Transcript:
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: I think one of the basic errors of our time is relativism, regarding doctrine. That means there is no permanent and unchanging truth. According to this, relativism and truths can change. This is one of humanity’s greatest dangers: to play God, to take the place of God, to reject God. This is the highest form of idolatry and the most dangerous spiritual virus.
Jim Havens: Hey, I’m Jim Havens, good to meet you. I host a radio show called The Simple Truth, where we pursue the good, true, and beautiful, and proclaim the life-giving reality of Jesus and his Catholic Church. Stick around if you like it, give it a thumbs up, and let us know what you think in the comments below. So again, the name of the book is Credo: Compendium of the Catholic Faith, from Sophia Institute Press. SophiaInstitute.com. It’s got the imprimatur there by the Bishop of Manchester, New Hampshire, July 7, 2023.
On the page right before the table of contents, you have two short quotes. One is Luke 6:48, “when a flood came, the waters beat fiercely upon that house and could not shake it, for it was founded upon a rock.” And then also from St. Ambrose, “the simple faith of truth is greater than the ambitious lie of eloquence.”
Bishop, why these quotes, and why this Compendium now?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Well, faith is the greatest gift God gave us. This is the supernatural knowledge of God and His eternal truth, and therefore, we have to keep this treasure with much care, attention, and love.
The faith is compared in Holy Scripture, by our Lord himself, to a rock. This is the solid foundation, this is the beginning. Without faith, no one can be saved, it is said. And so we have to strengthen our faith evermore, always, as we hear in the Holy Scripture, in the Gospel, a man was crying out, “O, Lord, strengthen my faith.”
And the Lord gives this gift to us, and the entire church is keeping the faith. We have the documents of the faith, the Credo, the symbol of faith, for example, and especially the catechisms, which are a clear, unambiguous explanation of the main truths of our faith. And therefore, I also quoted St. Ambrose, who says that the simple faith is stronger, it’s more valuable than any eloquence of ambiguity. And today, we are witnessing this within the church, this eloquence, these words that pretend to explain the faith, but they are often full of ambiguity. And this has no value in the eyes of God, ambiguity about faith, only the simplicity, the purity, integrity, and solidness of faith.
Jim Havens: Thank you so much for writing this book; it’s a very valuable text. And you write in the preface that in preparing this text, “my intended audience has been chiefly God’s little ones, faithful Catholics who are hungry for the bread of right doctrine. It is therefore in obedience to my duty towards them, laid upon me in my Episcopal consecration, to preach the truth in season and out of season. See Second Timothy 4:2, that I published this Compendium at the present time.” End of quote.
What more can you tell us about how you view your responsibility as a bishop to faithful Catholics who are hungry for the bread of right doctrine?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: A bishop is, by his nature, by his ordination, a successor of the apostles. And so we have to live as bishops, as the apostles did. We have to preach as the apostles did. And we have these examples in the writings of the apostles, and then in the writings of their immediate disciples, the Apostolic Fathers and the other Church Fathers. And this is the same voice of the Church of all times. The faith has always been preached in the same meaning, in the same sense, for 2000 years. Therefore, the bishop is also called the teacher of faith by the ordination rite. And even more, he is not only the teacher of faith, but a bishop is a witness of truth because this is the truth.
So I would say the substantial mission of a bishop is like that of St. Paul. It was said, “I handed over to you what I have received only,” so the bishop has nothing to invent or to adapt to the spirit of the world or to philosophies, but simply to hand over what he received. This is the task of a bishop. He is an administrator, a steward. He is not the owner of the faith; he is a servant and so a witness of what we heard, what we received from our Lord, Jesus Christ, from the apostles, through the uninterrupted, living tradition of the faith. What we witness, we know the faith the bishop has to witness and to transmit this and to teach it.
Jim Havens: Yes, thank you, Your Excellency. So we’re talking with Bishop Athanasius Schneider about his new book, Credo: Compendium of the Catholic Faith, published by Sophia Institute Press, SophiaInstitute.com.
Bishop, this work that you’ve put together here is so helpful in applying the faith to popular errors of our time. We’ve got the universal catechism promulgated by Pope John Paul the Second, St. John Paul the Second, 1992. So much has happened since then, so many new errors, and you attack them head-on. You shed light on them head-on, and you help us to understand how to navigate. I want to ask you first, before I kind of bring up some of the ones that I noticed here, but what do you think is really top of the list that you would really want to share with people in understanding any sort of popular error of our time, and helping people to navigate it?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Well, I think one of the basic errors of our time is relativism regarding doctrine. That means there is no permanent and unchanging truth. According to this, relativism and truth can always change. This is a consequence of a wrong philosophy, of Hegel, for example, Hegelianism, or the Marxist materialist vision, which despises doctrine and truth, and only states the practice, so without truth. In our lives, we are in danger in the life of the church for decades, where the truth is relativized. And in one sentence, they affirm the truth, let us say, that marriage is indissoluble, the Catholic marriage sacramental. And then they can state that, but in some cases, those who are divorced and live with a new partner, a stable partnership, can, in some cases, go to Holy Communion. So you see, this practice is undermining the truth, which is stated in this as a de facto denial, a relativization of the truth. And so we can now, with the new norms of admitting homosexual couples to be godparents, this is the same undermining of the truth that homosexuality is a sin. The practice of this, and the ideology of homosexuality, is against God’s order and truth.
Jim Havens: I mean, you’re really getting at, as you already spoke about, the relativism, and now we’re seeing it played out at a larger and larger scale in our culture, certainly in the nation I’m in, the United States, but all around the world. We need to understand this. We need to live the truth on this. It is authentically loving to share this truth with others and live it to the full, not go along with the coercion and the pressure, the pride of human regard that tries to get us to just be quiet and go along with it. Anything more you would like to share with us on this today?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Yes, this is one of the greatest dangers of humanity, to play God, to take the place of God, to reject God.
God, as he revealed himself in creation, in evidence, and to create his own world. This is basically a revolt against God, to make an anti-creation, to be God in the place of God. This is the highest form of idolatry, and so, these phenomena as transhumanism and gender ideology, are examples that are manifesting themselves concretely. This attitude of anti-creation, of pride, of revolt against God. And therefore, this is basically in the deepest root, ultimately satanic, because Satan is revolting always against God, wanting to take the place of God, even not being God, to take the place and the prerogatives of God as a creator, and to establish a world where there is no place for God, the creator.
And this is in our day, the modern culture. This is the true spiritual sickness and the most dangerous spiritual virus of opposing God, dethroning God, even as the creator. But this will collapse and not succeed because this form of creation cannot exist; this technology of transhumanism will not succeed. And all these transsexual and gender ideology practices are destroying human beings and will not succeed. And therefore, the nature which God created is stronger and will remain, and we have the hope that humanity has enough power and force given by the nature by God to resist this diabolical hubris and revolt against the creator.
Jim Havens: Was that a helpful video for you? I sure hope so. That’s why we do this show, to help real people get real results, advancing in the way, the truth, and the life that we’re made for. It’s called The Simple Truth. It’s a radio program Monday through Friday, and we live-stream it right here on this channel. Make sure to subscribe, like, and share, if you would be so kind, and if you liked that last video, here’s another one. I think you might get a lot out of.