Steve Cunningham: Welcome, everybody. Steve assessed coming at you once again with another book by a bishop you may have heard of once or twice, if you haven’t been living under a rock, your excellent sleep. Bishop Athanasia Snyder, welcome. Good afternoon, good evening, wherever, whenever you are, you’re on the other side of the globe.
Bishop Schneider: Yes, good morning in my time.
Steve Cunningham: Yes, yes. How have you been? How are you doing? What brings you to this book that just came out?
Bishop Schneider: Yes, this book was not my idea. It was the journalist, the Polish journalist Pavelski from Warsaw. He asked me to grant him a book-length interview as he read my first book, Christopher Wendt, with Diane Montagna. He was deeply touched and inspired by that book and asked me to deepen and broaden the themes and topics discussed in Christopher Wendt’s book. So he approached me and visited me in Kazakhstan, and I agreed to give him this interview.
Steve Cunningham: Why do you think there was a springtime in the narrative? Why is the title that? I know it’s a softball question, but what is the springtime you were talking about? What does the title mean?
Bishop Schneider: Yes, as we spoke already in Christopher Wendt’s sheet and now in The Springtime That Never Came, we discussed the current crisis of the Church, which has been evident for 60 years since the council. We have to stress this reality because the Second Vatican Council was convoked by Pope John XXIII with the idea and affirmation that it would be a new Pentecost, a kind of new Pentecost. Even John Paul II said that it would bring a springtime to the Church. But reality was quite different. I chose this title simply as a way to end the myth that was spread in the Church. Even some modernist priests and bishops today would not dare to say that today is the springtime of the Church, especially after the crisis of sexual abuses, the pedophile crisis within the clergy. You cannot state that this is the springtime of the Church, at least from this point of view, even if they do not love tradition.
Steve Cunningham: I see. You mentioned modernist bishops. Two dioceses, one in Cincinnati and the other in Chicago, closed many parishes. Cincinnati closed about 170 parishes, upwards of 70 percent, and Chicago closed maybe 80 or 90. Both acted in their articles as if this were a good thing, and one of them even used the term springtime. We were going to be more missionary. I would say, do you think missionary means closing churches when we are trying to evangelize people to come back into the Church?
Bishop Schneider: We have to be honest and use common sense. These churchmen simply deny reality. This borders on cynicism. It’s cynical to deny reality and proclaim what is evident, even to common sense, as positive. It’s typical for ideology, like the communists in the Soviet Union. They proclaimed that communism brought wealth despite evidence to the contrary to maintain ideological power. These churchmen do the same; they deny reality and abuse words to continue their destructive ideology.
Steve Cunningham: It’s like the gas line you opened in the chapter about closing churches in a certain year. People would close churches without thinking, even though we believe in the power of holy water, prayers, and protection. It’s almost like they don’t believe in the product they’re selling. It’s similar to the movie Hitch, you sell the product but don’t really believe in it. You get that sense sometimes.
Bishop Schneider: Yes, but they believe in another thing. They use the terms church or Jesus Christ, but these modernist churchmen do not believe in what these words really mean in a Catholic sense, as the apostles, church fathers, and saints understood them. They use the terminology but give it a mostly Protestant or worldly content.
Steve Cunningham: I’ve been reading Dom Garage into the channel poorly, I might add, but last week he was really hammering hard. You bring up in the book the French Revolution, liberty, the liberty that man wants, not the true liberty of Christ the King. Back then, people did not believe in truth. Truth deserves rights; error has no rights. In your seventh chapter, you ask, “How many religions are true?” How would you explain that to a layperson? You can tell someone the hard truth with charity.
Bishop Schneider: Yes, the theme of the plurality of religions cannot be accepted as positive because it contradicts the first commandment God gave us and the gospel, the incarnation of God, and redemption through Christ. There is only one way to salvation chosen by God. Humanity’s deepest sin is rejecting God’s will and establishing our own religion, as Adam and Eve did. The many religions of the world reflect this same rejection. Christ explicitly taught there is no other way, and it is the task of the Church to proclaim God’s truth and invite all people to abandon error and return to worship Him according to His revelation in Jesus Christ.
Steve Cunningham: Almost like some people say, we do not want Him to rule over us exactly.
Bishop Schneider: This is the core sin: doing your own will in matters of religion. We must invite people with charity, conviction, and missionary zeal to save their souls and spread the glory of God.
Steve Cunningham: I knew a priest who would put a full-page ad in a local newspaper on apologetics. This was in South Carolina, 2 percent Catholic, deep in the Bible Belt. One ad was about the primacy of Peter, another on the Blessed Sacrament. He would give his congregation a “war map,” telling them to invite people on their streets to mass, Bible study, apologetics, or a fish fry. Even though the church was ugly and the liturgy terrible, it worked. If traditionalists did this, we’d be busting at the seams and needing bigger churches.
Bishop Schneider: I agree. Traditional communities should be more missionary, going to people and inviting them to experience the beauty of the Catholic faith and liturgy. We should provide tools like apologetics or catechesis booklets, but the sacredness and reverence of a traditional mass will touch non-Catholics sincerely seeking God. Traditional Catholics should actively invite non-Catholics and lapsed Catholics to Mass and provide catechesis and apologetics.
Steve Cunningham: A priest once challenged his parish for one year: each family had to bring in one person. The priest would handle the rest. Why don’t more people do this? Is it fear of rejection? People have no problem talking politics or sports, but hesitate to invite someone to Mass or share faith.
Bishop Schneider: One reason may be a lack of courage or human respect, even among clergy. We must reawaken the gifts received in confirmation, specifically fortitude and courage, not to be ashamed of Christ. The traditional rite of confirmation symbolizes this courage. We must encourage confirmed Catholics to awaken their gifts, confess their faith with humility, and be apostles of Jesus Christ.
Steve Cunningham: I remember Bishop Barron talking about praying for zeal for souls. He joked that praying for a Maserati probably won’t work, but praying for zeal for souls is a prayer that will be answered. What tips can help people prepare for that? How do we get into the mindset to go out and be fishers of men?
Bishop Schneider: For example, I think it would be good in these parishes, traditional parishes or others, to prepare a small pamphlet, really very small, with the basic truths of Catholicism, short, and the basic prayers, let us say, which we have, and the commandments of God. So to make a small brochure, really small, with these necessary basic elements of faith, the commandments and prayers, some prayers, and to carry this with you, wherever you are, in the restaurant or when you are traveling, when you see someone, simply to offer this, and so you will do a great work. Maybe he rejects, but okay, this is his responsibility. But maybe he, the majority, will probably accept, and then someday they will look at this paper, this brochure, and God can touch the hearts of the people. So we have to have this concern for the salvation of one soul. Even if we could bring to God only one soul, it would already be worthwhile that we did this. So we have to awaken, as you rightly said, the zeal for the salvation of souls. This is the meaning of the existence of the Church here on Earth. This is why Christ came to save souls.
Steve Cunningham: John Stockton, in an interview, the NBA basketball Hall of Famer in the States, played for the Utah Jazz, said the Church dropped the ball during the last year and a half. How can we pick that ball up and throw it? We get all these opportunities. You see the world going to hell in a handbasket. If you read the lives of the martyrs, the joy they had, the English martyrs, they wouldn’t even pray with Protestants. They wouldn’t even pray in English, because they didn’t even like the language it for prayer. How do we get that mindset in modern times, not just in the United States, but anywhere in the world, Italy, France, etc., to get the zeal of our forefathers, the Hall of Famers of our own faith? What are some tips on that? Obviously, reading their lives, but like the guys behind me, the Carthusians, they didn’t just wake up one day and have that courage. What are prayer and fasting? Some tips for that, to gain that internal fortitude, to grow that for the time to come?
Bishop Schneider: Yes, first, I think we have to be conscious and aware of the beauty of the Catholic faith, to read again and again the good old catechisms, the good books, the explanations of our faith. And then, as you mentioned, also the lives of the saints. Specifically, I would advise reading the lives of martyrs of all times, the examples of them, and this could encourage us. And then also the priests, I think, should, may, do sermons about the topic of the salvation of souls. In the old times, they did more than today, specific homilies and sermons on the importance of the salvation of souls and being missionaries, as the first Christians were. So this is, I think, very important, to awaken again this sort of formation of your own faith, a continuous reading, especially of great missionaries. Let us say, to read the life of St. Francis Xavier, it would be very impressive for all, not only for the priests, and there are similar examples.
Steve Cunningham: You being in a former communist, I guess you could say, area, is there a life of a saint that you see as paralleling the times we live in?
Bishop Schneider: Yes, it is a parallel, because I lived in the Soviet dictatorship, and life was characterized by the absence of God. It was an entirely materialistic society, only concerned with the temporal aspects of life, and God was banned completely from the awareness of society. All religious signs were banned. And in this way, we have a parallel in Western society today, the increasing materialism, being only concerned with temporal affairs. And this even enters the life of the Church. Even bishops and the Holy See are doing an agenda more concerned with temporal life, material life, than the salvation of souls. So this poison of communism entered very much into the life of the Church, unfortunately, and the other new form, I would say, a more developed atheism and communism, is in the Western world, the attack against the family. This was already started by communism because of the spread of abortion and divorce. It was really very frightening in the society of the communist world. The Soviet Union was the first country in the world to introduce abortion legally.
Today, the abortion industry is growing frighteningly. This is the work of the first communist country in the world, and we are imitating it in the Western world today at this point. Also, divorce was very widespread under communism in the Soviet Union, which today is also present in Western society. Then the attack on the family continued. They took children from their parents, oftentimes in early life, to educate them from kindergarten in the schools with communist ideology. Children were educated completely in that system. Today, the state also takes children from parents in the sense that they provide immoral education, even in kindergartens and primary schools, teaching children and youth the immorality of gender ideology, corrupting them morally. This is further development of the atheistic, materialistic communist ideology, and therefore the words of Our Lady in Fatima, which she said in 1917, that Russia would spread its errors all over the world. It was not Russia as a country or nation, but meant the communist system. The communist ideology will spread all over the world, and today we are witnessing this spread, further developed, shifting to the extreme the positions of materialism and atheism, which are the destruction of matrimony and family, especially, and the global genocide of the unborn.
Steve Cunningham: Now, I could make someone black-pilled in probably about five minutes with all the news I keep up with. But we’re Catholic, so we have hope. How do you help someone looking at the world going, this is so overwhelming, nobody’s fighting on our side, it seems like the hierarchies are against us, it’s really everyone contramundo almost? If you look at Gideon and the 300, Lepanto, we were outnumbered, and we’ve always won with lower numbers. It doesn’t take a majority to win; it just takes being zealous to the point of death to win souls for Christ and do it as greatly as we can, and let God handle the rest. How do you help someone not lose hope?
Bishop Schneider: Yes, a Christian is by definition a person of hope. Otherwise, if we did not have hope, trust, confidence, and the conviction that we are the winners, we would not be true Christians and Catholics. God is always using His method, using the little ones to fulfill His great works in the history of salvation. Saint Gregory of Nazianzus spoke this phrase once in the fourth century. When the overwhelming majority of bishops accepted the fashion of the day, Arianism or semi-Arianism, out of conformism or political correctness, he said, God is not delighted in numbers. Our Lord also said to the Church, Do not be afraid, little flock. The little flock will always be the Church. This is God’s method, and the temptation of Church leaders is always the fear of being in the minority. Therefore, they develop a complex of inferiority because they are not numerous and make compromises with the world and the majority. This is also one of the reasons for our current crisis in the Church. We have to be convinced that God always uses the little ones, the small numbers, to fulfill His great works. Ultimately, it is God who is winning. We are the instruments.
Steve Cunningham: I was thinking of Venerable Leon DuPont. When you were saying that he would give away St. Benedict medals like hotcakes to people, just giving them out. And Maximilian Kolbe would do the same thing with the Miraculous Medal and say, Let the Immaculate work it out. You hear about conversions, like the miraculous conversion of Alphonse Ratisbonne, a friend of his, who just received a medal and a prayer and won his soul. What is the advice to not be scared to give out Miraculous Medals and St. Benedict medals, and teach someone to pray for them?
Bishop Schneider: Of course, we not only distribute the medals, but also pray for the person, at least a short prayer before or after giving it. This is very necessary because we implore graces, and this is God’s method. He desires to grant us graces, but we have to ask. In this case, we can also put a prayer with the medal, the Hail Mary, the prayer of St. Benedict, or the Our Father, so people have something to pray. Otherwise, the action of evangelization would not be complete.
Steve Cunningham: I look at it as a final thing. I look at it as kind of like I played ball sports all my life. So if you really wanted to make a team or make the starting lineup, you did everything you could to better yourself, to make your teammates better, to make sure your body’s well, your heart’s well, your physical being as well. Everything you can, you’re working eight to 10 hours a day, practicing, etc. The will to do it is like this line about St Thomas saying to his sister When she said, How do I become a saint? You will. It is about the same for evangelization. You have to want to help others, to save other souls, to bring people into Christ. It’s not just a habit or a thing you do on the side job. This is something you’ve got to literally want to do. How do you establish that? I know that’s a billion-dollar question, but how do you get that in somebody like me? You need to do this, not just say it, do it.
Bishop Schneider: Yes, this is the question of love. When you really love the faith in Christ and love the neighbor, his soul, his salvation, you will act. St. Paul says, Caritas Christi urget nos, the love of Christ moves us, moves me. This love should move you to concrete action, as people are moved to help the poor and homeless. You should develop love for your neighbor for the misery of his soul, which is worse than bodily misery.
Steve Cunningham: Your Excellency, thank you for your time. Can we get a final blessing from you?
Bishop Schneider:Dominus vobiscum, et cum, spiritu tuo. Et benedictio dei omnipotentis, Patris et Filii et spiritus Santi descendant, super vos et maneat semper. Amen.
Steve Cunningham: Thank you very much. In the show notes beneath the video, we’ll have the link to the book The Springtime That Never Was, available at Sophia Institute Press. Thank you for watching, and Your Excellency, thank you again for your time.
Bishop Schneider: Welcome