Bishop Schneider: The intention of the society is clearly not schismatic, and they only do it as a service to the church and to the papacy. I think later the church will be grateful and thankful to society after this huge crisis.
Michael Matt: Hello again, ladies and gentlemen. I am Michael Matt, and this is a special edition of The Remnant Underground.
Just as the Iran invasion and other concerns have torn the MAGA movement in half in the state, so too in the church the unity of the traditional Catholic movement has suffered a setback over the past year, especially after the Society of St Pius X, which of course is the largest fraternity of Latin Mass priests in the world, announced episcopal consecrations of bishops without a Vatican mandate.
Now this is nothing new. I say again, this is nothing new. This is an old story. The same thing happened almost 40 years ago, when in 1988 Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, citing the state of emergency or urgency in the church, consecrated bishops without papal mandate, which, according to the 1983 Code of Canon Law, carries the penalty of automatic excommunication. This is why he cited the provision for a state of urgency, which puts that in a gray area.
At that time, many priests, bishops, laymen, and canon lawyers studied this question and argued over it. Due to the state of urgency, the opposing position came after the Vatican declared that he had excommunicated himself. Archbishop Lefebvre and these priests, bishops, and canon lawyers studied the question and argued that due to the state of urgency provision in the Code of Canon Law, Archbishop Lefebvre had not, in fact, incurred automatic excommunication in 1988.
This is something that I myself confirmed in person a few years later when I asked Cardinal Hoyos, head of the Ecclesia Dei Commission at the Vatican at the time. I asked him, as a journalist, if the Society of St Pius X was in schism or not, and what word I should use. His Eminence responded, and this was recorded and reported at the time, with an emphatic no. They are not in schism but rather have an irregular canonical status that will be resolved by the church in the church and in God’s good time.
It is a very controversial issue, but you have very high-ranking prelates on both sides of it. So again, this is not absolute. What is happening right now is nothing new. Since the crisis in the church has only gotten worse since 1988, you now have things like COVID, which brought a massive influx of disenfranchised Catholics looking for something better, who sought refuge in the traditional Latin Mass movement throughout the world.
So now there are many traditional Catholics who simply do not realize what is going on. They do not understand what is happening. They hear very scary stories about disobeying the Vatican, resulting automatically in schism, and it is a very confusing time. They do not realize that this issue with the Society of St Pius X dates back decades. The arguments were hashed out and rehashed almost 40 years ago. There is nothing new here.
At the time, there were certain predictions, even dire predictions. People thought the society was going to start its own church. Others thought the Ecclesia Dei communities, like the Fraternity of St. Peter, were going to embrace an ecumenical approach, accept Vatican II, and start saying the new Mass or become bi-ritual. These things never happened.
The society never started its own church. They never crowned their own pope, as some feared. Instead, they actually grew closer to the Vatican in the sense that they always prayed for the day when reconciliation could become possible once doctrinal issues were resolved.
To this day, for your peace of mind, there are about 700 priests in the Society of St Pius X. Every single priest in the society prays for the pope, in this case Pope Leo, by name, as well as the local bishop at every Society of St Pius X traditional Latin Mass throughout the world. This should give anyone who is throwing around the schism charge pause, because schismatics do not act that way. They break from the Vatican and want nothing to do with it.
That would be a strange schism if you think about it. That is the first thing to consider before we get started with tonight’s guest.
Now there is a large debate that, for most of us, is above our pay grade. This is for canon lawyers and theologians. We all admit it is a huge debate with many complexities and strong arguments on both sides. It has been divisive, as truth often is. It has divided families, friends, and communities. That is the nature of this crisis in the church. Like the Civil War, it divides people.
As we approach July 2026 and the consecrations of bishops for the Society of St Pius X, things are heating up. We need to consider what can be done to prevent further disunity. The disunity is not nearly as bad as it was in 1988. There are many bishops, priests, and laymen on both sides discussing it openly. In a way, it is easier now than it was then, but it is still a serious debate.
Tonight, rather than offering my layman’s opinion, I want to bring in an expert. I want to bring in a special guest to help us understand this so we can make an informed decision.
Our guest tonight is not a member of the Society of St Pius X. He is a regular bishop in the church. What makes him uniquely qualified is that he has studied this question for many years as a historian. He has read Archbishop Lefebvre’s works and made a personal study of the issue. He also served as a Vatican observer.
He served as a Vatican observer of the Society of St Pius X. This means he visited their seminaries, priories, and chapels over a period of time, personally interviewing their leadership and investigating who and what the society is.
I encourage you to take his testimony seriously, more seriously than mine or that of bloggers or even many priests and bishops who have not studied this issue in depth or served in such a role. His opinion deserves to be prioritized.
He reported his findings officially to the Vatican after his time in that role. In other words, he knows the Society of St Pius X intimately and can help us understand the controversy better.
Regardless of where we stand on this issue, we can know with a clear conscience that God will not judge us for disagreeing with each other. But we may be judged for making rash judgments based on partisan or ideological talking points.
If we attack each other over this, the revolution wins. So let us not do that. Let us seek the truth. We cannot allow division over this issue.
There is no one more qualified to help us navigate this than our next guest, whose goal is to help us better understand not only the Society of St Pius X but also the larger crisis in the Catholic Church, a crisis that has made a counter movement like this one so significant.
So with that, Your Excellency, Bishop Athanasius Schneider, welcome to The Remnant Underground. Thank you for being here.
Bishop Schneider: Thank you for the invitation. God bless you.
Michael Matt: Thank you so much for being here, Your Excellency. I want to set the context today by talking about who and what you are for those who may not be aware.
You are a bishop of the Roman Catholic Church. You are an active bishop, not retired, an auxiliary of Astana in Kazakhstan. You are not SSPX, but you were, in fact, an official visitor to the Society of St. Pius X on behalf of the Vatican some years ago. Is that not true?
Bishop Schneider: Yes, Pope Francis asked me and three other bishops. Four bishops, more than 10 years ago, in 2015, visited several houses of the society and their seminaries. I was one of these bishops entrusted officially by the Holy See, and so I had direct knowledge of the reality of the society, living with them in several houses for some days and speaking with the superiors, with professors, with seminarians.
In preparing for this mission, I read many documents, including a large biography about Lefebvre of more than 800 pages and his pastoral writings from when he became a bishop in 1947 until his death. I dedicated many months to reading these documents. I also had access to other documents in the archives of the Holy See because I had to do this work.
So I had knowledge in different ways, and to a large extent. Since then, I have kept regular contact with several houses, superiors, priests, and even families of the society. The more the crisis of the church progresses before our eyes, the more I am convinced that Archbishop Lefebvre and his work, and the society, are a work of the church which divine providence has given us in this extremely confused and difficult time.
As Archbishop Lefebvre repeatedly stated, and as the superiors of the society still maintain, they do not see themselves as a work only for themselves but as a service for the Holy Church, for the entire church, and even for the Holy See itself.
When Archbishop Lefebvre consecrated bishops in 1988, he said that he was doing this for the popes, so that the integrity of what the church and the Roman Church had always taught and commanded would be preserved. He emphasized the need to observe the entire faith, the liturgy, and priestly formation exactly as the church had commanded for centuries.
He said they were not introducing anything new, only preserving what the church had always required, to hand it on through this time of confusion, which is only temporary. We must believe firmly that the gates of hell will not overcome the Holy See.
The current situation is, in a spiritual or metaphorical sense, like an exile, similar to the Avignon period, where the clarity of the magisterium of the pope and the chair of Peter is obscured. The liturgy and other aspects of church life, even in Rome, which should be the light and the rock, are in some way obscured.
This is not sedevacantism. It is simply an obscuring. The popes during the Avignon period were real popes, though not in Rome. In a symbolic way, something similar can be said now. The Holy See is partly obscured by the influence of neo-modernism, which involves naturalism and relativism. But this is only temporary.
The Holy See will regain full clarity and strength in the Catholic faith and in the holy liturgy. Archbishop Lefebvre was convinced of this. After the 1988 consecrations, he said that perhaps in a short time there would again be a strong and traditional pope. Then the bishops he ordained would go to him and offer their episcopate, saying that their role would no longer be necessary.
I believe society acts with the same intention now. The bishops they consecrate are meant to serve the church during this difficult time and to be available for the future when clarity is restored.
When a fully traditional pope comes again, these bishops will submit themselves completely to him and place their service at his disposal. This reflects the same attitude Archbishop Lefebvre had, and which continues in society today.
Such an attitude is not schismatic. We must correct misunderstandings about schism. In recent centuries, there has been a very narrow and legalistic understanding of schism and of obedience. Obedience to the pope has sometimes been treated as absolute, but the pope is not God.
In practice, there has been an implicit tendency to treat the pope as if he were divine. Because of this, any disobedience is quickly labeled as schism. This approach is not consistent with the broader tradition of the church.
As a scholar of the Church Fathers, I can say this understanding would have been foreign to them. For example, when Saint Athanasius resisted certain actions, even when he faced excommunication, he was not considered schismatic in the true sense.
And so Pope Liberius. I consider that excommunication. Of course, according to the law, it was an excommunication, but I consider this excommunication in the eyes of God was invalid. How could Pope Liberius, who collaborated somewhat with the semi-Arians, excommunicate the greatest defender of orthodoxy? In the eyes of history, and even in this case, the excommunication of Athanasius was unjust and, in the eyes of God, invalid.
Therefore, I think that now the issue of society with these consecrations is in some way providential. God allows it because we are a large family, and society belongs to our family. It is not outside the church, because, as you repeated, they name the pope in the canon, they name their local bishop in the canon, and they have faculties to confess from Rome, which are still valid and not rescinded.
How can a schismatic community possess valid faculties of confession? This is a form of jurisdiction. The pope, Pope Francis, also asked bishops and pastors to grant their priests the faculty to assist canonically at marriages, and they are able to do so.
In serious cases of priestly crimes, which have occurred in some instances, Bishop Fellay informed me during my visitation that in one case, they reported it to the Holy See. The Holy See then delegated Bishop Fellay as a judge in its name to conduct a canonical investigation. How could a schismatic do this?
Therefore, I think we must again have a more balanced view of what is schism and what is obedience in the church. Not all disobedience to the pope is automatically schismatic. Even the consecration of a bishop against the will of the pope, while illicit, is not in itself an intrinsically evil act, as some representatives of traditional Ecclesia Dei communities have publicly stated.
This is incorrect. It was never taught in the great tradition of the church. For example, the servant of God Cardinal Josef Slipyj of the Greek Catholic Church is now recognized for heroic virtue. He secretly ordained three bishops in Rome against the will of Pope Paul VI, knowing that the pope did not allow it.
Would this mean that Cardinal Slipyj committed an intrinsically evil act and was automatically excommunicated? Therefore, we must return to the balanced understanding of the Church Fathers in the first millennium.
The intention of the society is clearly not schismatic. They act as a service to the church and to the papacy. I believe that later the church will be grateful and thankful to society after this huge crisis.
Michael Matt: I want to ask you a question about intention, which you recently discussed with our friends at the Confraternity of Our Lady of Fatima. But before getting there, you say you are a patristic scholar. Of course you are. I encourage you to answer a question that a lot of people, just regular pew people, struggle with, and that is that Archbishop Lefebvre and the Society of St Pius are renegades, that they are obstreperous, that they are doing their own thing, and that they are telling the Pope where to go.
I think what they are missing is what you touched on already today, that what the Society, what Archbishop Lefebvre, was trying to do was help Holy Mother Church in her human element, and as a way of demonstrating something. I want you to comment on this, on how that worked.
It was when the Society of St Pius the Tenth insisted on continuing always to go to Rome to talk to the Pope whenever they were called, to continue to negotiate, and even before Summorum Pontificum to lay down conditions that benefited the entire Church. In other words, they were willing to negotiate to fix their canonical status, but would the Vatican consider lifting all restrictions on the Latin Mass, not for the Society, because they already had their own priests and their own Latin Mass, but for all of us, for the rest of the Church, and for those who are not traditional Catholics?
The way that worked can be seen in the document of Summorum Pontificum itself, when Pope Benedict the Sixteenth says the traditional Latin Mass is going to influence the Novus Ordo. He called it mutual enrichment. Whether we agree with this term or not is not the point. The point is that what Archbishop Lefebvre was trying to do in the middle of a crisis actually turned out to be of benefit to the entire Church, even if you do not go to the Latin Mass.
The existence and preservation of the Latin Mass helped to preserve the orthodoxy of what was left of the Novus Ordo Mass. So can you help people understand that this was an act of love for the Church, not an act of defiance against the Church?
Bishop Schneider: And even Archbishop Lefebvre, out of love for the Church, did it at the price of being suspended by the Pope, because at that time, when he was suspended fifty years ago, in seventy six, in that context, a high representative of the Holy See said to Archbishop Lefebvre, our problem is the Mass.
At that time, it was not yet the doctrinal issues of the Council, but more the Holy Mass, the traditional Mass. Then this high representative of the Holy See said to Archbishop Lefebvre that if he would at least once celebrate publicly in front of his seminarians and the faithful the Novus Ordo, the new Mass, then all the problems between him and the Holy See would be resolved.
He refused and said, I cannot, my conscience does not allow it, because in this way he would go into ambiguity. He recognized that the Novus Ordo is valid, always under the condition that it is celebrated according to the rules of the Missal, but even if it is celebrated in Latin and according to the rules, it contains in itself highly ambiguous moments and prayers, like the offertory prayers and the second Eucharistic prayer.
This undermines very clearly the sacrificial character of the propitiation of the Holy Mass as the same sacrifice of Golgotha. It shifts the main emphasis of the Mass toward a meal. This is serious. We cannot simply say, just celebrate the new Novus Ordo in Latin or ad Deum. It is not sufficient, because in itself, there are these two elements, which are highly ambiguous.
We cannot allow that in the central and most sublime act of the Church, which is the sacramental representation and actualization of the sacrifice of Golgotha, the greatest act of adoration of God here on earth and in all eternity, this act is affected by doctrinal ambiguity. We cannot allow this.
We should not say that it is heretical, no, but it is highly undermining, and already this is something the Church cannot allow herself to continue with. Therefore, the Society does great work and service for the future of the Church by stressing and demanding that these structural ambiguities of the Novus Ordo be corrected.
Other so-called Ecclesia Dei communities that have the traditional Latin Mass do not dare to say this. If they started to ask this, they would be sent a commissioner and be closed. There have been cases in recent years where three flourishing parishes in France of the Fraternity of St Peter were closed by bishops, and no appeals to the Holy See helped them.
Even recently, I received correct information about another institute of Ecclesia Dei in Europe. In one diocese, they had already been there under the previous bishop in a parish, and then they asked the new bishop to formalize their presence as a canonical foundation, which the bishop can grant without asking Rome. Canon law says the bishop himself has the authority to erect a community of pontifical right without asking Rome. It is not necessary.
However, this bishop asked Rome whether he should recognize and formally establish this community in his diocese, and the Holy See answered no, do not give them recognition. This is the situation, this is the reality.
There are also other elements of doctrine that must be discussed and debated in the Church. We cannot simply say let us resolve them with the so-called hermeneutic of continuity. It is not intellectually honest because it is a kind of squaring the circle. I call it mental acrobatics. It does not work, it does not convince, and it remains ambiguous.
The Church cannot allow herself to remain in ambiguity regarding doctrine. These themes are three. First, the so-called religious freedom or liberty, which, as it is formulated, is highly ambiguous and promotes relativism. It suggests that all religions have the same right to be spread and tolerated, and that this right is not only a civil right but rooted in the nature of the human being, as a kind of natural right.
But natural rights are positively willed by God, and God cannot positively will that an idolatrous religion has the same right to spread as the one true religion, the Catholic religion, which He commanded to all humanity. So this is ambiguous and relativizing.
This becomes evident in the consequences of the so-called spirit of the Council. The expression of Dignitatis Humanae on religious liberty has been interpreted in almost all theological faculties and seminaries around the world to mean that liberty gives all religions the same rights and dignity as ways to God.
Pope Francis also stated this formally in Abu Dhabi. When he returned, he gave an interview on the airplane, and a journalist asked him whether that statement was relativizing. Pope Francis answered that it was not even a millimeter away from what the Council stated in Dignitatis Humanae.
In this case, I agree with Pope Francis. He was correct to say this, and he was honest in saying it. Some traditional priests try to reinterpret this by writing extensive explanations to reconcile it, but the fact that a phrase needs hundreds of pages to be interpreted is already a sign that something is wrong and highly ambiguous, and must be corrected.
The Society stresses that we cannot continue only interpreting; we must correct the formulation. This is not a definitive teaching; it has a pastoral character and is only a declaration, not even a decree. It is a lower level and can be corrected.
So the statement that every human person is free to choose his or her religion according to conscience, and not to be impeded by anyone in spreading and practicing it, even collectively, remains the issue.
Bishop Schneider: And this, this right, is rooted in the nature of human beings. This is only applicable to the Catholic faith and not to others. To others, we should say another phrase, referring to other religions. Of course, we must show tolerance and so on, but this is different. The Church has done it. Since the Fathers of the Church, all Augustine, all these Fathers of the Church, said that we cannot put the pagan religions in the Roman Empire on the same level as our faith in Jesus Christ. They died for it, saying they are not the same, not the same level. And so this must be corrected.
The second is the wrong ecumenism, the statement that says that other Christian communities are instruments, as communities of the Holy Spirit, in the work of salvation. This formulation simply relativizes, putting, almost de facto, the Catholic Church on the same level as other Christian religions. This phrase could be more correctly stated if it said that the Holy See can use singular persons of other truly Christian communities as instruments. This could be a singular person, but not the structure itself, which is a heretical structure, the Protestant or a schismatic structure, as a tool in the work of salvation. This is highly, I repeat, ambiguous. This cannot be amended.
The fruits we see of interreligious dialogue and ecumenism are the ongoing relativization of the uniqueness of the Catholic Church. Then there is another formulation, in Lumen Gentium 16, that says we, Catholics, and the Muslims, adore the one God with them. How can we adore with the Muslims? It is impossible, even from the point of view of the nature of the act of adoration. Our act of adoration as Christians is always on a supernatural level, as children of God, whereas the act of adoration of a Muslim, even an innocent Muslim who does not know the Quran but simply wants to adore the Creator, is on a natural level. They do not have the Sonship of God through baptism and faith. So their act of adoration is essentially different from our act of adoration. How can one then formulate, with one breath, that Catholics and Muslims adore together? This is impossible, at least highly ambiguous.
And then, if we adore God with the Muslims, why should we evangelize the Muslims? Since we are supposedly worshiping the same God, it raises the question of why we should convert Protestants and schismatics to the Church if their communities, as the Council says, are also instruments used by the Holy Spirit for salvation. All these sixty years, this was the fruit of these highly ambiguous formulations, which have led to complete confusion and relativization of the truth.
Another serious aspect of doctrine is the so-called collegiality, a completely new doctrine which was not taught by the Church Fathers or by the Popes before Vatican II. The entire college of bishops, in unity with the Pope, has supreme, constant, permanent authority over the entire Church. This is a novelty. It was never taught. It is against the Gospel, because our Lord said only to one person, “Feed my sheep, Peter, you feed my lambs.” He did not say to the other apostles, “Together with Peter, feed my flock.” This teaching of collegiality undermines the Catholic tradition and the Gospel on the monarchical structure of the Church, which God gave. There is a head of the universal Church, the papacy, Peter, and the bishops for their local flocks. This is the only established structure. There is no collective, permanently supreme government over the entire Church. This is only possible on special occasions when the Pope considers it helpful to allow the College of Bishops to participate in his unique supreme power, such as in Ecumenical Councils or particular synods. The Pope cannot be forced. Since the beginning, the Pope has been aware that he is the head of the College of Bishops and has always consulted bishops through synods or councils.
These three points of doctrine are important and must be resolved. Here, the Society of Pius X is a huge help for the Church to honestly resolve and debate these questions. The fourth point is the problem of the new order, which will take time. The Church has time. My appeal to the Pope was, “Leo, please build the bridge, give the apostolic mandate for the consecrations of bishops.” This would be the first step of integration and normalization. The canonical status does not have to be resolved yet, but this first step would create an atmosphere of mutual trust for debate within the Church, with the help of the Society of Pius X. I hope and pray that Pope Leo will grant permission for episcopal consecrations. We must believe like children and pray that this is the only right way for the Pope to act in this context.
I also lament that, in this context, many traditional communities and some bishops and cardinals, known for their love of tradition, publicly attack the Society of Pius X, labeling them as schismatics or threatening excommunication. This is not helpful. It should be the opposite. In this confusion in the Church, we witness ongoing relativization, blasphemies, and sacrilegious acts during Holy Mass. Bishops and cardinals publicly proclaim heresies without punishment, demanding that women be ordained or that married priests be allowed. They are not admonished. The so-called German Synodal Way undermines the entire Church structure, shaping it into a Protestant-like community. Rome has not intervened for years.
The world is becoming increasingly anti-Christian, with the global imposition of gender ideology and homosexuality, and in Europe, strong Islamization. Recently, for example, the Prime Minister of Spain said that anyone criticizing Islam or the Prophet Muhammad in Spain could be imprisoned for five years, but did not say the same about Jesus Christ. In this context, we should unite all who still uphold the integrity of the Catholic faith, priestly formation, and Holy Mass. The Society has already asked, in November, the Superior General to make a kind request to the Pope about ordinations. The first attempt was cautious, but it was refused. I hope they will still make a formal demand.
I lament the attacks on society by traditional communities. It reminds me of the first-century Arian crisis, which St. Basil the Great described. In his time, even the good minority fought against one another, while the majority of bishops aligned with heresy. He compared it to a naval battle in mist and night, where the good ones attacked each other instead of the enemy. In our situation, the Fraternity of St. Peter or other traditional communities should not attack one another, but appeal to the Holy Father: “Holy Father, please grant a generous, exceptional gesture, allowing the permission of consecrations.” Step by step, integration and discussion can occur. The good cardinals and bishops should unite in this appeal. Instead, attacks continue, which history will remember similarly to Saint Basil the Great.
Michael Matt: Can you say something, Your Excellency? Having lived through this myself, personally, and grown up with this discussion all my life, ever since 1988, when it was confirmed by Archbishop Lefebvre, there were these two big boogeymen, monsters. One was that the Society of St. Pius X was going to form the priesthood, start their own Church, and become a state of contest. From the other side, it was the Fraternity of St. Peter. The Ecclesia Dei communities were going to become bi-ritual. They were going to firmly embrace the Second Vatican Council and the entire modernist revolution.
Now, we have almost forty years of experience. Neither one of those things happened. In fact, they are closer now than they ever were. Can you say something, as a priest, to laymen like me about the pragmatic strategy of just saying, “Look, this is working to the benefit of the entire Church, the Fraternity, and the Society”?
I’ll give you an example. I have seven children, and I go to the diocesan traditional Latin Mass. Some years ago, one of my daughters was born, and the bishop decided to cancel all the traditional Latin Mass sacraments in the Archdiocese of St. Paul, Minneapolis. I made a big fuss about that, and my wife and I promptly took our daughter over to the Chapel of St. Pius X and had her baptized there. Within a few weeks, all the sacraments came back to our traditional Latin Mass. That back-and-forth strategy has worked very effectively for many years to keep people in the old faith.
Can you say something about that? What you just said about the three doctrinal points is fundamental to the crisis in the Church. Most Catholics have been intentionally dumbed down and can hardly even follow the crisis anymore. If we could somehow convey to good people on both sides of this debate that the crisis is severe and that we need to be confident in people like you explaining it, we could help. Lefebvre explained it, and there are brothers on both sides of this civil war, but we should not attack each other because of that. That’s the nature of the crisis, and we should try to use it to bring more people into the old faith. Can you say something about this in a pastoral sense?
Bishop Schneider: Yes. You mentioned Cardinal Castriani. I was a witness. In 2005, at the end of a synod in Rome of bishops under Pope Benedict XVI, I participated there. At the end of the synod, in the full Synod Hall, Cardinal Castriani said, “I appeal to all of you, please, let us be generous and embrace the Society of Pius X. How can we be indifferent? There were 500 priests who really wanted to serve the Church for many laypeople and families. I appeal to you to be generous to them.” I will never forget these words. I was present in the Synod Hall. Cardinal Castriani made a strong plea that the entire Church should be more positively oriented toward society and help them integrate into the life of the Church.
Michael Matt: Yes, he said the same thing to me when I was a member of the press at the time. He specifically said, “This is an in-house dispute that will be solved in God’s good time.” That was the highest authority you could go to on the question of whether they were in schism. It seems to me that we should try to resolve these issues and perhaps see God’s providence in some of this. Rather than saying the Society is technically not in schism, we should say, “Thank God that Archbishop Lefebvre, one of the last bishops in the world, took a stand. This happened to the great benefit of the Church.” There should be a degree of gratitude. I am grateful to the Fraternity of St. Peter. They do wonderful work. We can see both sides working together to do something very good and powerful for souls. We should, as you say, change our mentality about what obedience and fidelity actually mean.
Bishop Schneider: Exactly. This is my appeal. I would like to invite all the realities in the Church, the Fraternity of St. Peter, which I appreciate and which does great work, and the other institutes and good bishops, to unite more and be more positively fraternal with the Society of Pius X. Together, we can restore our Holy Mother Church in this unprecedented emergency. We must pray for the Pope that God will illuminate him and that he will be our leader. The Pope must be the leader of tradition. He is the born leader of tradition.
The upcoming episcopal consecrations, I hope, will see a generous gesture from the Pope. Even if not, God will permit it for the benefit of the entire Church. We must trust very much in divine providence and in Our Lady, the Mother of the Church, and implore her. We must also implore Archbishop Lefebvre. Tomorrow, March 25th, will be the anniversary of his death. I am convinced that in the future he will be recognized by the Church as a great bishop, and perhaps even canonized as a confessor bishop in difficult times. He always loved the Holy See and the Popes, even while persecuted, suspended, and excommunicated. He prayed for the Pope until the end and loved the Holy Mother Church. Let us pray and trust in the Lord. This concludes my observations for our conversation, and I hope God will intervene in our time.
Michael Matt: Your Excellency, let me just thank you briefly, because I think it will help people understand what we’re trying to accomplish today. I want to thank you for having the integrity to comment on this issue when you yourself are not in the Society of St. Pius X and have nothing personally to gain. I hope our viewers will appreciate the risk you are taking in the name of truth, the larger truth, not in the name of your own personal position as a bishop in the Church, but for the pursuit of truth. As a layperson who is looking and hungry for truth in a sea of darkness, I want to say thank you so much for being willing to speak on this very controversial issue in such an honest, clear, and useful way. Thank you, and God bless you for doing so.
Bishop Schneider: Welcome. God bless you also, and all your listeners.
Michael Matt: Thank you!