Transcript:
John: Today in Church chat, we are delighted to welcome to Holy Family, Mossend, the auxiliary bishop for Kazakhstan, Bishop Athanasius Schneider. Your Excellency, welcome to Scotland. Is this the first time you have been in the country?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Yes, this is the first time that I am visiting Scotland.
John: How have you found the experience of being here the past few days in Scotland?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Yes, it was for me a very beautiful experience yesterday in the parish in Glasgow, in the Immaculate Heart Parish. I could have a meeting with the young people, with children, with the families, with some priests. So I had a beautiful experience of the devotion of the people, of the love for the Catholic faith, for the truth, and for the beauty of the holy liturgy also. Then also the zeal to live the Catholic faith in this time, which we are now living, and especially in this modern time, where Christians and Catholics are becoming ever more of a minority. So we have to live and be witnesses of the truth and the beauty of the Catholic faith.
John: So we are obviously celebrating 150 years in Mossend. To mark this fitting occasion, the Eucharist is the center of parish life. We had a Eucharistic procession around the streets of Mossend. Do you think that is the best way to show greater reverence for the Eucharist? What other ways are there to show greater reverence?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Yes, the Eucharist is the heart of the church, and the church is built up from the Eucharist. So we have to increase our love, our faith, our devotion to the Eucharist. And the Eucharist is our continuation of the incarnation of our Lord. So our Lord became God, became visible in the Incarnation, and then in the Eucharist. And so it and according to our nature as human beings, we are soul and body. So it is natural that we have to pay homage and adoration and worship also in exterior forms, not only in the interior invisible because God became visible, and also in the Eucharist. Even though Jesus is hidden behind the veils of the Eucharistic bread, he is really present there with all his divine majesty. We have to show this also in exterior forms of worship, as you mentioned, the procession, for example, the solemn exposition. But also, we have to show our faith and our reverence and love in the manner we celebrate the Holy Mass, in the manner we receive our Lord in the Holy Communion. So our behavior, exterior behavior, has to demonstrate and be a witness to our faith, which we have in our souls. So it is very natural that we renew before our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. We keep reverence and silence, and we try to pay him homage also with beautiful ceremonies. He is, he is worthy of this, our Lord, and he has a right to this, because he is the King of kings and the king of our hearts.
John: So I think a true renewal, a true Eucharistic renewal, is very necessary. In my opinion, the most necessary thing in the church of our days, to have a true Eucharistic renewal. Only through this Eucharistic renewal, they will come a lasting and fruitful renewal of the entire church you saw down the stairs in our lovely church, which they have, sadly, in past times, removed the altar rails. How do we then achieve the reverence of receiving Communion worthily without an altar rail being there? What is the best option for people?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: I think in some churches around the world today, some priests make a good solution where there is no more a communal rail. One can put a kneeler, maybe when the communion rite is starting, the altar service can put it in the center. People can approach, and those who desire they can can easily kneel down. So they have to facilitate the people to receive Holy Communion kneeling. Otherwise, we will discriminate against people who want to receive kneeling. So when there is no possibility to kneel, no kneeler and no communion rails, those people say, unjust to those people who wash, who wish to want to kneel down. So I think it would be a practical possibility to put a kneeler. This is, I think, not so, not so difficult to make. Then it would also be good for a more stable solution to put a communion rail, even in a simple way. Today, we can put a communal rail, made from wood, in a simple way. It is not so costly. When we have understood the importance of adoration and reverence, I think we should do this and increase our honor to our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament during the reception of the Holy Communion.
John: Many people we engage with online have discussions and debates. One of the biggest polarizing issues for people, it seems here, is communion on the hand or communion on the tongue. Do you think that communion is in the tongue? Obviously, you do believe that is the right thing to do. But why do you think there is such polarization amongst people on that issue?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: I think the polarization has different reasons. The first may be the more human aspect that people are now accustomed to receiving Communion in hand, and they do not want to change. It is maybe a very human reason. The other aspect could be those people who are, it seems to me, more aggressive against command and the tongue, or to change their behavior. They are mostly those people who themselves had to change, maybe 40 or 30 years ago, when the commanding in hand was introduced. The people had to change. So they had to change to a new form. Now they are seeing that the young people, or mostly the young people, and now in our days, there is a movement to go back to the traditional form to receive Holy Communion on the tongue and kneeling. So these people feel a kind of provocation and a kind of criticism against themselves. So they are not able to reflect critically. So they are opposing these without reason. It is almost an emotional and unreasonable opposition. In my opinion, this and then a third factor could be a pure ideological factor, why they are against changing or why they are against communion in the tongue. Because in some cases, I think there is a deeper reason, a theological reason, because they do not truly believe in the Real Presence of our Lord, in all His Majesty. So when I truly believe that in this little host is my Lord and my God, with all His Majesty divine, before whom the angels prostrate themselves, as we read in Holy Scripture. So when I do not believe in this reality. And when, for me, the holy host is more or less a symbol, and it remains bread. So it is logical that I will receive this in standing. I will not kneel down before a bread, a piece of bread, or a piece of a symbol.
So, and then I will take this with my fingers and from the palm of my hand in a manner similar to how I take a candy or a cake to put in my mouth. So it’s more or less an ordinary food. So this is more the deepest reason, and they are, unfortunately, already after, after 30, 40, 50 years of practice of this communion in hand, this practice by time leads that people, or consciously or not consciously, are losing the faith, the full faith in the Real Presence of our Lord, in the holy host, and so therefore they are against so we see they are the different factors. But nevertheless, we have to continue to restore the more the more sure and reverent manner to receive our Lord on the tongue or by kneeling.
John: This year in Scotland is a very big year for Catholic education. We’re celebrating 100 Years of Catholic schools under the state system. Now my cousin Brian and I have been traveling around Scotland doing a big video on the state of Catholic schools at present. And what’s undoubted is that they are academically, very, very successful, and throughout the last 100 years, have been phenomenal success and good work. But something that personally troubles me is that when I interview students in Catholic schools in Scotland, they love their Re. They love their education. But when it comes to Re, they always say the same answer. They always say they like Re because they learn about other religions, and then when you ask them about their own faith, they find that they don’t have a very, very deep knowledge of their own faith. What is the solution to this?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: But you now said to me, this is a demonstration of a very sad phenomenon that the Catholic children and young people in Catholic schools do not sufficiently know their own faith. And so what does it mean to be a Catholic faith, a Catholic school, when the children and young people have no sufficient knowledge of their own faith? This is contradictory to the meaning of a Catholic school and also to being a good Catholic; I have to know my faith, and not only superficially, I have to know this in a very profound manner, in a very sure manner, in an integral manner. And so the first task of religious education is to give the pupils, the students, a very sound and complete knowledge of the Catechism of the fundamental truth of the Catholic faith. This is the greatest richness which we have on Earth, the Catholic faith and the knowledge of their faith. Of course, the knowledge of faith demands that to live this in your life, but then you don’t know how you can live this? And so those responsible for religious education deprive young people of the treasure, of the biggest richness which did, which exists. This is the Catholic faith. And then they deprive them.
The young people cannot live accordingly to the faith because they don’t know the complete truth. And then the other danger is that they know, of course, we can know the other religions as a kind of general education, yes, but we have to indicate to them. Students and children should understand the errors of the other religions. They are objective errors. We can educate them. Yes, you have to have respect and love for every human being, also for the members of other religions, even when they are doing believing or don’t believe in it, when they are they have errors in their religion. I have we have to have respect and love for these people, but we have to know that their way is not according to the will of God, because their way contains errors, and they are not believers, because the only ones who have faith, supernatural Faith, are other Christians. All other religions are pure human ways of religion, human inventions, not divine. And when there is something true in other religions, this is a gift of God to nature. So God gave us, creating us in nature, already gifts our intelligence, our sense on the natural level, and our respect for the sacred on a natural level.
So the knowledge of the existence of the Creator. Every human being is capable of knowing God only by reason. So this is a gift of God. But this is not sufficient. This is only on the human and the natural level, which is, of course, a gift of God. But the greatest gift of God is Jesus Christ and the faith, and that we become, through faith and baptism, children of God, the divine sonship, and the participation in the life of God Himself through faith. And so faith is only possible through baptism and the gift of faith. And this is the biggest gift that God can give to human beings. And so we have to desire that all other people who are not Christians become Christians and may experience this unspeakable privilege and happiness to know God as He is, the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, to be able to take part through faith and baptism in the inner life of God, in the supernatural life, in the eternal life. So we have to wish this for every human being, for the Muslims, and so they have to pray for them. They have to speak to them about Christ, about the only Savior, with respect, but we have to speak to them and invite them kindly to receive this gift of God, Jesus Christ, and the faith.
John: And finally, what are your plans for you rest of your stay in Scotland?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Today, I will go to Dundee and celebrate Mass in the traditional form, with the permission of the bishop in Dundee, and I will give a talk to the people about family and about my experience in the underground church. And so I hope that I can share some experience and give some encouragement to the people there.
John: Thank you very much for covering your Excellency. It’s been an absolute pleasure to have you here and show us the 100th and 50th exhibitions in the church and this interview. So thank you very much, and God bless you.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: You are welcome, and I also thank you for your witness. You are young people, and you are engaged in the Catholic faith, and may God bless your work and what you are doing, and multiply this with a lot of spiritual fruits.
John: Thank you.