Transcript:
Timothy Flanders: Your Excellency, thank you so much for coming on the show today. Would you begin with a prayer?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: In nómine Patris, et Fílii, et Spíritus Sancti. Amen.
Ave María, grátia plena, Dóminus tecum. Benedícta tu in muliéribus, et benedíctus fructus ventris tui, Iésus.
Sancta María, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatóribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostræ. Amen.
Glória Patri, et Fílio, et Spirítui Sancto. Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in saecula saeculorum. Amen.
In nómine Patris, et Fílii, et Spíritus Sancti. Amen.
Timothy Flanders: Thank you so much, Your Excellency, and welcome everyone to the One Peter five Podcast. I am Timothy Flanders, the editor in chief of one Peter five, and it is a great honor, always a joy, to have you on the show and talk with you, Your Excellency. And I am very excited to talk about this topic, which is the crusade of Eucharistic reparation, coming out of your, I think this was, was this your first book, Your Excellency, Dominus Est?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Yes,
Timothy Flanders: Okay, okay, great. So this is, unfortunately, less, we would like; we are excited to really promote it, because this is the crusade that you called way back in 2020, very much tied with your first book. So we are going to talk about that today. Before we do, I just wanted to ask everyone to chip in something at one Peter five. We are trying to pay our bills at the end of the year, so click the link below, chip in something to help us out. We are just trying to raise the cash so that we can continue to provide all of our content for free for all Catholics and spread the traditionalist cause. And at onepeterfive.com/crusade, that is where you can join this lay fidelity, the crusade of Eucharistic reparation. And the requirements for this crusade are once a month, you offer up an hour of Eucharistic Adoration, reparation, and then you pray the prayer of Bishop Schneider, which is the prayer for the crusade of Eucharistic reparation. And we have prayer cards for that. That is the minimum requirement. But there is much more. But you can go to this website, onepeterfive.com/crusade. You could put in your name to join the crusades. You can add yourself to our mailing list. And another intention of the crusade is to restore the Latin Mass. It was first just Eucharistic reparation, and we are going to talk all about that.
But Your Excellency, I wondered if you could talk a little bit about your upbringing, your parents. This is something you talk a lot about in Christus Vincit, but in Dominus Est, you tell a little bit about the story of growing up in the Soviet Union and what the Eucharist meant to your family and your various relatives. Can you tell us a little bit about your early, even before you were born, but what was it like growing up in the Soviet Union, and what did the Eucharist mean to you?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Well, it is known that the Soviet Union persecuted the church. It was a systematic persecution of the church, especially the Catholic Church, and it was a society, a totalitarian regime, of official atheism.
And so we, as Catholics, my parents, my grandparents, had to live a kind of clandestine church. And so they transmitted to me the spirit of the clandestine church where the greatest treasure for us during the persecution was the Catholic faith, the pure Catholic faith, and especially the Holy Mass and the Holy Communion, of course, but we did not have the possibility to have frequent holy masses. So in the first, in the Ural Mountains, there were very few occasions, sometimes maybe once a year or twice, came a holy priest from Kazakhstan, Blessed Alex, and he celebrated Holy Mass, confessed to people, gave Holy Communion, gave an instruction very deep, to love the Lord in the Eucharist, and then he instructed the people to the practice of spiritual communion because of the absence of priests. And my parents, they did, with the other Catholics, practice regularly. They gathered in a place, then in another place in Kyrgyzstan, where I was growing up. There was the sister of my grandfather, a very pious woman, and she, the priest, left in her house the Blessed Sacrament, and she promised to deal with much respect and reverence and to protect it from some possible raids from the police. And so she had a very secure place in her house. So, and then we came there sometimes to do Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and to do the spiritual communion.
And then later we were living in Estonia, where the church was about an open church, but still very much controlled by the Secret Service, of course, and so. But even on this occasion, we had a very holy priest who instructed us in a deep love for the Holy Communion. To me, as a child, he instructed me and my mother, and so I was growing up in such a natural, deep love and reverence for the Blessed Sacrament. And then when we came to Germany, West Germany, I was almost 13 and my siblings and my parents and we, we, we saw this scenario of the communion in hand, almost all in a queue, going there like in a cafeteria queue, to receive the Blessed Sacrament, like a cake, a chip. I mean, it was for us a shock, really. We were deeply shocked. And we were so shocked that we did not dare to go to Holy Communion. And then my mother was weeping, and these tears of my mother were ultimately the reason why I wrote this, my first book in 2008, 16 years ago, Dominus Est, to demonstrate the harm, the spiritual harm, which causes the practice of communion in hand. It is so obvious, and therefore we must stop it. And I am convinced that the practice of communion in hand is one of the deepest wounds in the Mystical Body of Christ in our day.
I do not condemn people who do this, because probably the majority of the people are doing it in good intentions, because they were misled. These people who are doing communion in hand, they were wrongly taught, and so they, I have not, they are not guilty. In my opinion, guilty is ultimately the pope who allowed it, Paul the Sixth, John Paul the Second, who confirmed it and allowed it evermore than Paul the Sixth and the bishops, the priests, they are guilty, not the lay people. The lay people were simply obeying such wrong and misleading instructions. And so I hope that by a living faith in the Eucharist, I to really be aware. Who is there? Not, what is the Holy Communion? What is the holy host? Who is the holy host? Please stop and be aware. And then the answer is, it is the Lord. And when it is the Lord, you cannot simply stand. You must kneel to fall down on your knees. You cannot take it like you take with your hands common food. No. You must open your mouth like a child. Otherwise, you will not enter heaven. If we do not become a child, even a child, in letting you be fed like a small child. And Christ is here feeding us like small children. And there is a beautiful Eucharistic symbol, the pelican, who is feeding his children, we have to say, with his blood, with his mouth. And this is the Lord, he is feeding us directly in our mouth, and also the Church Fathers, they compared the moment of Holy Communion to a baby taking milk from the breast of the mother, so as to suckle milk from the breast of the Mother. This, the Church Fathers, compared with the moment of the Holy Communion, is spiritual childhood. And this is so fitting. Therefore the church, more than 1000 years, sanctioned and sanctified this manner of receiving the Lord of the Lords, the immense sanctity of God in a small host, kneeling and on the tongue and with a paten, with all the necessary care and security and so and therefore, unless the communion in hand will stop, they will not have a renewal of the church at all.
Timothy Flanders: Thank you, Your Excellency. I am very moved by everything you just said, especially the tears of your mother. You said that was what motivated you. How many years did your parents live without a weekly Eucharist? And how long, how many years did you live without a weekly Eucharist?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: My parents lived at least. Let us say yes. They are from 45 to 73. So it was more than 27 years they lived with rare holy communions, maybe twice a year. Only in the last four years, they had maybe a monthly Holy Communion. And then they were so happy, because before they had it twice a year, and now they could have monthly Holy Communion, and we appreciated it so much. It was always a small feast when we could receive Holy Communion, really sacramentally. Of course, we did Holy Communion spiritually, often.
Timothy Flanders: And what, what was the first, how old were you when you first were able to go to the Eucharist every week?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: I was, well, my first Holy Communion I received when I was more or less 10 years old in the clandestine church. And then, when we came to Germany, I had, I would say, from my 13th year of life, I received daily communion.
Timothy Flanders: Wow, so and, but when you came to West Germany, that was when the liturgical reform was happening.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Yes, this was, it was already at the end of ’73, it was already in Germany. The liberal modernism was very quickly introduced during the council, already during the. So when we came, there had already been almost 10 years already spread such practices, which evidently undermined the fullness of our faith.
Timothy Flanders: I am sure your family was, perhaps, grateful to be out of the Soviet Union block. But how did you survive spiritually? Were there reverent masses somewhere that you could go to? Or what did you, what did you do when you had to go to Mass, or when the mass was irrelevant?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: We then, of course, had to accept the situation with communion in hand. But we never communicate in person. Sometimes we were the only people in a, in, during the mass who received communion kneeling and on the tongue. We always received kneeling. We did not dare to stand, even though there was no communion rail, even in a queue. And it was for us so natural. It was not even, I would say, an act of courage. It was so natural, we could not stand still. It was for us so obvious, and thanks be to God, we were, we were not denied, because we had some privilege, because we came from the clandestine church, we were persecuted. So the, at least those priests had at least some sense of humanity and did not command us to stand up or to, as in our days, often happens in some places. Of course, we had, we tried to seek churches because they are not so far away. In Germany, they can go by car and seek a better place. And there were some places where the Holy Mass was celebrated at least more reverently.
Timothy Flanders: Okay, so you did find some more relevant. This would be all the new Masses celebrated in German.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: So the new mass, yeah, in, in the 70s, even we did not know that there was a traditional Latin Mass. And so we tried to go to some retreats where the priests were more pious, and others. On other occasions, we had to simply accept such sad situations. There were times we had no choice, but nevertheless, we tried to seek better places. Yes,
Timothy Flanders: Did you ever, you know, you have written about this in one interview I read in the remnant, you talked about how, and you do say, actually, in Credo, I should put this out here in your catechism, you mentioned how there can be a liturgical abuse which is so bad that it would not oblige you to in your Sunday obligation, but it would have to depend on which abuse we are talking about. This is what you say in the Credo. So, was there any time when your parents felt that the abuse was so bad that they did not have to attend the mass in Germany in the 70s?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: No. Thanks be to God, in the town where my parents lived in South Germany, there was also not so far, a community of sisters, religious sisters, who had a hospital, a big hospital there, and an old church with their own chaplain. And so it was always for us the possibility to go to this hospital church where the sisters were still in some way pious. And so we had a place to escape.
Timothy Flanders: Good. Okay, now some traditionalists. And you know, you have, you have already written about, you know, the issues with the new mass, various problems with the text of the mass, or various things like that. And, of course, the community of the hand being the primary abuse, even though that is not technically in the rubrics of the new mass. What would you say to certain traditionalists who say that we should never attend the new mass ever, even if it is reverent, even if it is all as best as it could be, we should never attend it. What are your thoughts on that?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: No, I think it is not correct, because if there the new mess could be celebrated in a reverent way, and so it is not heretic. Even Monsignor Lefebvre said it is not heretical. Of course, Monsignor Lefebvre said it is undermining, in some way, the fullness of truth and so on. But it depends on the manner. So in my congregation, I am a religious Canon Regular of the Holy Cross, and we celebrate the Mass of the Novus Ordo versus them towards the Lord in Latin, with the first eucharistic prayer, the Roman Canon, with convenient kneeling and the tongue, with Greek Gordon chant, with traditional homilies, with piety. So I do not see why you cannot see such a pious Mass; it is surely possible. I also, I am also celebrating as a bishop here in my diocese, also the Novus Ordo. But thanks be to God, we have only communion and healing on the tongue. This is compulsory. We have no female-like readers for the epistle, only men and ordained lecturers, for example. We have no female altar girls or female servants. And so we have pious songs, traditional, and so I celebrate in this way, the Novus Ordo.
Before I go out, I pray in the sacristy the prayers of the foot at the altar. Then I come back into the sacristy, I pray the Gospel of John, and I take the old offertory prayers in a low voice. No one is hearing it, so I am basically celebrating the traditional mass.
Timothy Flanders: So you say the old offertory prayers during the new Mass?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Yes, of course, I, okay. I cannot take the new prayers because they are very ambiguous, and I cannot take anything. It is not heretical, but it is ambiguous towards the Eucharist. And so, since you must not pray it in a loud voice, in the Novus Ordo, it is allowed also to pray it in a low voice, so no one hears it, so I am free. I take the prayer of all times.
Timothy Flanders: Well, so tell us about what led you to write your first book. You said the tears of your mother, and this was back in the 70s. So this memory of how your mother reacted way back in the early 70s stayed with you into your religious life, priesthood, and consecration as a bishop. 2008 was when you wrote this book. So tell us about what led to writing this book in 2008.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Well, as I said, I was always carrying these moments where my mother was weeping about this communion in her hand. And then, as a priest, I also witnessed this tragedy, I would say, of the communion in hand. And even as a young man, a boy, I always had some, it was always for me, and I could not understand, even when I was still in the world as a, as a young man, as a boy, I could not understand such a practice. It was so evident, in such a minimalistic way, that you cannot really adore in such a way. And so it was always, I was carrying in my soul since my 13 years of age, this sadness, this concern. And then when I became bishop, my first act was to act as a bishop, because I have more authority. I am, I am part of the magisterium of the church, the college of bishops, and it is also my duty. And so I raised my voice to defend the Lord, and to, yes, to shout to the entire church, please be aware, stop such a practice.
Timothy Flanders: So what year were you consecrated as a bishop, Your Excellency?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: 2006
Timothy Flanders: Okay, so I know that you mentioned in, I think it is Christus Vincit, how you and the other bishops of Kazakhstan have, and you mentioned it before, you have banned all communion in the hand in Kazakhstan.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: It was my first action as a bishop. It was my first action as a member of the Bishops’ Conference. Straight one month after my consecration, I had to participate in a bishop’s conference meeting, and I was in charge of the liturgy, and so it was my task, and I prepared a draft of a decree that communion kneeling in the tongue is explicitly compulsory, obligatory for all, and communion in hand is formally forbidden, even for the foreigners who come to Kazakhstan and in all chapels, in all parishes, in all communities, for the entire territory. And thanks be to God, the majority of the bishops supported me. And also the Holy See, Pope Benedict, in 2007, approved, gave the papal approval for our general decree.
Timothy Flanders: And so, yeah, it is, it is unfortunate that, legally speaking, everyone forgets that communion in the hand is even an indulgence in the first place. It is not even so, you were lifting the indulgence that should not have even been there in the first place, and Pope Benedict confirmed that. So you wrote this book in 2008. I think the original language was Italian because it came, it was written in Italian first, right, because it was L’Osservatore Romano.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Yes, L’Osservatore Romano, but Libreria Editrice Vaticana. So I wrote it in Italian for a special purpose, to be published in the official publishing house of the Holy See. So the Holy See, the Vatican, has its own publishing house, and it is called Libreria Editrice Vaticana. So when a book is published by the Vatican itself, in this life, in this publishing house, it has more, I would say, vague authority. And this was my intention. And then, therefore, all the other translations must refer to the first publication, and that is written in the Vatican publishing house. And therefore I, I made this for this aim.
Timothy Flanders: Yeah, so the text itself discusses, I wonder if you could. So everyone needs to buy this, buy five copies, send them to priests, Dominus Est, it is the Lord, and I am going to get back to the relationship of Pope Benedict, because you hint at this, I believe in Christus Vincit but you talk about because one of the common objections obviously that there are certain documents which testify that there is some communion in the hand somewhere in the early church. But you go through the attitude of reverence, the testimony of the fathers, the early church, the magisterium, the liturgical rites, and then you also deal with the Eastern Church testimony, as well as the Protestants. So, can you tell us a little bit about what you set out to prove? What did you prove in this text?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Well, there is now spread by bishops and priests, I would say, the myth, a fake, in some way, information that in the old church there was communion in hand, and they quote almost only one author, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, who describes how to receive. But we have these testimonies. It was not a universal practice of the church, but we have no testimonies of Rome, for example, that there was communion in hand in the first centuries, but in any way it was a complete, it is substantial different way than today we receive. In the old church, in those places where the communion, so-called communion in hand, was practiced. It was put on the right palm of the hand, and you had to bow your head down and take the Holy Communion directly with your mouth the Holy Communion. So it was directly; you did not touch it with your two fingers. It was not permitted to touch it with your fingers. And so the ladies received. They had to, to cover the hand, the palm of the hand, with a corporal, with a white sheet. And then from this sheet they took reverently. And then they had to purify the palm of the hand because of possible small pieces or fragments, such care and attention, you see. And the manner in which we live today is essentially different, because this manner was invented by Calvin, by the Calvinists, not by Martin Luther.
So the Lutherans, even the traditional Lutherans, until in our day, if they are still traditional, I mean high church, they receive communion kneeling and on the tongue. But the Calvinists and other Protestants introduced this way to take in the left hand, not in the right, and then to take, to take your two fingers and pick you up and put your own by your own in your mouth. This was never in the church, never even in the old church. So they have to clarify this. These misleading informations that which clergy are spreading, and even though it was a reverent way, the church considered it not sure enough, and therefore, by experience, forbade this way. Already there were synods in the eighth in ninth centuries, which punished communion in hand with excommunication, a very, the most severe punishment of the church.
So you see, the church recognized this danger; therefore, the church could never punish someone with the most severe punishment, excommunication, for practicing communion in hand, but in the way of the old church, not to pick up with your fingers, but even this way, to put on the palm of your right hand and take with your mouth. This was instinctively recognized by the entire church, east and west, at least from the seventh, eighth centuries, as not certain enough. And I repeat, at least from the eighth and ninth centuries, there were already severe punishments, sanctions, and canonical sanctions. Therefore, it is not correct when some priests and bishops say the first, the entire first millennium the church received, had to practice in, in communion in hand; it is wrong, not the entire first millennium. It already had excommunication when it was in the ninth century, already excommunication. So you cannot make a prohibition, and certainly make an excommunication. It was natural, it took some time, and therefore it is not the entire first millennium. And I repeat, we have no witnesses and testimonies that in Rome, there was ever communion in hand.
Timothy Flanders: And so there is really no evidence anywhere that proves that the current practice was practiced in early church, which is this Protestant eating like a common food, so and so tell us about in this book, published in 2008, at some point during the pontificate of Pope Benedict, he began to distribute communion in his papal masses, only on the tongue and kneeling. I am not sure if it started from the very beginning when he became Pope, or later. You mentioned that it may have had to do with the publication, publication of this book. So did your book convince Pope Benedict to stop communion in the hand, at least for his own distribution?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Well, I cannot say absolutely, but it is, it says, has probability, because I wrote him before I published the book. I gave him the manuscript and a letter in German where I asked him, Holy Father, I beg you, in the name of Jesus Christ, please stop giving communion in hand as a pope and, and in your masses as a pope, yourself distribute only to the people on the tongue and while they are kneeling. So this was my urgent demand to the Pope. And then he answered me quickly in German, and said, The arguments of your manuscript of this book are convincing. So, but he did not say what he will do. And then, three months after the publishing of my book in the Vatican publishing house, three months later, the pope started to do what I asked him to do. So, and then I thanked him personally. Shortly after, when he started to do this, he smiled at me and said, Yes, this manner is more convenient for Holy Communion. And then another, in the same year, I had my, a visit with him, and in my private audience, he repeated this to me so it, has, with a probability, my letter to him, my demand, that he did it because he, he answered me he was reading my manuscript, and said, your arguments are convincing.
Timothy Flanders: Okay, so thank you so much for your time, Your Excellency. Let us talk about reparation. In 2020 was when you called the crusade, the crusade of Eucharistic reparation, due to the COVID crisis at the time, which is where many bishops were saying that we had to receive communion in the hand. And so let me first ask, what is reparation in and of itself? And why is this Eucharistic reparation so important?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Well, the first who did reparation was our Lord Jesus Christ. His entire sacrifice on the cross is basically a reparation. It means he is repairing what we, Adam and all humanity, how I destroyed with our sins, spiritually, we made something evil, and here is taught the good, but we made evil. We offended God, and He restored the honor of God in our name, so as to recompense this evil. And so it was the sacrifice of the cross. We call this a propitiation, because it was also adoration and Thanksgiving, but especially propitiation, expiratory or reparation. And so from this spiritual power of reparation of Our Lord on the cross, we can join with him, because Saint Paul says, I must add or supplement to the sufferings of what is lacking in the sufferings of Jesus for His body, the church. So, because we are a body, and so we can repair for those who are connected with us in a living manner, in the church, in the body of Christ, and therefore uniting us with the Spirit of Christ on the cross, with His intentions, we can make this reparation to give him honor, love, instead of those who do not give him honor and love, or who offend him in the Eucharist.
And then we had the confirmation of the necessity and spiritual advantage of this practice from heaven, from several saints, and Margaret Mary Alacoque, with this, with the devotion of the Sacred Heart. There, the Lord asked Saint Margaret Mary, and through her, asked the Church to give him acts of reparation for the sins of others. And then we had another, the angel of Fatima, who came to the children of Fatima; he taught them to console, he said, console your God, who is so horribly outraged in the Eucharist, so horribly, console him, offer him reparations. This was from heaven, we were asked. And so the children of Fatima gave an example, and then the angel taught them the prayer of reparation. We know this prayer of reparation of Fatima, and this is a good and very meaningful, and powerful spiritual prayer to recite when we are before the Blessed Sacrament to console Jesus.
Timothy Flanders: Do you think that at the time of Fatima, there were many Eucharistic abuses, or like unworthy communions? That was just when there was more frequent communion had just begun at that time. It seems kind of shocking to us, because there was still the Latin Mass, you know, there, there, there was no communion in the hand at that time. Do you think there was a problem with Eucharistic reverence at the time of Fatima?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: We have no evidence to the contrary. It was not, not yet, suddenly spread. In 1916, the daily communion. Only slowly and so, and the clergy were very much vigilant until the council all, all over the world, for a strict observance of the rules of reverence, even of those who are, who are maybe in sins, they cannot go to Holy Communion. It was stressed by the priests all over the world. It was common. And so from this point of view, there are no such horrible outrages as the angel spoke. Maybe there was unworthy communion. And subconsciously, it is not; we could not avoid. They were, but it is not, it is such a, to such an extent as in our day. Of course, it was incomparable. But also, we can understand the words of the angel in a prophetic manner that he foresaw this in the future, in our day, and probably also we can include this.
Timothy Flanders: Well. Thank you so much, Your Excellency. And just a final question for you, what spiritual advice would you give to the faithful to increase our practices and our attitude, our devotion for Eucharistic reverence and Eucharistic reparation?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Yes, I would say every time you enter the church, maybe your first gaze should be towards the tabernacle and your first prayer, you adore the Lord and console him. Make this your habit, your custom. Oh, my Lord, I want to console you for all the outrages which are in our day, offended, being. I am also a sinner, but I want to offer you this humble image of love, reverence. So, such a small thing by your own words or your inner, interior act, to do this every time you enter the church, and of course, to do a concrete Holy Hour of reparation when you can do this. Yes.
Timothy Flanders: Well, thank you so much, Your Excellency, so you can join the Crusader of your Christopher preparation. You can get this, this Crusader pin, which is a real Crusader cross, because this gets sacramentalized with the ritual that His Excellency has approved. So you can go to onepeterfive.com/crusade. And like I said, put your name in to be on, put on the mailing list. And if you scroll down here, we have all the prayers and all the materials, and we have the Crusader cross that you can have sacramentalized by any priest, and you can join this movement, which, as you say, Your Excellency, there, there can be no revival until communion in the hand ends, and we have Eucharistic reverence, not only in the, the new mass, but also with the restoration of the Latin Mass. So thank you so much, Bishop Schneider. Would you please bless us with a prayer to end our time together?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Dominus vobiscum, et cum, spiritu tuo. Et benedictio dei omnipotentis, Patris et Filii et spiritus Santi descendant, super vos et maneat semper. Amen
Praise be Jesus Christ! Now and Forever!