Transcript:
Fr. Daniel Maria Klimek: I noticed that in recent years, a couple of Catholic authors, Ralph Martin in his book A Church in Crisis and Julia Maloney, they’ve written about this group called the St Gallen mafia, and allegedly a group of influential bishops and cardinals who meet annually in St Gallen, Switzerland and have a very strong leftist modernist agenda that they tried to advance in the church. Some even argued that they played an influential role in the election of Pope Francis. Do you have an opinion, Your Excellency, on their influence?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: I do not know exactly what they are doing now, but what we can read, you mentioned these books, there had been these meetings and these preparations to influence the election of a pope. And this is simply logic because the enemy is not sleeping. Once Saint Peter Canisius, the great Jesuit saint, the second apostle of Germany against Protestantism in the 16th century, also a doctor of the Church, Saint Peter Canisius made this affirmation, “Peter is sleeping while Judas is awake.” So the good ones, we are sleeping, and the enemies are very vigilant and very busy promoting their agenda. Jesus told us in the Gospel that the children of this world are more prudent than the children of light, and therefore, he said we have also to be prudent like the snake, the serpent, but innocent like the dove.
And this we have also to apply, but our strategy is not human like politicians, as this group of so-called St Gallen group did or are still doing, I do not know exactly, probably they are doing this in another way. They are really not doing the work of God but of the world, like politicians. We must first do our strategy of the Holy Spirit for the next election of the Pope, and these are prayers, acts of reparation, and acts of sacrifice to implore a divine intervention. And God can intervene; he did this in history, and he will do this. We do not know when or how but he will do it, it depends also on our prayers, on our perseverant prayers and sacrifices. And so we must organize a holy mafia, a holy crusade of prayers and sacrifices, and to implore this. Of course, those in charge, the cardinals, those who really love the church, they also should meet or speak in some way discreetly. But I think this is secondary, of course, it is useful also, and they have to do this, I think, but it is of secondary importance.