The devastating fire that ravaged the Paris cathedral contains an ‘unmistakable spiritual message,’ says the bishop.
ROME, April 17, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — The extensive fire that tore through the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris on Monday is a sign of the “spiritual conflagration” that has ripped through the Catholic Church in the past fifty years, Bishop Athanasius Schneider has said.
In comments to LifeSite on Wednesday, the auxiliary of Astana, Kazakhstan said the devastating fire that ravaged the Paris cathedral contains an “unmistakable spiritual message.”
The destruction, he says, is a “symbolic and evocative” sign of “what happened in the life of the Church” in recent decades, as people have “witnessed a conflagration of the Church’s most precious spiritual masterpieces” — her liturgy, faith and moral life, especially among priests.
The clerical sex abuse scandal, he adds, is the “climax” of this “decades-long spiritual conflagration.”
In his comments, Bishop Schneider makes no conclusions about the cause of the Notre Dame fire but places it in context of the series of arson attacks perpetrated against Catholic churches in the last year.
Elaborating on the tragedy’s “stirring” message, he identifies as the “spiritual arsonists” in the Church the members of the “liberal” establishment of heterodox theologians and clergy who have contributed to the crisis in the Church or who refuse to address its root causes. Many among their ranks, he notes, now regard Benedict XVI as a “troublemaker” for obstructing their “incendiary work,” through his recent essay.
Bishop Schneider insists that the blaze at Notre Dame is a “cri de coeur for authentic conversion,” especially among the “Shepherds of the Church.”
According to the auxiliary of Astana, it is also a call to the entire Church to do penance for the spiritual conflagration that has ripped through the Church in the past fifty years.
“Penance and reparation must be made, especially for the betrayal of the command of God the Father that all mankind should believe in His Divine Son, the only Savior of mankind. For God wills positively only the one and unique religion which believes that His Incarnated Son is God and the only Savior,” he writes, in a clear reference to the controversial Abu Dhabi statement that God “wills” a “diversity of religions.”
“Penance and reparation must also be made for the betrayal of Christ’s explicit command to evangelize all nations without exception,” including the “Jewish” and “Muslim” people, he adds.
“God will not indefinitely and shamelessly be mocked by so many Shepherds of the Church today, through their betrayal of the Faith, their sycophantic serving of the world and their neo-pagan worship of temporal and earthly realities,” he says. “To them as well are addressed these words of Christ, ‘I tell you, unless you repent you will all likewise perish’ (Lk 13: 5).”
Bishop Schneider expresses his hope that the Notre Dame fire might “rekindle” in the Shepherds of the Church a “love and zeal” for the Catholic Faith and an ardent desire to evangelize all people.
He concludes by calling to mind what he considers “one of the most touching and spiritually powerful signs” amidst the tragedy: young people and even children singing the Ave Maria as their beloved Cathedral, dedicated to Our Lady, burned before their eyes. Such prayer, he concludes, is the foundation for rebuilding “the spiritual ruins in the life of the Church in our day.”
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