Last night, at Holy Ghost parish in Tiverton, Rhode Island, Brothers and Sisters from Saint Benedict Center were among the hundreds present for Bishop Athanasius Schneider’s much-anticipated presentation on the crisis in the Church. What was especially rewarding for me in hearing His Excellency speak were not so much his own words, but the “prophetical” writings of a succession of recent popes that he quoted at length.
Citing Blessed Pius IX, Saint Pius X, and Venerable Pius XII, he insisted on the immutability of Catholic Dogma. Some of these are the very passages that we here at Saint Benedict Center have harped on for years (see here and here ), in what seems at times like a vain attempt to wake people up to the unchangeable character of dogmatic definitions, and the nature of truth itself.
Most of his presentation, in fact, consisted of lengthy passages from these works of the papal magisterium. I believe the longest passages he cited were from Vatican I, under the pontificate of Blessed Pope Pius IX.
We can cite these passages until we are blue in the face, but when a bishop does it — one who is not yet retired! — it comes with the dignity of his office, and therefore carries much more weight.
While the “high points” of Bishop Schneider’s presentation were contained in the sagacious words of deceased popes, he had some asides of his own that were a great joy to hear, as when he stood up for the Sacrament of Matrimony in the face of the anti-marriage homosexual agenda. He also emphasized the necessity of preaching on hell, and, with an ironic smile bespeaking daring indignation, decried the fact that some people think that the doctrine of hell contradicts “the logic of the Gospel.” The outlook of supernatural faith permeated the talk, which was decidedly anti-Modernist in character, as “faith” was not spoken of in vague terms, but as an infused virtue whose object is divine revelation — the sacred depositum fidei entrusted by Jesus Christ to the Catholic Church. In a particularly daring statement, the Bishop advanced the truth that knowledge of the true and living God requires knowledge of Jesus Christ, and “Jews and Moslems do not [therefore] know God.”
I almost could not believe I heard those last words from a true and living bishop, but I did. (I am told that the talk will be on the Internet soon on the pastor’s pod cast, so readers can verify for yourselves.) It seems that Bishop Schneider agrees with Saint Thomas on a point that would now be considered controversial — a point which Catholics in the ages of faith would have taken utterly for granted.
But in times of moral and doctrinal insanity, what the common run of men took for granted in better days, Catholic common sense, has the appearance of a lightening bolt revelation.
Thank you, Bishop Schneider. You are living up quite nicely to the name you were given in religion.
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