Transcript:
Father James: In God’s great Providence, He has blessed us today as we welcome amongst us, a bishop of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church, Bishop Athanasius Schneider. He was born on April 7, 1961, in Tokmok, Kyrgyz SSR, in the Soviet Union, as the youngest of four children of a German family. His baptismal name is Antonius. His parents, Joseph and Maria, were ethnic Germans from German villages on the Black Sea shore in Ukraine, and they were sent by Stalin to forced labor in the Ural Mountains. After the Second World War, they traveled to the Kyrgyz SSR after being released from forced labor, and later to Estonia.
In 1973, he left with his family for Germany. In 1982, he joined the order of Canons regular of the Holy Cross in Austria and was given the religious name Athanasius. He was ordained a priest on March 25, 1990. In 1997, he earned his doctorate at the Augustinian Institute in Rome. Beginning in 1999, he taught Patristics at Mary Mother of the Church Seminary in Karaganda. On April 8, 2006, he was appointed by Pope Benedict XVI auxiliary bishop of Karaganda and titular Bishop of Salarana. On June 2 , 2006, he was consecrated bishop in the Basilica of Saint Peter in the Vatican at the altar of the Chair of Saint Peter by Angelo Cardinal Sodano, who is Secretary of the State. In 2011, he was transferred to the position of auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of Mary, most holy in Astana. He is the General Secretary and the President of the liturgical commission of the Bishops’ Conference of Kazakhstan. Bishop Schneider has written two books on the unholy communion, Dominus Est and Corpus Christi, and several articles about marriage and family. Please let us warmly welcome him this evening as our honored guest, Bishop Schneider.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Dear Father James, pastor of this beautiful church and parish, I thank you very much for your very kind words, and I’m very happy to be here in this beautiful church and to speak to you this evening about the extraordinary prophetic meaning of the message of Fatima. Fatima, the inevitable wisdom and mercy of God’s providence grants to every age of human history and of the history of the church, those means of it which are not necessary in order to heal his heal the spiritual wounds and to save man from great spiritual and material disasters.
Usually, God intervenes in the most critical moments of human and sacred history through those authentic prophecies which are examined and accepted by the church. Such divine intellectuals happened all around. The history of the church didn’t happen until the end of time. The magisterium of the church states in the Catechism, the Christian economy, since it is the new and definitive covenant, will never pass away, and no new public revelation is to be expected before the glorious manifestation of our Jesus Christ. Private revelation, however, is ongoing.
Throughout the ages, there have been private revelations, some of which have been recognized by the authority of the Church. They do not belong, however, to the deposit of faith. It is not their role to improve or complete Christ’s definitive revelation, but to help live more fully by it in a specific period of history. Guided by the magisterium of the church, the daily sense of the faithful knows how to discern and welcome these revelations, whatever constitutes an intended call of Christ or his saints in the church. Christian faith cannot accept revelations that claim to surpass or correct the revelation of which Christ is the fulfillment, as is the case in certain non-Christian religions, and also in certain recent sects which based on such claims. So our interpretation of the Catechism, the apparitions which took place in Fatima in 1917, can be considered as one of the most outstanding examples of the prophetic gifts and crises in history.
God has sent his immaculate mother to Fatima in 1917, and the Blessed Mother of God sounded her urgent maternal warnings in view of the great spiritual dangers in which the entire human family was at the beginning of the 20th century. These warnings of Our Lady revealed themselves as being true, prophetic, given the unbridled state of unbelief, of atheism, and of a direct revolt against God and against his commandments. In our days, the private and public life was characteristic during the 20th century as a life without God and against God, particularly through the atheistic dictatorships of The Freemasonry, for example, in the Masonic dictatorship in Mexico in the 20s, of the National Socialism of Hitler in Germany, of the Soviet communism in the countries of the ex Soviet Union and of the Maoist communism in China.
At the beginning of the 21st Century, the war against God and Christ and against his divine commandments was unleashed almost on the water level, particularly through the West’s famous attack. Against God’s creation of human beings as male and female, by means of the dictatorship of the gender ideology and by means of the public legitimation of all kinds of sexual depravity. In the 20th century, it was Communist Russia that launched the most powerful and wide-ranging instrument of spreading attention and of war against Christ and his Church. This war was exclusive and formal, frontal.
Through the bloody October Revolution, 1917, Satan began to use the largest country in the world and the largest Christian nation to fight openly against Christ and his Church. On the 17th of July, 1917, when Our Lady spoke about the imminent danger which Russia constituted in spreading its errors all over the world, one could not imagine the real apocalyptic scenario of the persecution of the church and the spread of atheism, which Russia would start some last night in the end of October 1917.
The apparitions in Fatima demonstrated here by the honorable prophetic character as the main remedy for the theoretical particularism in which humankind plunged in the current epoch of the history already indicated the prayer of the rosary and the devotion of her Immaculate heart. It is the practice of the first five Sundays and the consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart. It is the practice of the first five Sundays and the consecration of Russia to her Immaculate heart, a consideration which has to be made by the poll in union, because the entire Episcopal and which, in my opinion, was not yet made in a perfect manner, in an exclusive manner. It has to be still made in an explicit manner as the main. The content of God’s commandments means godlessness, and this leads to the eternal damnation of many souls. In her messages in Fatima, Our Lady indicated that sins against chastity and disregard for the sanctity of marriage as the most frequent cause of the eternal damnation of souls. Our Lady told Saint Jacinta.
Already told Saint Jacinta that, I quote, “The sins that bring most souls to hell are the sins of the flesh, and in certain portions are going to be introduced, which will offend Our Lord very much. Those who serve God should not follow these fashions. The church has no fashion. Our Lord is always the same.” End of quotation. These are the words of Our Lady to Jacinta. The church has no fashions, very up-to-date words of our most beloved heavenly mother.
Moreover, I quote, “many marriages are not good. They do not please our Lord. And they are not of God,” St. John Maria Vianney, the Curé of Ars, taught in his sermons in a similar way. I quote, “How little it is known by the world, how little he valued it. What did he care to take to preserve it? What little zeal we have been asking God for, since he cannot have it of ourselves. No, my dear brethren, it is not known to those notorious and seasoned libertines who revel in and trade through the slang of their depravities. What state will such a soul be in when it appears before God? Purity? Oh, God. How many souls does this sin drive to despair?” These are the words of Saint Jean Maria Vianney.
The prophetic character of the words of Our Lady manifests in our days, to the extent that they can state that even inside the life of some particular Catholic churches, the sins of the flesh and adulterous unions are being practiced. Approved through the so-called pastoral practice of the admittance to Holy Communion of those divorced people who intentionally continue to have sexual relationships with a person who is not their legitimate spouse, such a pseudo pastoral practice will be responsible for the eternal condemnation of many souls because such a practice encourages people to continue to sin, offending God and thereby disdaining His commandments. I already told Saint Jacinta that if people knew what eternity is, they would do everything to change their lives. People will be lost because they don’t see the death of Jesus and they don’t do penance. End of quotation.
Our Lady came to Fatima, mainly to make an urgent maternal appeal to save souls. Through our Maternal and national, she showed, therefore, to the children, that unspeakably horrible reality. At the same time as the only way to avoid hell, the way of penance in its twofold dimensions. The first act of penance is a need of stopping to stop sinning and do reparation for one’s own sins. And we carry penance as acts of reparation for the sinners in new devotion. In the third part of the Secret of Fatima, God gives us the following shaking image as an invitation to the penance. We saw an angel with a flaming sword in his left hand. It gave out flames that looked as though they would set the world on fire, but they died out in contact with the splendor that Our Lady radiated towards him from her right hand. Pointing to the earth with his right hand, the angel cried out in a loud voice, “Penance, penance, penance.”
The Church and the faithful have to proclaim again and more big the divine truth of eternal damnation and of hell in order to save immortal souls who otherwise would be lost for all eternity. The existence of an eternal hell is a proof of faith, defined by the church, in councils, in symbols of faith. Our Lady of Fatima considers it so important and pastorally so efficient that she showed the little children hell. Sister Lucia narrates that their tradition only lasted for a moment thanks to our good Heavenly Mother, who, at the First apparition, promised to take us to Heaven. Without that, I think that we would have died of terror and fear, or let them say to the children, “You saw hell, where the souls of poor sinners go. In order to save them, God wishes to establish in the world the devotion to my Immaculate Heart.” Sister Lucia recalled, and then I quote Jacinta, “remaining sitting on the hunger rock, looking very thoughtful, and asked that lady also said that many souls go to hell, hell never ends, and heaven never ends either. Whoever goes to heaven never leaves it again, and whoever goes to hell never leaves it ever.”
They are eternal, don’t you see? They never end. He says to Saint Jacinta. It is impossible to say, “Help, the enemies disappear. All those who are in our hell will disappear.” No, it is against scripture. It is against. And so they continued. That was how, for the first time, they made a meditation and how the entertainment. What made the biggest impression on Jacinta was the idea of eternity. Jacinta, too, shortly before her death, remarked. Now there are the words of Jacinta, “If man only knew what eternity is, how they would make all possible efforts to amend their lives. Multiplications. Sacrifice with great pleasure to Our Divine Lord.”
So does Jacinta’s example, as shown in the following quotation, should profoundly touch us, but in the first place, should touch every priest. And so I quote, “The vision of hell filled her with fear to such a degree that every penance and mortification was nothing in her eyes, if it could only prevent souls from going to that place. Jacinta often sat thoughtfully on the ground or on a rock and exclaimed, ‘Oh, hell, hell. How sorry I am for the souls who go to hell.'” She told her brother, Francisco, “Francisco, are you praying with me? We must pray very much to save souls from hell. So many go there, so many.” At other times she asked, “Why doesn’t Our Lady show hell to sinners? If they saw it, they would not sin. So as to avoid going there. You must tell Our Lady to show hell to all the people you will see how they will be converted.” Afterward, unsatisfied, she asked me, “Why didn’t you tell Our Lady to show hell to those people?” “I forgot,” I answered. “I didn’t remember either,” she said, looking very sad.
Sometimes. She also asked, “What are the sins people commit for which they go to hell?” I don’t know. Perhaps it’s the sin of not going to Mass on Sunday, of stealing, and so on. So, for just one word, for one, just mortal sin. People can go to hell. “It wouldn’t be hard for them to keep holy and to go to Mass. I’m so sad for sinners, if I only could show them hell.” She said, Suddenly she would seize hold of me and say, ‘I am going to heaven, but you are staying here. Lucia, if only you would tell everybody what hell is like, so that they won’t commit any more sins and not go to hell.” At other times, after thinking for a while, she said, “So many people falling into hell, so many people in hell.” To be quiet on her and say, “Don’t be afraid. You are going to heaven.” “Yes, I am,” she said, severely, “but I want all those people to go there to heaven too.”
A particularly important significance of the message of Fatima consists in reminding the church and the humanity of our time, of the reality of sin and of its catastrophic and life-threatening consequences. Why does sin possess intrinsically such credibility and tragedy? It is because sin offends God’s infinite majesty, and any offense is infinite, holy, and wise whether. This is precisely because of the inconceivable manners of sin. However, the sacred Fatima message was a message. In their lives and as far as their sins, they must no longer offend our Lord who is already so much offended. Sister Lucy wrote the part of the last reparation which has remained most deeply he printed in my heart is the prayer of our Heavenly Mother who the prayer of our Heavenly Mother begging us not to offend Almighty God, anymore who is already so much offended. I already told Sister Lucia, “The good Lord is allowing himself to be easy, but he himself complains most bitterly and certainly about the small number of souls in His grace who are willing to renounce whatever the observance of His laws requires of them.”
So, interpretation, there is a famous statement of Pope Pius XII, which says, “A note, perhaps the greatest sin in the world today is that man has begun to lose the sense of sin.” So Pope tells one of the main articles of the message of Fatima and of the moving example of Saint Francisco and Jacinta, who take the best in the following questions, “I am hastening towards eternity. Am I really ready to appear before the tribunal of God? And I am not in a state of sin? Be the sin and in first place, the mortal sin, the greatest of the spiritual missteps, one of the main pastoral duties of the church consists in warning people of the danger of sin, in teaching them about the real gravity of sin, leading them to authentic repentance, through grace, save sinners from eternal death, through prayers, intercession, through acts of vicarious reparation. The ministers of the church should never minimize sin.”
They should never speak ambiguously about what sin is. Never. The ministers of the church should either explicitly or implicitly confirm a sinner in his sinful lifestyle, as, for example, to most of the men. Such an attitude of these ministries of the church would be highly anti-pastoral and comparable to a mother who would speak ambiguously to his child, seeing the child approaching an abyss, which mother would speak ambiguously? She is seeing a child going through an abyss. Really, no mama would speak ambiguously. Such an attitude, if she were to speak ambiguously, would not be the attitude of a mother, but rather of a stepmother. Consequently, those pastors of all levels who, as in the most frequent case in our days, preferred divorced and romantic people to continue to practice, attempted they behave themselves like stepmothers.
The so-called merciful new pastoral style towards the divorced and married, admitting them to communion, as is already done by entire historical conferences, this is ultimately a cruel stepmother, like a method towards the cities. The touching attitude of Saint Jacinta and Francisco towards sin and the sinners shames such an anti-pastoral mind, which is being propagated in our days under the mass of mercy. The reality of sin demands, necessarily, penance and expiation. These belong as well to the central part of the messages given by Our Lady in Fatima. Already in 1916, the angel spoke to the children in the same spirit in which Our Lady would speak in 1917.
An angel told the children, I quote, “Offer up everything in your power as a sacrifice, with love in reparation for the sins of which he is offended, and in supplication for the conversion of sinners. More than all else, accept and bear his resignation, the sufferings that God may send you.” So that the words of the angel on July 13, 1917, Our Lady said, “Sacrifice yourselves for sinners and say often, especially when you make some sacrifice, Oh my Jesus, it is for love of thee, for the conversion of sinners and in reparation for sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I offer this sacrifice to thee.”
So, the words of Our Lady, we should be moved and inspired by the example of the children of Fatima in order to grow in the spirit of expiation and reparation of sins. The children weren’t this fourth, but there was not a drop of water near. Instead of complaining, suddenly, how good it is to say, “I am thirsty, but I offer everything for the conversion of sinners.” Lucia, the oldest of these three, realized she should look after her cousins, so she went to a nearby house to fetch some water. Then she returned the shelf after it went to Francisco, and Francisco said, “I don’t want to remind me of the same.” She said, “I’m going to suffer for sinners.”
Jacinta knew that, and she said, “I also want to offer a sacrifice.” So Lucia poured out the water into a hollow of a rock for the sheep to drink and return to the house, the little noises of crickets, frogs, and insects began to part in the ears of Jacinta like thunder. Holding her head in her hands, she cried out in utter desperation. “My head aches so.” Told the crickets and frogs to stop. Then Lucia said, “Francisco, won’t you want to suffer for the sinners?” “Yes, I do. Let them sin.” This should move us, a child for life, for conversion, for sinners, and then Jacinta continued saying this, commenting later on the examples of Francisco, Jacinta, and Lucia. Lucia explained that quote, “Many persons feeling that their work burdens imply great austerities, and not feeling that they have the strength for great sacrifices, become discouraged and continue in lives of lukewarmness and sin.”
Then Sister Lucia said, “Our Lord explained to her that the sacrifice required of every person is the fulfillment of his duties in life and the observance of the commandments of God.” “This is the penance that I must seek,” Our Lord Jesus Christ said, through Sister Lucia.
The apparitions and messages of Our Lady of Fatima cannot be truly understood without considering the apparitions of the angel. In 1916, both apparitions have a mutual intrinsic relationship. The words of the angel already prepared the central message of Our Lady in Fatima. The words of the angel make of every single kind of sacrifice and offer it to God as an act of reparation for the sins by which hewas offended and in supplication for the conversion of sinners. So the words of the angel, however, the most important significance of the apparitions of the angel consists in his message concerning the Eucharistic mystery of the body and blood of Christ.
Again, in 1916, the angel spoke that Christ in this mystery is horribly outraged. Horribly. In 1916, in the church, there was no communion, and there was no such sense. But a little horrible. Hardly anyone in the church in 1916 could imagine that horrible outrages of Christ in the Eucharistic sacrament would be perpetrated to a terrifying and widespread degree, even in the midst of the church, as is the case now in our days, mainly because of the practice of giving Holy Communion in the hand, because so many fragments fall down and are trampled. Nobody can deny this. This is a fact all over the world, horrible. And we cannot say, “Oh, this can continue.” This cannot continue. When we believe that in every little fragment is the entire Christ is his divinity, is his love. How can we be indifferent? “Oh, this is also okay.” This is not okay. This is causing these horrible sacrileges. It’s evident. No one can deny this. This was the angel of Fatima who already prophetically spoke this. Prophetically, the church of our days can work on the Prophetic Mission of the apparitions of Fatima, the intrinsic, inseparable connection between the veneration of our Eucharist and the devotion to Our Lady, especially to our Immaculate Heart. The spreading of the devotion to the Immaculate Heart has to be connected simultaneously with the true renewal of the Eucharistic worship. Concretely is to begin with the restoration of the exterior cult of sacredness of reverence in the celebration of all Mass, and especially regarding the right and the discipline of receiving communion. Only then will become, there come the reign and the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. When the reign of Christ, Eucharistic King, may be again established in all its splendor all over the Catholic world, the reign of the Immaculate Heart is intrinsic Eucharistic. And this is a prerequisite for a time of true peace in the world.
One of the greatest devotees of Our Lady of Fatima, and one of the most serious promoters of her cult, was the highest and courageous Brazilian layman, Dr. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira. He made in a profound and perspicacious manner the actuality of the apparitions of Fatima, a presentation which is applicable to the current historical situation. I quote him in. The technocrats meet those who rule today’s world with the bankers. They built a peace without Christ, a peace against Christ. Those who rule the world in those who rule the world. 1944. I continue with the quote, “The world fell even deeper. Let us see, ignoring Our Lady’s message at Fatima, the miracles were shown to be accessible to all. Yet notwithstanding all of this, no one heeded it. Heterodoxy some doubted without standing it. Others denied it without examining it. Others believed but lacked the courage to say so. They did not heed the voice of Our Lady. The voice of Fatima speaks to us today. Let us not harden our hearts, for only by reading her message that you escape the judgment of history.”
So, the words of Dr. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira in 1944, Sister Lucia considered our current time as being close to the last times, and this forthe following three reasons, which she explained in a letter 26th of December 1957. So 1957. I wrote for this. Sister Lucia said, “The first reason is because our lady told me that the devil is engaging in a battle with the most blessed virgin in a decisive battle. Today, it is a final battle where one party will be victorious and the other will suffer defeat. So from now on, we are either with God or we are with the devil.”
The provided video offers a historical interview with Sister Lucia, providing a more detailed look into her insights on the Fatima message.
There is no middle ground. The second reason is that she told me already, as well as to my cousins, Jacinta and Francisco, that God is giving two last remedies to the world, and these are the Holy Rosary and the devotion to the Immaculate Heart. And being the last remedies, that is to say, they are the final ones. Means that there will be no others, and the third reason, that in the plans of the Divine Providence, when God is going to test out the world, he always first exhausts all other remedies.
When he sees that the good people give no attention whatsoever. Then, as we say, in our imperfect way of talking with a certain fear, he presents as the last means of salvation, his Blessed Mother. If you despise and reject these last things, Heaven will no longer pardon us, because we will have committed a sin that the gospel calls a sin against the Holy Spirit. This sin consists of openly rejecting the salvation that is put in our hands. His full knowledge of them also. Since our Lord is a very good son, our Lord, Jesus Christ, will not permit us to offend and despise his Blessed Mother. We have as obvious testimony the history of different centuries where our Lord has told us, with terrible examples, how he has always defended the honor of his blessed mother.
Prayer and sacrifice are the two means to save the world, as for the Holy Ghost in these last times in which we are living, the Blessed Virgin has given a new efficacy to the praying of the Holy Rosary. This is such a way that there is no problem that cannot be resolved by praying the rosary, no matter how difficult it is in the spiritual life of each of us or in the lives of our families, be they our families in the world or religious communities, or even in the lives of the peoples and their leaders. This, I repeat, there is no problem as difficult as may be that we can resolve at this time by praying the Holy Rosary. With the Holy Rosary, we will save ourselves, sanctify ourselves, console our Lord, and obtain the salvation of many souls.
Then there is devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, our most beloved, holding her as the seat of mercy, goodness, and pardon, and assured God to enter that habit. So Sister Lucia, six years ago now, make the church in our days listen what the perfect spirit is saying through the words of the angel of Fatima, through the heavenly example of the life of Saint Francisco and Jacinta, and in the first place, through the words of Our Lady, the Mother of God, our heavenly mother, and the spiritual mother for humanity. The majority of heteronormativity consists in preparing the church of our day for a fearless confession of the Catholic faith, and even for martyrdom, as we can see these Fatima.
Nonetheless, Fatima remains a true prophetic sign of hope, because Our Lady promises a time of peace and the triumph of her Immaculate Heart. The prophetic meaning of the message of Fatima as a whole includes the apparitions of the angel, the heroic, integral example of the life of the three shepherds, and primarily the maternal exhortations of Our Lady herself. In the prayer this week, Pope John Paul II consecrated on 24th March, 1984, the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. He left to the church and to humanity for all time the following ardent supplication, in which I perceived the most important points of the prophetic meaning of the message of Fatima. I quote these words of John Paul II, with which we conclude.
“Immaculate Heart, help us to conquer the menace of evil which so easily takes root in the hearts of the people of all days and whose immeasurable effects already break down upon our modern world. From readiness to trample on the commandments of God, deliver us, from attempts to stifle in human hearts the very truth of God. Deliver us from the loss of awareness of rooted evil. Deliver us from sins against the Holy Spirit, deliver us. Help us, as the power of the Holy Spirit, to conquer, to conquer our sin, individual sin, and the sin of the world, the sin in all its manifestations. Let there be revealed once more in the history of the world, the infinite, saving power of the redemption, the power of merciful love. May it put a stop to evil? May it transform consciences, make your Immaculate Heart reveal for all the life of hope.”
Thank you for your attention.
Father James: Before Bishop gives us his blessing and we go downstairs, I do have to say, Bishop, I can’t thank you enough for teaching us again what it means to be pastoral, which is to teach us the truth, the truth in love, because the truth is love. Thank you again.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: May the almighty God bless you, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, blessed be our Lord, Jesus Christ, and now and forever.