Holy Mother Church Is Suffering

Interview Organization: Martin Novák
Date: May 9, 2024
Bishop Schneider reflects on the Church’s suffering, emphasizing that Christ alone decides the timing of its renewal through the faithful endurance of believers. Despite evil and injustice, God’s goodness is revealed in Christ’s suffering and resurrection, offering hope that through suffering, believers ultimately triumph with Easter’s promise.
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Transcript:

Our mother, the church, is suffering. We are tempted to be angry. We are tempted to want to say, “Descend from the cross.” No, this is not the means, but Christ the Lord alone will determine the time when he will lead his bride, our mother, the church, again to luminous days, through the sufferings and atonements and through the unshakable fidelity of the little ones in the church. This is the method of God.

How can God look down on all the suffering of this world and not do something about it? How can he be passive in the face of all of this evil? Shall Almighty God look down on the most perfect one who ever lived and not snatch the nail from the hands and not snatch the crown of thorns from their heads? Shall he allow this virtue and innocence and goodness to go down to death? Where is the goodness of God? Where is his understanding? Those are the questions that we might well indeed ask.

There would not have been a resurrection, but given a resurrection, no longer can men say God does not know what it is to suffer. When there are days of catastrophe or days of crises, such as we have today, we need a religion that was born in defeat. We need a religion that had its origin in catastrophe, and therefore we will now never be without hope, for a Good Friday will be tailored to an Easter Sunday, so long as we bear innocently that divine image. In the face of the evil of the world, we shall never perish, for we have already won.