Timothy S. Flanders: You brethren Christ laude to Jesus Christus in secular secular. This is Timothy Flanders at The Meaning of Catholic. Jesus is King. Welcome once again to the Saint Joseph Dialogos with co-host Jacob Fowler and a very special guest, His Excellency Bishop Athanasius Snyder. Your Excellency, it is a joy and an honor always to speak with you. Thanks for coming on the show.
Bishop Schneider: You are welcome.
Timothy S. Flanders: So you all know Bishop, I hope. He is the author of the new catechism, Credo, and so we are going to be talking about that today. But before we begin, Your Excellency, would you provide us with a prayer for our conversation?
Bishop Schneider: Yes, In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.
Pater noster qui es in caelis sanctificetur nomen tuum. Adveniat regnum tuum. Fiat voluntas tua sicut in caelo et in terra. Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie et dimitte nobis debita nostra sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris et ne nos inducas in tentationem sed libera nos a malo. Amen.
In nomine Sancti. Amen.
Timothy S. Flanders: Thank you, Your Excellency. Well, I wanted to ask you a few questions from my students. First, I am teaching a catechism class to high schoolers from your catechism, and they had a few questions for you. The first one is really easy. The second one is a little bit more complicated. So the first one is How long did it take you to write this catechism? How many years in the making was this catechism?
Bishop Schneider: Basically, I consulted seven different theologians, and they gave me some suggestions and advice. So altogether, I think it was around one year, a little bit more.
Timothy S. Flanders: And then my other question from one of my students, which gets into the controversies of the catechism, is whether Vatican II developed doctrine.
Bishop Schneider: Yes, there is always this topic of the development of doctrine, and it is also called the hermeneutic of continuity. Especially, Pope Benedict the Sixteenth stressed this. There are some topics in the Second Vatican Council, for example, the most famous are the collegiality of bishops, the so-called religious liberty, and the ecumenical statements on ecumenism. The true development must always be in the same sense and in the same meaning as it was before. It must avoid any rupture and discontinuity.
But there are themes that I mentioned, collegiality and religious liberty, where there are questions that are not so clear. It is very difficult to reconcile them with the statements of the previous Magisterium. Therefore, these topics must be examined again in the future by the popes and councils or be in some way improved by additional formulations or even corrected because they are not definitive teachings of the Church.
The council itself declared, and Pope Paul the Sixth declared that the council did not have the intention to propose definitive teachings. The intention of Vatican Two was to give an explanation of doctrine, not something new. And so explanations can be more clarified or even corrected. I think this should be done.
There are some aspects where Vatican Two truly made a convincing improvement in doctrine. For example, the statement that the ordination of deacons has a sacramental character. This was not taught so clearly before, but implicitly it was taught by the Council of Trent, and Vatican Two made this explicit. This is a good example of a true organic development of doctrine.
Another example is that episcopal ordination is also sacramental. This was not stated so openly before, but it was implicitly mentioned by the Council of Trent and by Pope Pius the Twelfth. These are good examples of authentic development. The other themes that were mentioned still have to be examined.
Timothy S. Flanders: So, I understand you are saying that some aspects of Vatican Two are a very clear organic development. Other aspects do not seem to be definitive and can raise doubts and difficulties, and thus, they may need to be clarified, corrected, or improved.
Now, one criticism that has been leveled against your catechism is that there is already a universal catechism. People say we already have a universal catechism, which was meant to clarify Vatican Two and deal with many controversies. Your catechism, Your Excellency, seems quite universal in scope and not tied simply to your diocese. So why was it necessary to write another catechism? Do you see this as clarifying and correcting?
Bishop Schneider: It is not so evident. The so-called Catechism of the Catholic Church did not clarify these questionable or ambiguous statements. It simply repeated them and stated that this is the so-called true development. It was not clarified. It was simply repeated and not in a convincing manner.
Of course, in general, the Catechism of the Catholic Church has its value, and I quoted it in a positive way. But there are some points that are not clear. For example, the issue of religious liberty, the prayer with Muslims, and so on. There are questions that are not clear even in the new catechism.
Also, a catechism is never finished. The Catechism of the Catholic Church was published more than thirty years ago, and since then, new topics have appeared in our world and new questions that were not mentioned there. Second, there are issues that were not deeply treated and need to be further explored. For example, the LGBT agenda was not treated much in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. I tried to deepen this question and also the other questions that I mentioned, which need clarification.
Timothy S. Flanders: Yes, unfortunately, we have had new issues with gender ideology, which you yourself have compared to the Soviet dictatorship that you lived under, and you said it is even worse than what it was under the Soviets. I certainly see some of what you are saying with the catechism. I have just one more question, and then I would like to turn it over to my co-host, Jake.
So the last question is this. I noticed that you quote Vatican Two in the text positively, and you also include the Creed of Paul the Sixth. In other instances, you quote Vatican Two at face value, where it can be ambiguous at first reading and could be taken wrongly. So the question is, are you trying to implement a hermeneutic of continuity? Would you describe your catechism as a hermeneutic of continuity?
Bishop Schneider: The hermeneutic of continuity is a good principle, and we have to apply it, but it is not an absolute principle. It cannot be blindly applied to everything. There are statements of Vatican Two which are objectively not able to be explained with this hermeneutic of continuity because they are in themselves ambiguous.
For example, the statement in Lumen Gentium 16, which says that Catholics and Muslims together adore God. This is at least highly ambiguous, and we cannot leave this formulation as it is. We have to reformulate it. It could be interpreted in a good manner, but one would need to write many pages to explain it. When people read this text, we cannot leave this phrase to them without correction. It must be corrected.
Jake Fowler: Your Excellency, thank you again for joining us, and thank you for the work that you do not only in your own diocese but around the world. If I may, I have a few questions about magisterial continuity and the role of a layman.
I would like to begin by pointing out that it seems that over the last ten years or even earlier, there have been theologians around the world who have suggested that even magisterial reversals, as they call them, could still be considered to be in continuity at a deeper level. This makes me think of Benedict the Sixteenth and his statements about micro ruptures or smaller ruptures to facilitate continuity on a more fundamental level. Is there anything to that? Is this something that needs to be explored more, or is it something Catholics should simply ignore?
Bishop Schneider: The basic continuity remains in the Church because the Magisterium has the gift of infallibility. This is the fundamental continuity. Definitive statements are infallible. The problem with Vatican Two is that it did not have the intention to speak in a definitive manner. Consequently, statements that are not definitive are in themselves open to improvement or even to slight correction later. This is not against the basic continuity of the Church or the Magisterium in the fundamental dogmas of the faith.
Vatican Two preserved all the basic dogmas of the faith. Only in some details, such as collegiality, religious liberty, and prayer with Muslims and other religions, are ambiguous and relativistic statements that should be corrected. I do not see a basic problem in correcting or improving these aspects.
Jake Fowler: Thank you. Another question that comes up often in my local community is about the proper role of a layman. What should we do when we encounter ambiguities or uncertainties, whether in Vatican Two or in other texts that appear to be magisterial? How should a layman engage with ambiguity and uncertainty?
Bishop Schneider: Lay people should first read texts that are clear and without ambiguity. We have such texts. Therefore, I recommend studying the traditional catechisms from before the council. They are completely clear and without ambiguous elements. For example, the Baltimore Catechism and the Catechism of Pius the Tenth. These are accessible to lay people.
I also recommend studying good encyclicals, which are very clear. For example, the encyclical against modernism. It is very important to read these again because they clearly reject and explain errors that also affect our time, especially relativism in doctrine and morals.
When we have two affirmations, one very clear from the past and another more ambiguous, we should adhere to the clearer one because it is more important for us. Then we should ask good theologians for advice to better understand where the problem lies. This is my advice.
Jake Fowler: Thank you. I have one further question, if you do not mind. You mentioned earlier that episcopal collegiality was a point of uncertainty or ambiguity. Mr Flanders and I recently had a theologian on the show who said that, according to some scholastic theologians, including John Duns Scotus, collegiality necessarily follows from the sacramentality of the episcopate. His position was that the sacramentality of the episcopate necessarily implies collegiality. What are your thoughts on this?
Bishop Schneider: We must clarify the concept of collegiality. It is a new concept, and the word college has different meanings. It is also a juridical concept, meaning a society of equals. This concept contains ambiguous elements, which can weaken primacy because the Pope is not simply a colleague.
From the sacramental point of view, he is a bishop like the others. But not from the point of view of jurisdiction. He is the supreme pastor divinely constituted as pastor of all. This ambiguity weakens clarity. During the debates of the Second Vatican Council, some bishops proposed using the term body of bishops because a body has a head and members, and the Pope is truly the head of the episcopacy.
Another proposal was the order of bishops, which is clearer because an order implies structure. These terms are clearer than college and should be preferred.
From the sacramental perspective, the Pope is the same as the other bishops. From the perspective of governance jurisdiction and teaching authority, he is not. He has the personal charism of infallibility when he teaches definitively for the entire Church. Bishops do not have this by themselves but only together with the Pope.
Another ambiguity introduced at Vatican Two is the idea that the college of bishops as such possesses supreme power in the Church as a permanent, stable power. This was never taught before. Previously, the bishops exercised supreme power only when invited by the Pope, such as during an ecumenical council or when he explicitly shared his authority with them. This power was not permanent.
There are not two subjects of supreme authority. The Pope alone governs the entire Church as supreme pastor. Vatican Two speaks in a way that suggests both the Pope and the college of bishops govern permanently, which creates ambiguity. This must be clarified to avoid the idea that the Church has two heads or that it is a diarchy. That would contradict the divine constitution of the Church.
Jake Fowler: That would be to fall into the erroneous ecclesiology of the Orthodox right.
Bishop Schneider: Yes, it could lead to this episcopalianism and the so-called synodality. The Orthodox, however, completely deny the supreme power of the Pope. For them, the Pope is only one among equals, a primate of honor and nothing more.
What I mentioned is a new teaching that suggests that there are two subjects in the Church governing the entire Church with supreme power. This undermines the monarchical structure that God gave to His Church. Christ established one supreme pastor. Then there are the local pastors, the bishops who are also of divine right.
The Pope is not obliged by divine institution to share his supreme power with the bishops at all times. It is very advisable and fitting that he does so, but it is not strictly demanded by divine law that the Pope must always consult or share his supreme power, which he received from Christ, with the entire episcopacy. It depends on the Pope, according to historical circumstances, to allow the bishops to share in his supreme power.
There were long periods of time without ecumenical councils or gatherings of bishops. For example, for more than three hundred years after Trent, there were no ecumenical councils until Vatican One. During this time, the Pope alone governed the Church. According to this new teaching, one would have to say that during that period, the so-called college of bishops did nothing and did not govern together with the Pope. They simply governed and taught in their own dioceses.
I must also mention the aspect of the so-called ordinary universal Magisterium of the Church, but this concerns only teaching. It occurs when the entire episcopacy, each bishop in his diocese, transmits the apostolic faith in the same sense faithfully through time together with the Pope. This teaching is infallible because it has been taught everywhere, always in moral unity.
For example, Pope John Paul the Second explained that the Church cannot ordain women to the priesthood. He stated that this truth was demonstrated throughout the entire history of the Church by the consistent teaching of all the bishops together with liturgical practice. This was an infallible manifestation of truth.
However, this universal Magisterium is not a continuous act of governing the Church. It is an exercise of teaching and of transmitting the tradition of the faith.
Jake Fowler & Timothy S. Flanders: Your Excellency, thank you very much.
Timothy S. Flanders: Yes, I was just thinking that the treatment of collegiality in your text is very good. You make distinctions between true and false collegiality, and you distinguish this from synodality. On page ninety-six, number six hundred ninety, you say that there are two distinct ways in which the Pope exercises his supreme authority. One is alone, and the other is with the bishops, and this preserves the one subject of authority.
I would like to read something briefly from page ninety-nine, number seven hundred eleven, which I think is very well formulated. The question is how collegiality can be rightly exercised in the Church. The answer is that a moral collegiality of charity and mutual cooperation aids the apostolic work of bishops, whereas a juridical or bureaucratic collegiality found in today’s bishops’ conferences with endless meetings and collective policymaking tends to diminish the bishop’s sense of personal responsibility and ministry to his particular flock.
You once said publicly that we could take all the money used for these endless meetings and give it to the poor, and that is what we should do. I thought that was a great comment.
Bishop Schneider: I would like to add to your question Mr Jake Fowler, that another aspect of collegiality is the mutual relationship between bishops. This is good and necessary. Bishops should maintain a fraternal relationship and help one another to be faithful in transmitting the Catholic faith, not to undermine it or weaken it.
Each bishop is divinely constituted as a pastor and shepherd of his Church with the consent of the Pope, the supreme pastor. But today, there is a wrong understanding of collegiality. As Mr Flanders quoted from my compendium, episcopal conferences are often presented as an expression of collegiality. In practice, over the past decades, they have weakened the responsibility of each bishop in his diocese and diluted the episcopal ministry into an anonymous collegial body. This is against the divine constitution of the Church and should be corrected. This practice, which is now widely implemented through bishops’ conferences, needs correction.
Timothy S. Flanders: We have a few more minutes left, Your Excellency, and I wanted to point out a few other aspects of your catechism that are very good. One is that, as we already mentioned, you quote Vatican Two both in its positive and ambiguous aspects. You also include a number of quotations from the Acta of Vatican Two.
For viewers who may not know, the Acta are the Latin speeches of the bishops at Vatican Two. You quote bishops who participated in the council, commenting on the texts and discussions, and this is very helpful.
Another helpful aspect is your systematic listing of errors. When you introduce a new topic, you often ask what the chief errors are on this topic, and then you list them clearly. At the end of page three hundred seventy-five, you even include an index of errors. This is very helpful for the faithful.
You also added a number of new errors. You coined or at least clearly identified terms not usually found in catechisms, such as magisterial activism, positivism, LGBTQ plus ideology, polygenism, religious liberty, Talmudic Judaism technocracy, transgenderism, transhumanism, transmigrationism, and Reiki, which I had never heard of before, and which appears to be a Japanese energy practice.
So, what would you say, Your Excellency, are the top three biggest errors that the Church is facing universally today?
Bishop Schneider: First, the most basic danger is doctrinal relativism. This says that truth is not stable and not constant, and that truth can change according to history. This is the most dangerous error. It is influenced by the philosophy of Kant and especially Hegel. It dilutes the fundamental basis of our belief and of our faith.
Relativism in doctrine and morals makes everything unstable, including doctrine, morals, and liturgy. We cannot give our lives for something unstable. It makes no sense to give one’s life for something that tomorrow may no longer be true or may even become its opposite.
The second error is anthropocentrism. This tendency began already in the eighteenth century, influenced especially by Freemasonic ideology and later by communism. It claims that man is the measure of truth and goodness. History shows that anthropocentrism led to horrible tyrannies and dictatorships. We have experienced enough of this in recent centuries. Today, we live under a new soft dictatorship with the LGBT agenda imposed by Western countries, especially upon children through mass media.
The third error is naturalism. Naturalism claims that only nature and temporal realities exist and that there is nothing beyond them. It denies supernatural life, eternal life, and divine realities. This mentality has deeply penetrated the life of the Church since the council.
These three tendencies are doctrinal relativism, anthropocentrism, and naturalism. We must put Christ again at the center. We must be truly Christocentric, focused on the God-Man, the Incarnate Lord. Not simply God in a vague sense, because many say they believe in God, but the question is which God? We must be Christocentric, concretely beginning in the Church and in our personal lives.
In the Church, this Christocentrism must be expressed by placing Christ in the Eucharist at the center of Church life and of our personal life. Visibly, the tabernacle must again be placed at the center of churches, not on the side. We must bow and kneel before Christ in the Eucharist, especially during Holy Communion.
The entire Church in prayer must turn toward the Lord not only interiorly but also exteriorly and visibly. This must be manifested. We must heal the Church through Eucharistic healing through Eucharistic Christocentrism. Then the Church will be healed.
We must also clarify these three errors: doctrinal relativism, anthropocentrism, and naturalism. We are created, and Christ founded His Church to lead humanity to eternal life, to heaven to save souls, and to give them the unspeakable dignity of being children of God. Not only natural human dignity but supernatural dignity as children of God, which is possible only through Catholic faith and baptism. Amen.
Jake Fowler: Thank you. Your Excellency, the core mission of our apostolate here at The Meaning of Catholic is to unite Catholics against the enemies of Holy Church. To do this, we try to find common ground among Catholics of all varieties, despite differences in theological schools, liturgical preferences, or culture. As a way to close, could you offer one suggestion for all Catholics, whether traditional or otherwise? What can we do to achieve the unity you have described?
Bishop Schneider: First, we must remember that we are all members of the one Mystical Body of Christ in the Catholic Church. We must begin with ourselves. When we truly sanctify ourselves and live in God’s grace united with Christ and faithful to God’s commandments, we edify the Church. Everyone who sanctifies himself edifies the entire Church.
We cannot effectively contribute to the renewal or reform of the Church without first reforming our own lives with God’s grace. This comes first.
Then together we must restate the beauty and clarity of Catholic truth. We must be ready to give our lives for the truth and have missionary zeal to share the beauty and integrity of the Catholic faith with all people. We must take hold of the clear truths handed down through tradition. This is the surest path.
Christ must be at the center of all things. He is the Lord and the center of our lives of doctrine, morals, liturgy, and prayer. This should unite us. Any true Catholic, even if he does not attend the traditional Latin Mass, should rejoice when he sees people kneeling before Jesus. It should fill us with joy to see someone kneeling before the Lord.
Likewise, when priests and people turn together toward the Lord in prayer as the Church did for centuries, it clearly shows that the Lord is central, not ourselves. Anything that emphasizes holiness and sanctity should fill us with joy beyond differences of liturgical tradition. This should unite us.
We should also share a deep love for Mary. All Catholics should be true children of Mary, loving our heavenly Mother. With the rosary in our hearts and hands, we must form a great army. In this time, we must truly be soldiers of Christ, armed with the rosary and Eucharistic adoration. This should unite us.
Timothy S. Flanders: Thank you, Your Excellency. We could feel your joy, and it filled us with joy as well. Everything you said was wonderful. Thank you so much for coming on the show. We are honored by your presence and grateful for your time. Would you please give us your final blessing?
Bishop Schneider: Dominus vobiscum.
Jake Fowler & Timothy S. Flanders: Et cum spiritu tuo.
Bishop Schneider: Et benedictio Dei omnipotentis, Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti descendant, super vos et maneat semper. Amen
Laudetur Iesus Christus.
Jake Fowler & Timothy S. Flanders: In saecula saeculorum. Amen.