Mia Barhoush: We are glad to have with us today His Excellency Bishop Athanasius Schneider, who is visiting us in Lebanon for the second time. Welcome, Your Excellency.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Thank you very much for your invitation.
Mia Barhoush: Can you tell us briefly what the purpose of your coming here?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Well, I was invited by the Marian Movement of Priests in Lebanon. This movement is spreading mainly the message of Our Lady of Fatima, the prayer of the Rosary, the sanctification of families, prayer groups, and cenacles. It also promotes reparations and the First Saturday of the month. These are very valuable forms of spiritual help, and I am encouraging these good priests, this movement, and the laypeople and families to continue to live the message of Our Lady of Fatima.
I would also like to add that the bishop who ordained me a priest in Brazil, Bishop Manuel Pastana, was a member of this Marian priestly movement. Bishop Manuel Pastana was a very courageous and saintly bishop. He is already deceased in Brazil. He lived during very difficult times when the theology of liberation was reigning within the Church, which was basically a socialist and communist movement abusing Church structures to promote a completely materialistic view and style of life.
In any case, this good Brazilian bishop had great merit in defending the Church and the true faith against this infiltration of the theology of liberation. Therefore, he was once called the Athanasius of Brazil, meaning the defender of the faith.
Now I am here in Lebanon. I came from Kazakhstan myself. I was born in Kyrgyzstan, in the same region as Kazakhstan, to German parents who were deported by Stalin after the Second World War to forced labor in the Ural Mountains. My parents actively participated in the underground Church during the persecution by the communist government in the Soviet Union.
They gave to me and my siblings the Catholic faith, I would say, with our mother’s milk. I had the privilege to grow up during my childhood and early adolescence in the underground Church. This gave me, for all my life, a deep sense of fidelity to the truth of the Catholic faith and the example of saintly priests, some of whom were martyrs and confessors of the faith. They left a great influence and mark on my soul. For this, I am so grateful to divine providence.
Now, for the past twenty years, I have been back in Central Asia, trying to continue spreading the Gospel. We are a very small community in Kazakhstan, only about 0.5% of the population. We live among a majority of Muslims, around 70%, and there is also a considerable presence of Orthodox Christians, about 20%. We try to maintain mutual respect without confusion or syncretism, keeping our identity as Catholics because the Catholic faith is the only true religion that God desires. There is no other religion that is pleasing to God, only the Catholic faith.
Mia Barhoush: Let’s begin with the first question, which is about your book. You recently published The Catholic Mass.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: It was also published in French and Italian, and now in Polish. This year, it will be published in German as well.
Mia Barhoush: First of all, can you explain why you chose the cover picture? And second, what made you publish this book, The Catholic Mass, now?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: I chose the cover image because it is a historical photo of the cathedral in Münster, a town in northwest Germany, taken after the Second World War, after the church was bombed. In the picture, part of the sanctuary is destroyed, but the main altar remains intact. You can see a Solemn Mass being celebrated, not a simple low Mass, but a solemn one with a priest, deacon, and subdeacon standing together, all facing the same direction, toward God, toward the center, which is the tabernacle and the cross on the altar.
Amid the ruins and stones, they are undisturbed, solemnly adoring and worshiping the Lord. This image is an example for us. For all times, the Church must always be oriented and directed toward the Lord, always giving Him the first place in life and in the liturgy.
I chose this image because, in the Catholic Church of the Roman Rite, we are now in a situation of ruins. The liturgy in the Roman Rite is in a state of anarchy. It has become centered on man, and the Lord is set aside. Man has placed himself in the center, creating a closed circle during the celebration of the Mass, as if the Lord were no longer the most important figure. Therefore, we must again stress the centrality of the Lord.
As to your second question about why I wrote this book, it was not originally my intention to publish it. Maestro Aurelio Porfiri, a musician in Rome and a devout Catholic, proposed that I write a book about the Holy Mass. I added other texts and quotations from the Church Fathers and good theologians and gave it the title The Catholic Mass, not simply The Mass.
We must celebrate and participate in the Holy Mass in a Catholic manner. A Catholic manner means as it has been in all times, everywhere, and by all generations. God has always been worshiped in a reverent, sacred, and sublime way, and this has always characterized Catholic worship from the apostles through every generation. The Church, even in apostolic times, never admitted any minimalism or anthropocentrism in divine worship. Never.
Therefore, I titled the book The Catholic Mass: Steps to Restore the Centrality of God in the Liturgy. We must first restore the centrality of God in the liturgy, and from there, restore the centrality of God in the entire life of the Church and in all its manifestations.
Mia Barhoush: This cover picture clearly describes the situation of the Church right now. We are truly living among ruins, yet we remain within the Church, our Mother.
Meanwhile, we see some disturbance and controversy with Traditionis Custodes, the document written by Pope Francis, which places restrictions on the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass worldwide. This is worrying because it treats traditional Catholics as second-class Christians. What are your thoughts about this?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Yes, this is a very sad reality. Pope Francis published this motu proprio titled Traditionis Custodes, which aims to limit the old, reverent form of celebrating the Holy Mass according to the Roman Rite. This form was preserved for at least a thousand years, not just fifty years, not even merely since the Council of Trent. Therefore, it is not correct to call it the Tridentine Mass.
It is the Mass of all ages, because the Council of Trent did not ask the Pope to reform the Mass. The Council asked the Pope to put an end to the anarchy and abuses that were spreading in the Church at that time, causing liturgical chaos. Therefore, the Council Fathers proposed that the Pope impose the old, unchanged Roman Rite on the entire Latin Church.
You can see the difference with Vatican II. Vatican II proposed specific reforms, but the Council of Trent did not. It asked the Pope to preserve and extend the traditional Roman Rite to the entire Latin Church.
To now restrict and discriminate against this millennia-old Mass, not the so-called Tridentine Mass, Pope Francis has committed a grave abuse of power by limiting and, in practice, attempting to abolish this rite. He even said in an accompanying letter that it should disappear from the Church. This is an abuse. The Pope cannot do this, just as he cannot limit or change a very old formula of the Creed, such as the Apostolic Creed. These are ancient and sacred formulas that no Pope has the authority to alter.
In the same way, the Pope cannot change the rite of the traditional Roman Mass, because it has been used for such a long time by so many Popes and saints, and it has borne abundant spiritual fruit. I hope that the next Pope will restore the traditional rite to its full honor and rights, at least equal to the new rite, and end the discrimination against devout Catholics who are attached to the Mass of the saints and their forefathers.
To treat these Catholics as second-class members of the Church is a grave injustice. This will go down in history as a serious wrong committed by a Pope of the Holy See against faithful, devout Catholics who love the Pope and pray for him and for the bishops. They are not schismatics; they are true daughters and sons of the Church.
Mia Barhoush: Thank you for clarifying.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Thank you.
Mia Barhoush: There is another book you published with Cardinal Burke and other bishops that is extremely important, Declaration of the Truths Relating to Some of the Most Common Errors in the Life of the Church of Our Time. Can you briefly tell us what this book is about?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Yes, this booklet is very necessary. It is small, but important, because we are living in a time when the Church faces a kind of epidemic, even a pandemic, of doctrinal errors and ambiguities. The main characteristics of this crisis are relativism and confusion, spreading the idea that there is no constant truth, that truth changes with time. This is contrary to divine revelation and the Gospel.
Therefore, we identified almost forty of the most common errors that are widespread in the life of the Catholic Church today. First, we addressed basic notions, what is truth, what is tradition, what is development, and what is dogma. Then we covered important points about the doctrine of faith itself, such as the uniqueness of Jesus Christ and the uniqueness of the Catholic Church.
We also addressed the wrong attitude found in false ecumenism and similar errors. Then we turned to moral issues, the moral life, the spread of homosexuality, civil unions, divorce, and Communion for the divorced. We also discussed the Holy Mass, the Sacrament of Confession, and the priesthood, which are extremely important.
Mia Barhoush: We hope to have it translated into Arabic as well. Let’s talk about the Synod on Synodality. As faithful laypeople, we are living in a time of great confusion. This Synod seems to bring even more of it, although its aim should be to defend and proclaim the unchanging doctrine of the faith. Instead, we see that it promotes ideas such as female deacons, pushes the LGBTQ agenda, and asks laypeople without theological knowledge to give opinions on Church teachings. We wonder whether this Synod truly represents the will of the people of God or if it is being used as a tool to push a certain agenda.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Yes, you are right. It is evidently being used as a method, a game, a tool to push an agenda, to bring more relativism and ambiguity into the doctrine of the faith and the life of the Church. It is not only a further Protestantization of the Church but something worse, an attempt to adapt the Church to the thinking of the unbelieving world. This is very dangerous.
First, we must remember what a Synod truly is and what it means. The Church has always understood the Synod as a tool of the Magisterium, of those entrusted by Our Lord with the task of teaching. There is a teaching Church, composed of the apostles and their successors, the bishops and the Pope, and there is a listening Church, composed of the faithful who are to be taught.
This is a divine structure. You cannot mix it up and start giving tasks to laypeople to officially proclaim or teach, even through participation in a Synod. We repeat that a Synod is a tool of the Magisterium, of the teaching office of the Church, with the concrete aim of protecting the doctrine of the Church against the attacks of heresies, ambiguities, and any undermining of the Church’s constant meaning.
The first aim is to protect the doctrine of the Church against heresies and distortions. The second aim is to explain more clearly certain points of doctrine that have been questioned or undermined. In other words, the Synod must stress clarity, express clarity, and never make ambiguous statements. Ambiguity is contrary to the nature of a Synod and of the Magisterium. The third aim is to make concrete improvements against abuses in the life of the Church, to set norms against abuses and spiritual diseases within the body of the Church. These include issues of discipline, such as abuses in the liturgy or moral life of the clergy or the faithful.
These three aims are the basic tasks of a Synod. Whatever, in the so-called synodal way or synodality process, weakens the defense of the faith, brings ambiguity, or weakens Church discipline and the clarity of a committed ascetical life of priests and religious, and of penance, which is necessary in the Church, is contrary to the divine constitution of the Church and to the nature of a Synod. Such things are a plain abuse of this Church structure.
Mia Barhoush: Sorry to interrupt you, but on this point, what can you say about those bishops and cardinals leaving the Synod? For example, Bishop Mutsaerts from the Netherlands said, “God is out of the picture in the synodal process,” and he left. Cardinal Müller said in an interview on EWTN that it is a “hostile takeover of the Church of Jesus Christ” and a “self-revelation.” It seems we are witnessing something going wrong in this synodal process.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Yes, it is too evident. We can already read the basic documents at the continental level and those from some dioceses, as well as the working document of the Vatican itself. These contain many ambiguities concerning the doctrine of the faith. The process is not helpful; on the contrary, it is counterproductive. To be part of this confusing and ambiguous process, in my opinion, is not worthy of a Catholic bishop.
Some might say that good bishops should be present to soften or balance some errors, but in my experience, this is not realistic. We already saw this demonstrated in the two Synods on the Family in 2014 and 2015, where the final results were basically pre-established. The contributions and critiques of good bishops were not taken into account. We already have this experience, and now we know who leads these synodal structures in the Vatican. They are people who openly advocate for the LGBT movement, the abolition of priestly celibacy, and the female diaconate. There are bishops and staff members of the Synod who have publicly expressed these opinions.
Therefore, we do not need to be very intelligent to see that the leadership is already in the hands of people who love ambiguity. We must be honest. The contribution of a faithful bishop will not have any real effect. For this reason, I consider it unworthy, as a bishop, to participate in such openly ambiguous structures and agendas that are already set.
I agree with and welcome the courageous gesture of Bishop Robert Mutsaerts, Auxiliary Bishop of the Diocese of ‘s-Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands. I admire his courage and honesty. I also know at least two other diocesan bishops who did not participate in, or did not allow, the so-called synodal process in their dioceses because the questions were already formulated by the Vatican in a very ambiguous manner.
We must remember that Christ did not tell the apostles, “Go and ask opinions about the faith.” No, Christ said, “Go and teach, and make the people observe what I have commanded you.” The apostles did not gather laypeople to ask what they wanted or to hold question-and-answer sessions. They taught. That is the mission of the apostles, the bishops, and the Pope.
Of course, there is a place for laypeople to contribute, but in another way. Their contribution is to strengthen and defend the faith in their own lives and families. This is the first task, to transmit and teach the faith within the domestic Church, the family. The teaching role of a Catholic mother and father is a beautiful vocation: the mother transmits the purity and integrity of the Catholic faith to her children, as if with her own milk, and the father gives an example of faith in the home. The family is the first theology school, the first seminary.
That is the task of laypeople, to transmit the faith according to the unchanging and integral Catholic teaching, not seventy percent, not eighty or ninety, but one hundred percent of the Catholic faith. This must be according to the unchanging catechisms and papal documents that were always so clear about these issues.
Of course, thanks be to God, we also have very good documents after the Council. I mention Humanae Vitae, the encyclical of Pope Paul VI on the morality of conjugal and family life, and Veritatis Splendor of Pope John Paul II, which is excellent on morality and the Eucharist. We must hold fast to these clear teachings and transmit them.
I hope that in the future there will be a clear and unambiguous document that will condemn all the main errors spread in the last sixty years in the life of the Church. We have had enough.
Mia Barhoush: I just want to ask here, do you think there can be wrong obedience? Because obedience now seems to guide us all.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Of course, there can be wrong obedience. The Fathers of the Church and Saint Thomas Aquinas taught that absolute obedience is only due to God. To all creatures, whether the Pope, a bishop, or parents, we owe only relative obedience.
What does that mean? It means that sometimes even ecclesiastical superiors, including Popes or bishops, or even parents, may give orders that are contrary to God’s commandments. For example, if parents command their children to commit a sin, the children must refuse. They must resist.
If a bishop asks you to give Holy Communion to public, unrepentant sinners, this is a sin, and you cannot obey. That would be wrong obedience. If a bishop commands you to give Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist into the hands of people when it is evident that small fragments of the Sacred Host fall to the ground and are trampled underfoot, you cannot obey such an order.
If even a Pope were to order you to participate in an interreligious prayer with people who reject the Holy Trinity, you cannot do that. You cannot pray together with those who reject the Trinity or with idolaters, such as in the Hindu religion, which adores many idols. If a Pope commands a bishop or priest to join such a prayer meeting, it is against the First Commandment of God. That would be a sin, and you cannot obey. If you do, it is wrong obedience.
When we participate in such ambiguous meetings or synodal gatherings, knowing their structures and aims are already misleading, I cannot, in conscience, participate.
Mia Barhoush: What do you think about the push toward a new world religion? This is very frightening today.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Yes, this is evident. Since the French Revolution, we have been witnessing a gradual process of establishing a new humanistic religion, opposed to divine revelation, the unique revelation of Jesus Christ. It is a movement to create a religion of relativism, a supermarket of religions. We see this happening. The objects of worship are no longer God, but creatures, nature, “Mother Earth,” Pachamama, or even humanity itself. Man has become the center of adoration, not God.
This is the most dangerous movement, the so-called “One World Religion,” which is advancing. Sadly, sometimes it seems that certain churchmen, even within the Vatican, by their words and gestures, are promoting this movement toward a purely humanistic religion.
The Holy See, the See of Peter, must be the first to resist this one-world, neo-pagan religion. This is the task of the Pope and the bishops, and I hope that they will again receive from God the apostolic courage to resist this new world religion.
Mia Barhoush: Thank you. It was a burden because we see now that in Abu Dhabi, everything is ready, the buildings are ready, and unfortunately, this is being pushed even from inside the Vatican. We see many well-known bishops and priests not only spreading but promoting heresy without being punished or corrected. For example, Father James Martin, a Jesuit, openly promotes the LGBTQ agenda. Then there is the recent scandal of Father Rupnik, who committed horrible crimes, even abusing the Sacrament of Penance, and yet he was not suspended from the priesthood. On the other hand, someone like Father Frank Pavone, the national director of Priests for Life in the United States, which is the largest pro-life ministry in the Church, was canceled.
We also see Mariana Mazzucato, a pro-abortion atheist economist and member of the World Economic Forum. It is astonishing and contradictory that she was appointed by the Vatican to serve for five years in the Pontifical Academy for Life.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Exactly, it is too evident. We are witnessing before the eyes of the entire world that the Holy See is using two measures. One could say there are privileged public heretics and privileged public sinners who are treated in a special way. For example, Father James Martin, who publicly promotes the heresy of homosexuality in a cunning way, is even publicly praised by the Pope.
Then there is Father Rupnik, who has not publicly repented of his very serious crimes against consecrated sisters and his abuse of the Holy Sacrament of Penance. According to canon law, such acts result in automatic excommunication. Nevertheless, the Vatican silenced the matter. These crimes happened years ago, some not even long ago, and the Vatican knew about them. Yet the excommunication was lifted very quickly, contrary to the normal rule of canon law, which requires a sufficient time for reparation and penance. He was treated in a privileged way, while at the same time Father Pavone was punished in the most severe way possible for a priest.
We can reasonably ask why he was punished so harshly. It is a grave scandal, a serious injustice, and it will go down in Church history as a shameful act. This reveals that those in power in the Vatican are more sympathetic toward those who promote errors and heresies. This is proven by many recent nominations, even to the College of Cardinals.
Mia Barhoush: As you mentioned, the appointment of Ms. Mazzucato to such a post in defense of life is a humiliation and an offense to all the faithful who are fighting uncompromisingly for the defense of human life and the sanctity of marriage. In the Vatican, under Pope Francis, clergy are being promoted to high positions while the Church is being pushed toward a naturalistic direction and even toward a new world religion.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Yes, we can see this clearly. I agree with the statement made by Cardinal Müller some months ago in an interview, when he said that we are witnessing a hostile takeover of the Vatican. The enemies of the Church now occupy high positions, those who oppose the constant Catholic doctrine, who deny the uniqueness of Christ and the uniqueness of the Catholic Church. They have gained influence and are abusing our Holy Mother Church.
These high-ranking heretical cardinals, bishops, and priests have managed to reach these positions, though history will one day show with whose help this happened. They are abusing our Holy Mother Church, who now stands with her hands tied in chains by these worldly, heretical churchmen. They are putting our Mother Church in chains. They are putting Christ, who is the Truth, in prison. They are imprisoning the truth itself. But they will not succeed, because they have forgotten that the Church is not human. The Church is divine, and God is watching them.
At a certain point, God will intervene and say, “Enough. Go away, you cardinals, bishops, and priests who have abused my Bride, the Church, with heretical teachings, with immorality, with worldly liturgies, and with persecution of traditional Catholics. You have abused my Bride, the Holy Church. Go away.” God will judge them, and history will judge them. God will again intervene with the intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Our Lady, through the prayers and tears of the little ones in the Church who suffer because of the abuse of our Holy Mother Church.
Through their prayers and sacrifices, and through priests and bishops unjustly persecuted by the Holy See simply because they want to transmit the clarity of the Catholic faith, God will act. All this will end. God will intervene, and we believe this with absolute certainty.
He will again give us popes who will fulfill their true mission: to strengthen the Catholic faith unambiguously, to defend the flock of Christ from the wolves, and to stand courageously against worldly powers. Such popes will come. Then the little ones will be called by the new pope: “Come, my little ones, who have suffered so much. I bless you.” There will be a purified Church, a small army of Our Lady with the holy angels.
Therefore, I want to encourage all of you, dear Mia, all your listeners, my brothers in Lebanon, and Catholics around the world, to be proud of your Catholic faith. Say, “I will not allow anyone to take away my Catholic faith. I will not allow anyone to confuse my faith, even if it is the highest-ranking churchman. I made my vow of faith and fidelity at baptism not to the Pope or to a bishop, but to Jesus Christ.”
Jesus Christ will judge me. Not the Pope, not my bishop, but the Lord Himself will judge me at my personal judgment. He will ask every Pope, “How did you fulfill your main task to defend the Catholic faith? How did you ensure that bishops and cardinals were one hundred percent faithful to the Catholic faith?” He will ask every bishop, “How did you defend the flock from the wolves? How did you defend Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist?” He will ask every priest, “How did you live the purity of your priesthood, in doctrine, in moral life, and in liturgy?” He will ask every father and mother, “How did you transmit the faith to your children?”
Mia Barhoush: Therefore, we must live with this vision. We live for the truth and for eternity. Hallelujah. As Our Lady said in Fatima, “In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph.” We will remain in communion with the one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church.
I just want you to say the last word of guidance for 2023 to all those who are listening to us now.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: The most important thing on earth is to save your soul. The greatest law of the Church is the salvation of souls. We must do all we can to save our souls. We have the program in the Beatitudes, in the commandments of God, and in prayer. And then we must also save other souls, as Our Lady of Fatima asked us to do.
Even if the new year brings us more difficulties, we must enter it with trust and courage, because we know in whom we have placed our trust, the Lord. We know who He is, the King of the world, the ruler of the Church, and we know that our heavenly Mother Mary, the Mother of God, is always with us. God bless you.
Mia Barhoush: At the end, as Lebanon has been solemnly consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, let us offer our prayer to our Lord Jesus Christ and to our Blessed Mother Mary, hoping that this interview may be part of what many consider a prophecy for the Church in the Song of Songs in Holy Scripture: “Come from Lebanon, my spouse, come from Lebanon.” God bless you.