Jim Havens: You also say later in the book that right now we are experiencing the widespread apostasy of bishops and cardinals. Tell us more about what you are seeing.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: We can simply state these facts. It has been evident in the decades since the council that the majority of episcopal nominations done by the Holy See and by the nuncios promoted priests who were not zealous in defending and promoting the integrity of the Catholic faith, but so-called compromise candidates. Compromise candidates are neither cold nor hot. They are in the middle, and such people will always yield to the attacks of the world and compromise the Catholic faith and liturgy. We could observe this.
In those dioceses, we could see that in the last fifty or sixty years, these compromise candidates, even though they were not explicit heretics or immoral people, were always compromising and yielding or acting with ambiguity. This is not the standard of an apostolic man like the apostles, the Church Fathers, and the great bishops of history. This is the characteristic required of a candidate for the episcopacy and even more for a cardinal. Unfortunately, such candidates were promoted very much by the Holy See. We have to state this. We cannot remain silent about it, and this responsibility ultimately lies with the Holy See.
In the time of Pope Gregory the Great, at the end of the sixth century, he was very demanding in appointing bishops. He made careful inquiries and sometimes waited a long time before appointing a bishop, or he simply did not appoint one because he did not find a good candidate. He was very careful, and some bishops rebuked him for being so demanding. He stressed the importance of finding good candidates. He answered these bishops by telling them to go and seek, and they would find them. Good candidates are sometimes hidden, so one must seek them or simply wait.
A diocese can be vacant for a considerable time, and the Church and the faithful will continue to believe. They will still have the sacraments and their priests, as we did in Soviet times. For decades, we had very few priests, but the Catholic faith was transmitted, taught, and lived in Catholic families. It is better to leave a diocese without a bishop for some years rather than appoint a compromise or weak candidate who will be ambiguous and allow the spread of modernism and liberalism in his diocese.