I’m joined by a face very well known to those of you familiar with LifeSite, Bishop Athanasius Schneider. Bishop Athanasius, thank you so much for joining me. I wonder, would you lead us off in a prayer?
Bishop Schneider: Yes. In nomine patris, et filii, et spiritus sancti. Amen
Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum; benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Jesus. Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen. Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto, sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in saecula saeculorum. Amen.
In nomine patris, et filii, et spiritus sancti. Amen
Host: Thank you very much, Your Excellency. Your Excellency, I wanted to start by asking you a little bit about your own upbringing in the Mass and in the faith, because I think it has a lot of correlations to today. You’ve mentioned previously how, when you were younger, priests would come in secret to your house to say Mass in secret and to give you the sacraments clandestinely.
I think in light of the recent restrictions on the traditional Mass, many Catholics are not experiencing persecution in quite the same sense, but they are encountering difficulties in finding the traditional Mass. I wonder if you might have any advice or words for them.
Bishop Schneider: I consider it a great grace in my life, a gift from God, that I had the possibility to grow up in the clandestine Church, the underground Church, where we had hidden Masses with holy priests. This experience helped me to treasure even more the Holy Mass, this greatest treasure God left us, Jesus Christ Himself, here on Earth.
Now, as you mentioned, we are in a situation very rare in the history of the Church. Faithful Catholics are no longer persecuted by enemies outside the Church, but in some ways, they are marginalized, restricted, and even despised only because they wish to remain faithful to the form of the Holy Mass celebrated by their fathers and ancestors. They seek the traditional rite of the Mass, which so many saints throughout the millennia have cherished, celebrated, and participated in.
Today, they are sometimes forced to make long journeys to find this venerable form of the Holy Mass, or to celebrate it in semi-clandestine ways. But I would like to encourage all the faithful and priests: please remain faithful to the venerable Mass of the saints, the millennium-old form of the Mass of your ancestors, the very Mass through which the faith was passed to you.
Let us remember that, since you are from England, the Holy Mass first brought by St. Augustine, the Apostle of England, under Pope St. Gregory the Great, is essentially the same Mass we now call the traditional Mass. This Mass has undergone no substantial changes since the time of St. Gregory the Great, as proven by historical documents.
In France, Germany, Spain, Poland, Ireland, and other Catholic countries, the saints and apostles grew up with this venerable Roman Mass for centuries. Therefore, we cannot simply abandon it. We have a sacred duty to hand down this venerable form to the next generations. God will bless all the sacrifices that faithful Catholics and priests make for the sake of fidelity to this form of the Holy Mass. Truly, God will bless these efforts with abundant graces.