties, nor vomit sulfur, nor carry a trident, nor wave an arrowed tail as Mephistopheles in Faust of Goethe. This masquerade has helped the devil convince man that he does not exist. When no one recognizes, the more power he exercises. Even recently, the Superior General of the Jesuits said the devil is a symbol and does not exist. So he is a disciple of this.
I continue. Fulton Sheen says God has defined Himself as I am, who am, and the devil as I am, who am not.
Now, where in Sacred Scripture do we find a warrant for the popular myth of the devil as a buffoon who is dressed like the first red? Rather, is he described as an angel fallen from heaven, as the prince of this world whose business it is to tell us that there is no other world?
His logic is simple. If there is no heaven, there is no hell. If there is no hell, then there is no sin. If there is no sin, then there is no judge. And if there is no judgment, then evil is good and good is evil. So this is the situation today, commonly inside the Church. As a consequence of a wrong interpretation of especially the text of the Pope’s Amoris Laetitia, it leads to these consequences, ultimately to say that good is evil and evil is good.
I continue, Fulton Sheen. But above all these descriptions, our Lord tells us that He will be so much like Himself. So the day Antichrist will be like Christ, so much like Christ that He would deceive even the elect. And certainly no devil ever seen in picture books could deceive even the elect.
How will he come, in this new age, to win followers to his religion? The pre-communist Russian belief is that he will come disguised as the great humanitarian. He will talk peace, prosperity, and plenty not as means to lead as to God, but as ends in themselves.
The third temptation in which Satan asked Christ to adore him and all the kingdoms of the world would be his will become the temptation to have a new religion without cross, without a cross, a liturgy without a world to come, a religion to destroy religion, or a politics which is a religion, one that renders to Caesar even the things that are God’s.
In the midst of all this seeming love for humanity and this glib talk of freedom and equality, he will have one great secret, which he will tell to no one.
He will not believe in God because his religion will be brotherhood without fatherhood of God. He will deceive even the elect. He will set up a counter Church which will be the ape of the Church because he, the devil, is the ape of God. It will have all the notes and characteristics of the Church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content. It will be a mystical body of the Antichrist that will in all externals resemble the Mystical Body of Christ.
So Fulton Sheen in 1948, very up to date. If I were not a Catholic and were looking for the true Church in the world today, I would look for the one Church that did not get along well with the world. In other words, I would look for the Church which the world hates.
My reason for doing this would be that if Christ is in any one of the Churches of the world today, He must still be hated as He was when He was on earth in the flesh. If you would find Christ today, then find a Church that does not get along with the world. Look for the Church that is hated by the world.
Look for this Church, as Christ was hated by the world. Look for the Church which the world rejects because it claims it is infallible. As Pilate rejected Christ because He called Himself the truth. If the Church is unpopular with the spirit of the world, then it is unworldly the Church. And if it is unworldly, it is otherworldly. Since it is otherworldly, it is infinitely loved and infinitely hated. Now, as was Christ Himself, the world may disagree with the Church, but the world knows very definitely what it is disagreeing with. In the future, as in the past, the Church will be intolerant of the sanctity of marriage. You look very up-to-date. Fulton Sheen says the Church, as in the past and as in the future, will always be intolerant about the sanctity of marriage.
Today is the contrary. It seems they are tolerant of the unsanctity of marriage. For what God has joined together, no man shall put asunder. She will be intolerant of her creed and be ready to die for it. For she fears not those who kill the body but rather those who have the power to cast body and soul into hell. Tolerance applies to the erring, intolerance to the error. Architects are as intolerant about sand as foundations for skyscrapers as doctors are intolerant about germs in the laboratory. Tolerance does not apply to truth or principles about these things. We must be intolerant. And for this kind of intolerance, so much needed to rouse us from sentimental gush, intolerance of this kind is the foundation of all stability.
What will become of the world if the Church does not conserve the Spirit of God? The Church, however, will conserve the Spirit of God only on the condition that she combats the spirit which is contrary to God. When the Church is attacked, she will defend herself. This is her right and her duty.
What had been announced to her divine spouse. This is the history of the Church. Rule in the midst of your enemies. The Church, Jesus, the Church is always a queen, but also always weak. Her role on earth is to be militant. More than once, she seemed to be defeated. In our time, her exterior kingdom seems to decline.
It was told to the Church through the prophets, they would fight against you, yet they will not overcome you. Yet the prophet of the last time, St John, has another language: it was allowed to the beast to make war on the saints and to conquer them. However, this victory of the last moment will be the prelude to the next defeat and to a definitive ruin. When you are condemned to see the triumph of evil, you should never acclaim. You should never say to the evil that you are good. You should never say that the decadence you are progressing. You should never say to the night You are the light. You should never say to death You are the life. Sanctify yourselves in the time in which God has placed you. Deplore the evils and the disorders which God tolerates. Oppose them with the energy of your works and your efforts, your whole life .