Robert Moynihan: Hello. I’m Robert Moynihan, the editor of Inside the Vatican magazine, and I have the honor of having with me Bishop Athanasius Schneider, speaking from Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, which is just tucked in underneath, sort of the belly of Russia, and was part of the Soviet Union. You are there now. It’s March 9. We are watching a world where many tensions and divisions exist in the church and between nations. There are wars and rumors of wars, but people are saying, here’s someone saying they like to hear you. We have 50 or so people watching us live, and we appreciate all of you very much. This is someone whose email is divine intervention, Ontario, Canada. I so love to listen to Bishop Schneider. We pray for him daily, and he gives me a certain peace.
Thank you very much. I would say this is why I also enjoy you so much and feel honored to talk with you. You’ve become a point of certainty and clarity on many issues. Some people have also criticized you, so we wanted to talk through one of those points in particular, where you speak about other religions and the extent to which the Catholic faith is the one true faith, and the salvation of Jesus Christ is the one true salvation. As a bishop and as an evangelist, you want everyone to come toward it. You feel the modern church, in some way, with the idea that in nature, in natural goodness, and natural law, and even in other faiths, there are seeds of virtue and faith. There can be the Samaritan who is not Christian and not Jewish, but he is still Jesus, in His parable, who says the Samaritan was the good neighbor. So when you speak about the necessity of faith in Christ and the truth of the church and the lack of that truth in other religions, you are not really being disrespectful to anybody. You are opening the door for everyone to come toward the full truth. I wanted you to talk about this question, and do you think you have been rightly understood regarding your position on this?
Bishop Schneider: Well, I think not so rightly. But first, I would like, if you permit, to make a rectification. We cannot say other faiths. There is only one faith. Faith is the divine gift of faith in the Holy Trinity, in the divine revelation. There is only one divine revelation, which God revealed in the Old Testament and fully in His incarnated Son. There is no other divine revelation, and only those who accept the full divine revelation in Jesus Christ are believers. Only they have faith. Others have no faith, no supernatural faith, maybe human faith, and therefore it is not correct, and it is misleading to say faith in the plural. There is only one faith. This is the divine. Through three divine virtues, supernatural faith, hope, and charity, which are infused by God into the soul by baptism. This is first, we must always distinguish between a person who is in error and the error itself. These are the non-Christian religions, and the error itself, I mean the system of this religion, we must reject, not the person. On the contrary, we must have deep compassion for this person. I have compassion for everyone who does not know Jesus Christ. I have compassion for everyone who denies Christ.
How poor is this soul, the Lord, who here on earth shed His precious blood for them, and they reject Him. It is sad. We must have compassion, and this is my attitude, to bring them to Jesus Christ, to recognize their Savior. They are enslaved in error. There is only one way to God. Jesus Christ Himself said, No one goes to the Father except through me. And the first Pope, Peter, proclaimed solemnly, there is no other name given to all people in which they can be saved except Jesus Christ. This is the truth. If there are some elements of truth in other religions, it is not because of this religion, which is a way not pleasing to God. Non-Christian religion is a way displeasing to God, which God forbids in the first commandment. It is a serious offense, objective, not subjective. I speak objectively. If there are some true elements, it is for two explanations. First, some are remnants of the original revelation which God gave to Adam and Eve, to the fathers of the human race, and still remain in the human race.
These elements can remain, but are sometimes mixed with error. Second, if there are some true elements, it is simply because of common sense, which all human people have, and third, because of the natural light of reason. There is a dogma of faith of the First Vatican Council, which states it is a revealed dogma of faith that a human being is capable of recognizing God to know God by the natural light of reason. Therefore, in this natural light, there are positive elements in false religions, not because of false religions, but because of the divine gift of the natural light of reason. The same Council continues to say that this natural light of reason is oftentimes obscured by the devil, deception, passions, and sins. For example, in many Eastern religions, people display exterior signs of reverence, like prostrations, bowing, and kneeling. This is common. It is not because of the religion. It is common to all people. We have to stress this.
Robert Moynihan: You’re saying that human nature, given by God through Adam and Eve to all men, gives us a common basis.
Bishop Schneider: This is called, in theology, the original revelation.
Robert Moynihan: And this is part of that. It is a kind of orientation toward what may be holy or divine that opens us to be drawn toward it. But then there is also the problem of the fall, the passions, and being drawn toward sin.
Bishop Schneider: And also, not only that, there is the influence and deception of the evil spirits of Satan.
Robert Moynihan: We should talk about that, but the first point I wanted to get across is that people on the progressive side of the church have started to say, All roads lead to God, God willed all these religions. You could analyze this and say there is some element of truth, but it is not entirely true. This has been your debate with Pope Francis.
Bishop Schneider: It is not only somewhat wrong, but it is also completely wrong, and it completely contradicts divine revelation. Jesus Christ said there is no way at all to God except through me. This is the earth, not of the church, but of Jesus Christ, the incarnate God Himself. The first commandment is severe: You shall not have other gods besides me. This includes other religions. The first commandment refers to God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Holy Trinity.
Robert Moynihan: There has been a tendency in the modernist period to be ecumenical. First with other Christians, then with the Jews who are not Christians but share the Old Testament. Then, with Muslims, who are not Christians or Jews, but share reverence for the Virgin Mary, many stories in common, and a belief in a kind of monotheism. And so we feel some possibility of discussing things. Then there are atheists who say there is no God, but may be moral or have moral principles. We reach out to them. But the modern crisis in ecumenism seems to be leaving Jesus aside because He is a dividing factor, leaving the Catholic Church aside because it is a dividing factor. The approach is to respect each group of people and work with them on social projects, without evangelizing them. In other words, it is an entirely new sense of church mission, which leaves Jesus aside. You have criticized this. You say it crept into some teachings of the Second Vatican Council, into the meeting in Assisi in 1986, when all religious leaders were invited to pray separately in the same city, and now in the Abu Dhabi document, even a meeting in Kazakhstan. Can you explain what has happened with teaching about mission, evangelization, keeping Christ at the center, and modern people saying, let’s leave Christ out, accept these people, and work together as friends?
Bishop Schneider: This position, to live without Christ, is a betrayal of Christ, a betrayal of the gospel. We have to state this in the church. If it were otherwise, our Lord would have told the apostles to go and dialogue with other religions. He did not. He said, Go and teach all nations, all people. The apostles, if they had only dialoged, would not have died as martyrs. St Paul would not have been stoned by the Jews. Always, when he entered a synagogue, St Paul proclaimed Christ. He was expelled, flagellated, and stoned because he proclaimed Christ. Even when he spoke in the Areopagus in Athens, he spoke about Christ, His resurrection, chastity, and penance. They said, Go away, we will hear you next time. Paul proclaimed Christ.
This is our task. We can be charitable to all people, to all religions, but we must also proclaim, with conviction, charity, patience, and clarity, the uniqueness of Jesus Christ. Invite them kindly to accept their Savior. This is the task of every Christian. We will be asked at the judgment of Christ if we were ashamed of Him. Christ will ask, Who was ashamed of Me? We will answer. I was ashamed of Him before My Father in heaven.
For 2000 years, preaching Christ to other religions has involved martyrdom. In the first 300 years, the missionaries and apostles were killed. We have martyrs because we evangelized Christ to Jews. The first martyrs were apostles, then Muslims; many martyrs in Spain under Islamic dominion. The first Franciscan martyrs proclaimed Christ to Muslims in Morocco. Francis himself, when he went to the Sultan, did not engage in simple dialogue. He proclaimed, Accept Jesus Christ, your Savior. He was not ashamed. The history of the church is full of missionaries who were martyrs. Evangelizing non-Christians, even at the price of martyrdom, is the true mark of the church until the end of time. Evangelize Jews today, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and atheists. If you do not, you show a lack of love for your neighbor. Christ will judge that you did not give them food and drink. They were hungry and thirsty for truth, for Christ, living in the darkness of false religions or rejection of Christ. They were spiritually hungry and thirsty, in spiritual prison, and you did not give them the true food, the gospel. Christ says this in the 25th chapter of Matthew. The universal judgment regards not only material needs but spiritual needs as well.
Robert Moynihan: You are referring to when Jesus says, When the Son of Man comes, He will ask, When did you give Me to eat and I was hungry? They will say, We gave food to the poor. He will say, Thank you. But He is also saying, Give the food of faith.
Bishop Schneider: First, we are created with an immortal soul. The body will die, but the soul will not. The soul is immortal. The soul thirsts for truth, and what is truth? Truth is Christ. He said, I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. There is no other way. There is no other truth than Christ. When there are some elements or seeds, it is because of God’s primary revelation to Adam and Eve. It is because of common sense. It is because of the natural light of reason which God gave, not because of false religions. In philosophy, St. Justin coined the expression “logos spermatikos,” in Greek. He referred it not to pagan religions but to philosophy.
Robert Moynihan: Explain again. Logos spermatikos is the seeds of the Logos?
Bishop Schneider: Yes, the seeds of the Logos. He referred it to philosophy, to reason, not to false religions.
Robert Moynihan: These are critical points. In the early church, Christian preachers said you already have some pathways toward Christ in your greatest philosophers, who speak of the true, the good, the beautiful, as in Platonic philosophy. We bring you the fullness of that and the incarnate reality in Jesus Christ, but you already knew the pathway led toward Him from your greatest philosophers.
Bishop Schneider: Yes, St Justin and the first fathers, like Irenaeus, Tertullian, Origen, the first apologetics, said to the pagans, Your religion is a religion of demons. They spoke boldly, without diplomacy. They invited the pagans, Please leave your gods, who are demons, and come to the true faith.
Robert Moynihan: Yes, demons and passions which are not led by Logos and reason, and not directed finally toward Christ. These are returning today, which is why our lives are filled with fears of crazy, demonic actions, trafficking of women, even children, and terrible crimes. You dealt with all these questions of truth and the centrality of Jesus, and how it has been diminished a little in modern times in the church. In your book, Credo, which means I believe, a person from Ontario, divine intervention, wrote, His Excellency’s book Credo has become my go-to. This is a kind of catechism or a compendium of the teaching of the Church, correct?
When you wrote it after the COVID period and published it in 2023, is that correct? Did you feel that the catechism of 1992-1993, prepared under the committee of Cardinal Ratzinger and Cardinal Schönborn, lacked something? Or is this a new catechism, which, even at that time, they said could be produced in various parts of the world to deal with questions that people in different regions have? You were in Kazakhstan, and yet you travel a great deal. What was your purpose in writing Credo?
Bishop Schneider: First, the Catechism of 1992, the so-called Catholic Catechism of the Catholic Church, was written at the beginning of the 1990s, more than 30 years ago. The times have changed. There is a new generation with new problems that were not addressed at that time, such as gender ideology, transhumanism, same-sex couples, and the growing pagan ecology religion. There are new questions. Second, the style of the 1992 Catechism is difficult for ordinary people to read. It is written like a theological tract. I thought it would be good to write in a traditional short form, question and short answers, which is pedagogically more efficient.
I also addressed new topics absent in the 1992 catechism and took the opportunity to kindly correct ambiguous expressions in some affirmations of the Second Vatican Council and of Pope Francis, with respect, simply quoting the acts of the Council. They are accessible online, in Latin. I found valuable arguments and quoted them.
Robert Moynihan: This is very interesting. I did not know that you were such a research scholar, that you went into the records of the debates at the council and analyzed what bishops said about different passages. You have now synthesized that in your Credo.
Bishop Schneider: Yes, you can see I quoted it in my footnotes.
Robert Moynihan: What is one thing that most struck you, that you discovered?
Bishop Schneider: For example, the very difficult question of so-called religious freedom, which is much misunderstood.
Robert Moynihan: That is all of us. In America, we have a country that talks about liberty and freedom, and it is an idea that we all accept. But we also think that when freedom is granted to something satanic, we have gone wrong. What is true freedom and true religious freedom, and to what extent should a government permit it?
Bishop Schneider: I found very convincing arguments on this topic in the debates of the council fathers, and I quoted them, not my words. So what is freedom? What is the meaning of freedom? Freedom is a gift of God, and it is part of our nature. But it was given by God, the Creator, for one purpose only: to do good and to recognize and accept the truth, not error. Freedom to sin is not freedom; it is abuse. Adam and Eve abused the divine gift of freedom very seriously, and we now all suffer from this abuse. All the evils of the world are consequences of Adam and Eve’s abuse of freedom. Death, the gates of heaven closed to us, and all the sufferings of soul and body are consequences of this.
Therefore, God commanded us to use freedom only for good, concretely, to avoid sin. You cannot claim you have freedom to choose sin or to spread sin, even collectively, and insist you should not be limited by any government because of your conscience, even if your conscience is innocently erroneous. A person may be innocently wrong in conscience, but this does not give the right to publicly spread your decision of sin or error.
God gave freedom of religion only to choose the one true religion, which He commanded us to believe in His divine Son, in His holy Church. God gives us the freedom not to believe, and this must be respected by government, but this does not mean that God gives the freedom to choose error, to choose something against His first commandment, a false religion, and to spread it unimpeded worldwide. That cannot be a natural right. The liberty to choose even a wrong religion and to spread it socially, collectively, unimpededly, is not a right of nature. It contradicts the meaning of freedom God gave and contradicts the divine commandment. Therefore, it can be restricted.
Civil liberty depends on historical circumstances and the country. In a country that is 100% Catholic, parents will not allow their children to be influenced by the propaganda of false religions, cults, or sects that would spoil the soul, intellect, and faith of children and young people. Giving the same freedom of propaganda to false religions as the Catholic faith is not true and violates the fundamental rights of the Catholic majority. This is the problem with the document Dignitatis Humanae.
Robert Moynihan: Dignitatis Humanae?
Bishop Schneider: Yes. Dignitatis Humanae from the Vatican Council states that choosing religion, even a wrong religion, and spreading it collectively is rooted in human dignity. This is similar to what Pope Francis says in the Abu Dhabi document. The Abu Dhabi phrase says the diversity of sexes, nations, languages, cultures, and religions is a manifestation of the wise will of God. This is impossible. It contradicts divine revelation and the first commandment. The Abu Dhabi phrase essentially expresses the same as Dignitatis Humanae from the Second Vatican Council, when we are honest.
When Pope Francis returned from Abu Dhabi, a journalist asked if the Abu Dhabi phrase could be reconciled with Catholic teaching. The pope answered energetically that the phrase in Abu Dhabi is not a millimeter away from what the Second Vatican Council said about freedom of religion in Dignitatis Humanae. In this case, I agree with him. There are other cases where I do not agree, but in this statement, I agree.
Robert Moynihan: Okay, you’ve touched on so many important things. I’m trying to synthesize. Modern religion is often characterized as relativism. Relativism, modernism, means you have your faith, your truth, I have mine, but none of us can impose it on anyone else, because there is no objective truth. We are groping toward the truth. We may think we have found it, but we cannot actually know it, and we cannot tell anyone we have found it. If we do, we are seen as evil, against the freedom of others. Everyone is free to choose their own truth. This is modern relativism.
The Catholic Church has always taught that there is truth. We seek it, pray for it, and can find it. It is in Jesus Christ. Joseph Ratzinger said we face a great crisis, which he called the dictatorship of relativism. Relativism has taken the highest power in society and told us, You can do anything, but you cannot say there is truth. It is all relative. This is the dictatorship, a kind of satanic dictatorship. For some people, even abusing children may not be wrong. Moral teaching, the love and holiness of God as the fundamental reality of the universe, is denied. Effectively, pluralism is considered good. Diversity is good.
The entire battle for our culture and the soul of man is fought in these questions. This entered somehow into the document of the Second Vatican Council that you cited. You studied what the fathers at the council debated about that document. Did you find any disagreement or concern about those passages?
Bishop Schneider: Of course. I quoted them. Some council fathers rejected the phrase proposed in Dignitatis Humanae, which I quoted. Several bishops and cardinals during the council debate stood up and, with good arguments, rejected it.
Robert Moynihan: Just say, what did they reject?
Bishop Schneider: As I said, I explained that the freedom God gave is only to choose the true religion, the truth. This is the meaning of freedom. It is not freedom to choose false religions that offend God. Religious freedom also means you are free to believe in Him, to choose Him freely, and not to be forced to believe in God, even the true God.
Robert Moynihan: Okay, this is important because.
Bishop Schneider: This is rooted in nature. The Church always thought this was not an item of discussion during the council; it was traditional teaching. But this principle has been mixed up, confused, and taken to another level, which I explained. Some interpreted it to mean that you are free, without impediment, to choose, practice, and spread a false religion, even with an innocently erroneous conscience. I quoted the explanations of some council fathers during the debate in my Credo. This is unacceptable. This is not given by God. This is not true freedom. True freedom means you cannot be forced.
Robert Moynihan: And there was a passage written to be inserted that never went in, or a passage entered that they objected to but won a majority vote. How did that work out?
Bishop Schneider: Unfortunately, the majority voted for these ambiguous, and I would say erroneous, phrases.
Robert Moynihan: Could we say that the 1960s were dominated by a mentality of opening up to a global world? Let’s permit economic freedom, theological freedom. Protestants in Northern Europe, Catholics in Southern Europe. We are going into Asia, finding Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists. Let’s allow the Church, and maybe even certain governments, to be less focused on Christ and His unique truth, more as a friendly, relativistic organization, honoring seeds of truth wherever they find them. Perhaps there was support to put this passage into that document, and it continued through the post-conciliar church. Is this a danger? Can this happen at a council?
Bishop Schneider: Of course. It is relativism, as you explained. Such an attitude is pure relativism.
Robert Moynihan: But can we say the council document contains a mistake?
Bishop Schneider: Evidently, yes. I quoted it. It is relativistic; it relativizes.
Robert Moynihan: But isn’t the council the highest teaching authority of the Church?
Bishop Schneider: No, because the council did not intend this document to propose definitive teaching. The council abstained from proclaiming a dogma or definitive teaching on religious freedom.
Robert Moynihan: Was there an effort made to proclaim it as such?
Bishop Schneider: At the beginning of the council, Pope John XXIII, and during the council, repeatedly said the council had no intention or aim to proclaim a dogma or definitive doctrine. Our aim, as John XXIII said and Paul VI repeated, was primarily pastoral. Pastoral means explanation of the faith, using new terms, but not definitive teaching. Therefore, considering that the council did not intend this phrase as definitive teaching, but only as a pastoral explanation of religious freedom, it is open to correction.
Robert Moynihan: Okay, I agree. I thought this for a long time.
Bishop Schneider: Allow me to give a historical example, where a council text was later corrected de facto, even in doctrine: the Council of Florence in the 15th century.
Robert Moynihan: 1429, or was it later, 1439?
Bishop Schneider: The Council of Florence established a decree for the Armenians, where the so-called matter and form of the sacraments were listed. For the sacrament of orders, the ordination to the priesthood, the matter was established as the handing over of the chalice by the bishop to the candidate. This was the matter, and the laying on of hands was only mentioned. But this was strange. This doctrine started in the late Middle Ages. In the first millennium, even in the Latin Church and the entire Oriental Church, they only had the laying on of hands.
After the Councils of Florence and Trent, theologians began to reflect and said, This does not correspond to the great tradition of the Church, and we must correct it. They started to teach that the laying on of hands is the essential matter of ordination. In spite of the text of the Council of Florence, the Holy See did not forbid presenting another interpretation contrary to the council’s teaching. The Holy See was very open, saying this council did not intend to proclaim anything formally or definitively. Therefore, theologians were free to present another explanation, focusing on the laying on of hands.
Over the centuries, after the Council of Trent, until the 20th century, this view matured. By the 19th century, almost all serious Catholic theologians agreed that the matter of ordination is the laying on of hands. They were not accused of being against the council or unfaithful to it. This was a legitimate discussion and a polite correction of the Council of Florence.
Then, in 1947, Pope Pius XII established in a solemn apostolic constitution that the only matter of ordination is the laying on of hands, not the handing over of the chalice. With this, Florence was formally clarified by the magisterium, thanks to the freedom of discussion over the previous centuries.
This is also my appeal regarding religious freedom. Always present it as a gift of freedom. Do not condemn those who do not accept the formulation of Dignitatis Humanae, but propose a correction, clarification, or improvement, as the Church has done for centuries. This is the honest way to handle it, rather than twisting the text or trying to make a square circle.
Unfortunately, in discussions between the Holy See and the Society of St. Pius X since Monsignor Lefebvre, the Holy See has insisted, as Cardinal Fernández repeated, that the council cannot be corrected. The Society must accept it. How can they accept this formulation, which is internally ambiguous, without the freedom to propose clarification or correction? Theologians corrected the Council of Florence without scandal, because the council did not intend to proclaim a dogma.
My appeal is for prudence. We cannot force the Society to accept immediately. Give them time, allow symposiums and discussions. This may take years. Allow Episcopal consecrations as a step closer to integration with the Church, so that further discussion can benefit all.
Robert Moynihan: This has been magisterial, presenting your position that the crisis with the Society of St. Pius X could be addressed if Rome allows more time to discuss this. You say they should, because there is time and freedom to discuss points that the Society finds difficult to accept. Cardinal Fernández says it must be accepted. You are showing precedence for some changes, including in the nature of ordination: whether it was the handing of the chalice or the laying on of hands. In 1439, they said it was the handing of the chalice, but over the next decades, theologians said this did not correspond with the first millennium practice.
Bishop Schneider: Not decades, centuries. It was a process of centuries.
Robert Moynihan: And finally, Pius XII in 1947 officially corrected a passage from the Council of Florence. You are providing an argument to resolve this impasse. Part of it is that the Second Vatican Council was pastoral, with no intention of issuing dogmatic statements or definitive doctrines. Its purpose was to explain and teach the faith in a new, post-World War II, global context, to open doors, go out, and talk to people, to explain the teaching about Jesus Christ, but not create new dogmas or doctrines. Yet it has been treated as if it did. This is the error.
The main points are the freedom of religion, which the Society feels was exaggerated, misinterpreted, or even incorrect. Rome says, you cannot change it. So there is an impasse, and you are proposing a way to reconcile it over time, through discussion and reflection, to help heal a wound that could otherwise become very serious if bishops were consecrated and excommunicated.
Bishop Schneider: We must reconcile with the truth. Only the truth sets us free, but we cannot twist arguments or perform mental acrobatics. We cannot base decisions on something ambiguous. The text must be corrected. Explanations alone are not sufficient or convincing.
Robert Moynihan: In this process, you actually examined the council debates and found evidence that certain fathers, even speaking to other bishops, said, We cannot use this passage; its formulation contradicts what we believe.
Bishop Schneider: Yes. In one of the last votes on this document, about 250 or 270 bishops opposed it. In the final round, Pope Paul VI exerted moral pressure, asking them to vote in favor. This was a limitation of their freedom. As a result, the negative votes dropped to 50 or 70. Even then, 50 or 70 bishops still opposed it.
Robert Moynihan: This is about the concept of human freedom, the freedom to do good or otherwise. The debate takes place in a relativistic world. The Society and Church traditions have strong support for your position. You are asking for the freedom to continue the debate.
Bishop Schneider: Exactly, as the Church allowed in past centuries.
Robert Moynihan: Also, we’ve had a kind gift of 10 British pounds from Curtis White for our podcast. Curtis, if we meet in Rome, we will have a cappuccino and remember you in our prayers. He has a question worth posing: His Excellency, will God permit man to become so totally controlled by a technocratic elite that he no longer has free will? Must free will remain so we can choose God?
Bishop Schneider: Of course. We will undoubtedly keep our free will. It is God’s gift to do good, to proclaim Jesus, to unite with Christ, and to go to heaven. No technocratic elite can take away free will. Be confident. Even when we are ready to die, like the first Christians, we can freely do good and refuse to obey the evil of elites. Our Lord is still the ruler of the world, not the elites. Heaven and earth are full of His glory. Despite darkness, He is Lord, and we are the winners. Christ is the winner. Even as a despised minority, Christ is with us. If Christ is with us, who can be against us.
Robert Moynihan: Beautifully put. Can we see a picture of the island for the retreat? In mid-June, the monastery is on an island off the coast of Croatia. We will stay there. The rooms have air conditioning. June is not too hot. You can swim, and the boat brings us there. There is no road or bridge. You arrive by water taxi, then walk to the monastery. There is a chapel, an Adoration Chapel, an organic garden where we eat vegetables, time for reflections with Bishop Schneider, discussions, meals, and time for quiet prayer. This retreat is to return refreshed, strengthened, enlightened, and courageous. Please consider joining us.
Could you give your blessing, Bishop Schneider?
Bishop Schneider: You are welcome.
Dominus vobiscum, et cum, spiritu tuo. Et benedictio dei omnipotentis, Patris et Filii et spiritus Santi descendant, super vos et maneat semper. Amen.
Robert Moynihan: Amen. Thank you, Your Excellency.