The Spanish-Language website, Adelante La Fe (Advance the Faith) obtained an exclusive interview with Bishop Athanasius Schneider, our favorite Catholic prelate in the world today, and a once (and hopefully future!) contributor to this website.
The interview covers some extremely heady subjects. Among these:
- The serious diminution of faith in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist caused by the near-universal practice of communion in the hand
- His views on restoration of the liturgy and his love for the Traditional Latin Mass
- The role of Catholic Traditionalists in preserving the “democracy of the Saints,” and their plight as analogous to those who resisted the Arian heresy
- His opinion, as an official Vatican observer of the SSPX, that there are “no weighty reasons…to deny the clergy and faithful of the SSPX the official canonical recognition.”
This is a groundbreaking interview at an absolutely critical moment. We have reprinted it with permission, using the English translation provided. Please excuse the slight grammatical irregularities that appear at certain points in the text, which appear in the original translation. Please visit the website of Adelante La Fe for the the full text in both Spanish and English.
Adelante la Fe has had the chance of interviewing His Excellence Monsignor Athanasius Schneider, one of the most devoted to the defense of Catholic truth andand Traditional Mass among Catholic bishops. We would like to thank Monsignor Schneider for his deference to our website.
Adelante la Fe: As a secretary of Kazakhstan’s Bishops Conference, you took part in the 2005 Synod on the Eucharist. Your presentation centered around your childhood memories about the proper attitude towards Holy Communion, and you gave as an example the case of two priests, blessed Alexis Saritski, who was martyred, and Fr. Janis Pawlowski. What memories does Your Excellence have of your childhood and of the said priests?
Mons. Schneider: About Blessed Alexiy Saritski I have the witness of my parents who knew him personally. My mother told us often: “My children, I have never seen in my life a priest holier than Father Alexiy”. My parents often pointed out these his qualities: He was very meek and understanding, but at the same time taught he the people without compromising the full truth of the law of God. He was dedicated to the salvation of the souls up to the limits of his physical forces (sometimes he hadn’t eaten all the day because he heard continuously confessions). In his homilies Blessed Alexiy often said that we have to conserve the purity of the heart and the fidelity to our Catholic faith. Fr. Janis Pawlowski I knew personally, he was my parish priest in Estonia during four years. It was he who heard my first confession and who gave me the Frist Holy Communion. He celebrated the Holy Mass with such a devotion and reverence that it left in my soul a deep unforgettable impression. All his words and his gestures irradiated holiness. When I for the first time felt in my soul the attraction to the priesthood at the age of twelve, in my memory appeared suddenly the holy face of this priest. He was really a man of God. I received the great grace that I could meet him in Riga (Latvia) after I have not seen him during 27 years. He was already 86 years old, yet he conserved the same fresh and spiritually irradiating face. The three days I spent with him, were for me a kind of spiritual exercises. He helped me to put on the liturgical vestments and served me during my Mass with the simplicity and humility of a little altar boy.
Adelante la Fe: In your book Dominus est, put out by Libreria Editrice Vaticana in 2008, you reflect on your childhood under Communist persecution and offer some remarks on the history and liturgy of Holy Communion. In which ways has the practice of receiving Communion in the hand weakened faith in the Real Presence of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Eucharist?
Mons. Schneider: When in 1973 my family left Soviet Union and we said goodbye to Fr. Janis Pawlowski, he gave us this admonition: “When you come to Germany, please don’t go in the churches where Holy Communion is given in the hand”. When we heard these words, we all had a deep shock; we could not imagine that the Divine and Most Blessed Sacrament could be received in such a banal manner. It is now a proven fact that a considerable part of those who receive the Holy Communion habitually in hand, especially the younger generation which had not known the manner of receiving Communion kneeling and on the tongue, has not more the full Catholic faith in the Real Presence, because they treat the consecrated host almost in the same exterior manner as they take ordinary food. The exterior minimalistic gesture has a causal connection to the weakening or even loss of the faith in the Real Presence.
Adelante la Fe: On January 15, 2012 Your Excellence participated in the 4th Rencontre pour l’unité catholique in Paris, with a lecture on New Evangelization and Holy Liturgy. In this important dissertation you addressed the five wounds in Christ’s liturgical mystical body: the priest turned towards the congregation, Holy Communion taken in the hand, the new Offertory prayers, the disappearance of Latin in liturgical celebrations and the performing of some ministries, such as those of lector and acolyte, by women. How have these wounds been produced? What would the Church need for these wounds to heal and disappear?
Mons. Schneider: None of these liturgical wounds can even remotely be supported by “Sacrosanctum Concilium”, the Constitution on Sacred Liturgy of the II Vatican Council. They have been introduced according to a specific agenda of a small group of liturgists who fatally occupied key positions in the Roman Curia in the immediate postconciliar period and who with cunning and tricks presented such radical changes (with the exception of the practice of Communion in hand) sometimes as the will of the Pope and sometimes as an almost unanimous decision of the members of the Commission of the Liturgical Reform. Such manipulations are documented e.g. in the book of Cardinal Fernando Antonelli “The Development of the Liturgical Reform” and in the book of Louis Bouyer “Mémoires”, both authors being members of the postconciliar Liturgical Commission and so eye and ear witnesses of the above mentioned manipulations. It is a mysterious permission of God that the good intentions of the Fathers of the II Vatican Council and their moderate dispositions on liturgical reform, fell into the hand of impious and revolutionary liturgical ideologues. They brought the sacred liturgy of the Holy Roman Church in a state of captivity, in a kind of liturgical “exile of Avignon”. In order to heal these wounds there could be made the following steps: 1) A thoroughly study of the history of the liturgy concerning the above mentioned five liturgical wounds. Such a study which will compel to admit with scientific honesty that the above mentioned liturgical practices in their concrete modern form never existed in the universal Church; they represent therefore a radical rupture with the perennial law of the prayer (lex orandi) and therefore also a rupture with the Apostolic tradition. 2) A careful study of the text of Sacrosanctum Concilium and particularly of the Acts of the conciliar discussions on this topic in order to know the real spirit of the conciliar Fathers (the “mens patrum”), being the Encyclical “Mediator Dei” the principal hermeneutic key of Sacrosanctum Concilium, 3) To avoid, if possible, some of these liturgical practices such as Communion in hand, celebration towards the congregation, total vernacularization, female lectors and acolytes. These four practices are not compulsory. The modern offertory prayers are however prescribed. 4) To ask the Holy See to issue a document, which will grant to the celebrant the freedom of choice between the modern and the traditional offertory prayers during the celebration of the Holy Mass in the ordinary form; the same document of the Holy See could encourage the celebration ad Dominum or ad orientem and dissuade and restrict the practice of Communion in hand. 5) To give catechetical and homiletical instructions about the ineffable Divine mystery of the Holy Eucharist, about the perennial and unchangeable Catholic theology of the sacred liturgy, about the spiritual meaning of the ritual details. 6) To organize specific liturgical scientific conferences and talks for seminarians, clergy and laity in order to show the perennial liturgical principles and the organic character of the sacred liturgy and also to unmask the modern liturgical myths. 7) To spread more the celebration of the liturgy in the ancient form and the teachings of the Motu Proprio”Summorum Pontificum” of Pope Benedict XVI.
Adelante la Fe: In 2014 Libreria Editrice Vaticana published another book by Your Excellence, entitled CORPUS CHRISTI. La Santa Comunione e il rinnovamento della Chiesa, where you address once more, and more in depth, the subject of Holy Communion. The book ends with a reflection worthy of taking into account: the preferential option for the Poorest One, the Most Helpless One: Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Eucharistic species. With so much talk about the “option for the poor”, for the weak, why are we not aware of the presence of the Poorest among the poor in the Holy Eucharist? To what extent can we say protestant mentality has invaded the Catholic Church?
Mons. Schneider: The fact that Christ under the Eucharistic species became today really the most weak, vulnerable, defenseless and the most dishonored in midst of the Church, is a clear and sad indicator to what extent the love and the integrity of the Catholic faith in the Eucharist and in the Incarnation diminished. Indeed, the essence of Protestantism consists in the rejection of the fullness of the truth of Incarnation with all its implications and consequences: the visibility of the Church, of the sacramental life, of the concreteness and greatness of the Eucharistic Presence, of the incarnatorial characteristics of the liturgy. The current crisis of the Church manifests itself mainly in these two attitudes: a gnostic spiritualism and a horizontal naturalism, and the very root of them is the anthropocentrism, which on its part is a typical characteristic of Protestantism.
Adelante la Fe: Does Your Excellence think pre-Vatican II Church was isolated form the real world, full of privileges and closed in itself? Was the aim of Vatican II creating a different Church from that received by Tradition?
Mons. Schneider: The period before Vatican II, especially after the Council of Trent, was characterized by an amazingly great and dynamic missionary activity, comparable in its effects to some degree to the missionary period after Pentecost, so e.g. the missionary work of Saint Francis Xavier, especially the Jesuit Order as a whole, the admirable missionary work of several Religious Congregations in the African and Asian Continent in the ninetieth and the twentieth centuries. With her missionary work the Church contributed decisively also to a higher cultural, scientific and social-sanitary level of the life of many nations. In the period before Vatican II the Church made an epochal contribution to natural sciences even through her priests e.g. Gregor Mendel (genetics), George Lemaitre (astronomy and physics). For the most of the native peoples in America, Africa and Asia Catholic missionary priests wrote the first grammar books and the alphabet of their language. The Church made a decisive contribution for the abolition of slavery (beginning with Paul III and Las Casas in the 16th century until Leo XIII and the Catholic Princess Isabel of Brazil in the 19th century). With the encyclical ”Rerum novarum” Leo XIII gave universally recognized indications for the just treatment of the workers. Consequently, the Church before Vatican II was in no way closed in herself or isolated from the real world. Neither Pope John XXIII nor the vast majority of the Fathers of Vatican II aimed to create a different Church. All the documents and speeches of John XXIII, the preparatory documents of the Council (schemata) and the Acts of the Council itself demonstrate it well enough. The true relationship of the Church to the real world or to the temporal society has been always realized according to the theological principle “gratia supponit naturam”, i.e. the grace (Church) presupposes the nature (world), purifying, elevating and perfecting it. If the Church no more or not sufficiently enough influences the world and its realities with the supernatural gifts (grace, light of Divine truth) and instead deals predominantly with affaires of natural and temporal realities (e.g. social justice, ecology), than the Church closes herself in the temporal and deprives the world of the eternal, of heaven. The fact that the predominant activity of many of the official structures of the Catholic Church (associations, commissions etc.) is isolated from the supernatural, from heaven, and is immersed in the temporal and in the horizontal, represents the core problem of the current crisis of the Church.
Adelante la Fe: How does Your Excellence evaluate Benedict XVI’s Summorum Pontificum motu proprio? Why do you think it finds so many obstacles in its implementation?
Mons. Schneider: The Motu Proprio “Summorum Pontificum” is an act of the Supreme Magisterium with real epochal dimensions. It was absolutely necessary. It belongs to the very nature of the Church to hand over to the future generations integrally and without signs of rupture the treasures of the faith (lex credendi) and of the worship (lex orandi). A noticeable or revolutionary rupture in the manner of the public faith and worship contradicts the organicity of the Church’s nature, since the Church is an organic entity (Body of Christ, grapevine, Divine garden) and not a drawing board or a technical machine. The obstacles in the implementation of “Summorum Pontificum” are based on the fact, that a considerable part of the clergy has a disturbed relationship with the principle of organic tradition and manifests a spirit of rupture towards the liturgical inheritance of the Church. On other reason of their resistance and antipathy towards “Summorum Pontificum” is the lack of self-criticism regarding some obvious defects of the postconciliar liturgical reforms.
Adelante la Fe: Can Your Excellence explain what your feelings are when you officiate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in the Extraordinary Form?
Mons. Schneider: When I officiate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in the Extraordinary Form or to be more precise in the Traditional Form, I have the salutary and beneficial awareness and experience that I am not the owner and the boss of the sacred rite, but really only the servant, fulfilling the will and the commands of the Church, the Bride of Christ, praying in the spirit and even with the concrete formulas and gestures which belong to the catholic generations of a more than a millennial period. One has an awareness to carry out even in the smallest ritual details something which is not pure human and temporal, but eternal and heavenly, celebrating the supreme act of adoration of the ineffable majesty of the Triune God, who mercifully overwhelms us with the redeeming graces.
Adelante la Fe: What factors are responsible for the faith crisis we are currently immersed in, where some aspects of faith are being questioned that one could never imagine that could be questioned by the Church hierarchy itself? Is Catholic identity itself in crisis?
Mons. Schneider: The deepest root of the faith crisis is the anthropocentrism and naturalism, which manifest itself in an attitude of seeing and judging the truth of Divine revelation and of Divine worship predominantly with rationalist and pure humanistic criteria and with the criteria of the changeable human history. Such an attitude leads to a dogmatic, moral and liturgical relativism and ultimately a serious defect of faith and this is then no more far from apostasy and paganism. The words of our Divine Saviour refer in first place to all disciples of Christ and especially to the current crisis inside the Church: “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” (Luke 18:8).
Adelante la Fe: Can Your Excellence give some words of encouragement to those priests who, for being faithful to Church Tradition, are isolated and pushed into the background in their dioceses and not given temples where they can officiate Holy Mass in the Extraordinary Form, as well as to those faithful who are deprived of Traditional Holy Mass?
Mons. Schneider: I would like to say to these priests, seminarians, young people and families: “It is an honor and a privilege to be faithful to the Divine truth and to the spiritual and liturgical traditions of our forefathers and of the saints and being therefore marginalized by those who currently occupy administrative power in the Church. This your fidelity and courage constitute the real power in the Church. You are the real ecclesiastical periphery, which with God’s power renews the Church. Living the true tradition of dogma, liturgy and holiness is a manifestation of the democracy of the Saints, because tradition is the democracy of the Saints. With Saint Athanasius I would like to tell you these words: Those in the Church who oppose, humiliate and marginalize you, have occupied the churches, while during this time you are outside; it is a fact that they have the premises – but you have the Apostolic Faith. They claim that they represent the Church, but in reality, they are the ones who are expelling themselves from it and going astray (cf. Letter to his flock)”.
Adelante la Fe: Your Excellence has recently visited the SSPX Seminars in the United States and France. We know it was a “discreet” meeting but, can you make an evaluation for us of what you saw and talked with them about? What expectations do you have of a coming reconciliation and which would be the main obstacle for it?
Mons. Schneider: The Holy See asked me to visit the two Seminars of the SSPX in order to conduct a discussion on a specific theological topic with a group of theologians of the SSPX and with His Excellency Bishop Fellay. For me this fact shows that for the Holy See the SSSPX is not a negligible ecclesiastical reality and that it has to be taken seriously. I am keeping a good impression of my visits. I could observe a sound theological, spiritual and human reality in the two Seminars. The “sentire cum ecclesia” of the SSPX is shown by the fact that I was received as an envoy of the Holy See with true respect and with cordiality. Furthermore, I was glad to see in both places in the entrance area a photo of Pope Francis, the reigning Pontiff. In the sacristies there were plates with the name of Pope Francis and the local diocesan bishop. I was moved to assist the traditional chant for the Pope (“Oremus pro pontifice nostro Francisco…”) during the solemn exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. To my knowledge there are no weighty reasons in order to deny the clergy and faithful of the SSPX the official canonical recognition, meanwhile they should be accepted as they are. This was in deed Archbishop Lefebvre’s petition to the Holy See: “Accept us as we are”. I think the issue of Vatican II should not be taken as the “condicio sine qua non”, since it was an assembly with primarily pastoral aims and characteristics. A part of the conciliar statements reflects only its time and possesses a temporary value, as disciplinary and pastoral documents do. When we look in a two millennia old perspective of the Church, we can state, that there is on both sides (Holy See and the SSPX) an over-evaluation and over-estimation of a pastoral reality in the Church, which is Vatican II. When the SSPX believes, worship and conducts a moral live as it was demanded and recognized by the Supreme Magisterium and was observed universally in the Church during a centuries long period and when the SSPX recognizes the legitimacy of the Pope and the diocesan bishops and prays for them publicly and recognizes also the validity of the sacraments according to the editio typica of the new liturgical books, this should suffice for a canonical recognition of the SSPX on behalf of the Holy See. Otherwise the often repeated pastoral and ecumenical openness in the Church of our days will manifestly loose its credibility and the history will one day reproach to the ecclesiastical authorities of our days that they have “laid on the brothers greater burden than required” (cf. Acts 15:28), which is contrary to the pastoral method of the Apostles.
Smashing and spot on. His remarks about the change in the Consecration was both accurate and modest. He could have written the changes shoved down our throats was owing to the desire of the revolutionaries to have us accept their several heresies, the primary one being that the Mass is a supper.
And sentient being who compares the prayers of the Canon in the real Mass with what was substituted for them in the Lil’ Licit Liturgy understands that was the Liturgical equivalent of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
I don’t think I can express my perfect agreement on Mgr. Schneider’s opinions on Vatican II, Ecclesiastical Traditions, and ultimately SSPX.
In fact, I also feel suspicious that the issue of Vatican II in the dialogues between The Holy See and SSPX are “way too much” in terms of the recognition, as well as acceptance.
My naughtiest question on SSPX is “If the Holy See can accept FSSP, ICKSP, et al who does not serve The Ordinary Form of The Mass (promulgated by Pope Paul VI)…, what about SSPX?” I’m frustrated with the problem of SSPX. I wanna hear that SSPX is canonically regulated.
P.S.: I’m not the supporter of SSPX, but I have a few friends who are of SSPX, and I feel the empathy to them.
Bishop Schneider’s take on the SSPX makes sense to me — as Pope Francis put it, they’re clearly Catholic — so why not regularize and move forward? But Pope Benedict XVI seemed to think a doctrinal agreement was important, and the SSPX apparently agrees, just not on what that agreement should say. I do not meddle in the arguments of theologians, for they are subtle and make my head hurt.
I’m no expert but from what I’ve read the SSPX are expected to ‘sign’ that they ‘accept’ ALL the documents, not just the parts in the several documents they find clangers in. They cannot reasonably be expected to do this. As well, if they are simply ‘allowed’ to join in full communion without signing anything they perceive that they will be slowly crushed. Now at least they stand, ready, to be completely Catholic and lead the way when NewChurch falls apart.
They want the SSPX to accept the new mass, because the SSPX say it is not good. They say that the new mass allows for too much error -and I agree. They agree that it is valid and licit, just not that it does good, and so the faithful should not be forced to accept something that is clearly not good.
FSSP priests sometimes do novus ordo masses, and ICKSP probably do as well.
That’s the sort-off over-evaluation I think when hearing it.
How do you mean?
You assumed if the Holy See wants SSPX accept the New Mass, for they said it is not good.
Yes, they recognized the validity and legitimation of the New Mass, but they urged the faithful ones not to attend that Mass for safety of their soul (sic) – and they are true, by factual irony. Also yes, they want the Holy See to accept them as they are – which sadly being ignored for at least THRICE!
Bishop Schneider said it right at all, and I fully agree with him. Let’s take some quotes on SSPX.
“To my knowledge there are no weighty reasons in order to deny the clergy and faithful of the SSPX the official canonical recognition, meanwhile they should be accepted as they are. This was in deed Archbishop Lefebvre’s petition to the Holy See: “Accept us as we are”. I think the issue of Vatican II should not be taken as the “condicio sine qua non”, since it was an assembly with primarily pastoral aims and characteristics. A part of the conciliar statements reflects only its time and possesses a temporary value, as disciplinary and pastoral documents do. When we look in a two millennia old perspective of the Church, we can state, that there is on both sides (Holy See and the SSPX) an over-evaluation and over-estimation of a pastoral reality in the Church, which is Vatican II. When the SSPX believes, worship and conducts a moral live as it was demanded and recognized by the Supreme Magisterium and was observed universally in the Church during a centuries long period and when the SSPX recognizes the legitimacy of the Pope and the diocesan bishops and prays for them publicly and recognizes also the validity of the sacraments according to the editio typica of the new liturgical books, this should suffice for a canonical recognition of the SSPX on behalf of the Holy See. Otherwise the often repeated pastoral and ecumenical openness in the Church of our days will manifestly loose its credibility and the history will one day reproach to the ecclesiastical authorities of our days that they have “laid on the brothers greater burden than required” (cf. Acts 15:28), which is contrary to the pastoral method of the Apostles.”
Never underestimate this statement:
“… Otherwise the often repeated pastoral and ecumenical openness in the Church of our days will manifestly loose its credibility and the history will one day reproach to the ecclesiastical authorities of our days that they have “laid on the brothers greater burden than required” (cf. Acts 15:28), which is contrary to the pastoral method of the Apostles.”
Yes, the storm is upon us, and we are not ready…, for the worst of the worst.
I just don’t understand how something can be ‘valid’ and ‘licit’ (read Catholic) but not be ‘good’ and free of error. That is a contradiction and true Catholicism is not contradictory. Contradiction causes confusion. Who is the master of confusion?
Something can be legally valid and technically licit but adhere only to the bare minimum requirements attached to those terms.
Legalism and minimalism are the problems here.
Valid and licit are legal terms. Something can be valid and licit, like marrying your cousin in certain states, but that is really not good. “All things are lawful for me, but all things do not edify” 1 Corinthians 10:23. Just because something is allowed, does not mean it does good.
I think if the SSPX signs the agreements they are finished. They will slowly be absorbed (something akin to the Borg assimilating their enemies).
I am Catholic. I kind of resent being labeled as a traditionalist when I simply believe all of the true teachings of Jesus Christ, including His institution of one, true Church of Christ.
Perfectly said!
Same thing.
Haydock’s Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859 edition.
2 THESSALONIANS – Chapter 2 v.14 Therefore, brethren, standfirm; and hold the traditions which you have learned, whether by word, or by our epistle.
Commentary Ver. 14. Traditions,…whether by word,[10] or by our epistle. Therefore, says St. Chrysostom, the apostle did not deliver all things that were to be believed, by writing; (Witham) but many things by word of mouth only, which have been perpetuated by tradition, and these traditions, no less than the writings of the apostles, are deserving of faith. Omoios de kakeina, kai tauta estin axiopista. (St. Chrysostom, on this place)
Oh my. Bishop Schneider is going to be in hot water by stating that “the current crisis of the Church manifests itself in these two attitudes: a gnostic spiritualism and a horizontal naturalism, and the very root of them is the anthropocentrism, which on its part is a typical characteristic of Protestantism.”
He is describing the Novus Ordo Mass, the very heart of the Church, as a “characteristic of Protestantism”, which has been evident to many of us who were adults at its implementation and knew some of the history of revolt against the Catholic Church in both England and Germany, while researching who the players were with influence in the Second Vatican Council.
Why are the protestants being accused of changing the mass when it was the infiltration of commie/homosexualists into the Church that really changed it all. I saw it happening in the seventies and it actually sickened me to the point where I never went back to church with my five children. A Capuchin priest friend also told me how they were taught in the seminaries to ‘hate women’…What God asked them to be like that?
Further what kind of God creates women only to set them up to be abused? I see no diff between that and Allah, the ultimate woman hater par excellence. This commie pope gives us bonafide leftist proof by aligning self with Marxists/commies et al.
The Protestant revolt emboldened those inside the Catholic Church who were Her enemies. It was a defining moment in human history that changed the world. But those inside the Catholic Church who were Her enemies finally realized, long after Crammer and Luther did, that the Catholic faith can only be destroyed if the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is destroyed because that is the source and summit, the heart of the Catholic faith.
The Church had long been infiltrated with Communists, Masons, Liberals, Agnostics, Atheists, and Modernists but they couldn’t touch the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass until they became a majority. When they finally did become the majority, the very first thing they did was to incrementally introduce Protestant theology and practices into the Mass, as Crammer did, until the Catholic was thoroughly imbibed in their heresies and believe them to be true.
I love the article, but it is absolutely exhausting and depressing to know just how lone of a voice he really is! God help him. Voice in the wilderness.
Bishop Schneider 1 Bishop Morlino 0.
Does anyone else think that Michael Voris and CMTV will ease up on calling the SSPX *evil* after the good bishop has said this? They were so happy to publish their interview with him last month, and they were cackling with glee when they published bishop Morlino’s statement the other day. I’ll never understand the absolute supernatural hatred for the SSPX.
The Acts 15:28 reference is spot on.
Doubtful.
CMTV supposedly have their own secret stash of Cardinals in their pocket who say the SSPX is in schism. They pull out these secret Cardinals to counter the favorable statements Cardinal Hoyos has made towards the SSPX so I would assume they would do the same for Bishop Schneider. And just who are these secret Cardinals they’ve talked to in Rome? No one knows but them and we’re supposed to believe their anonymous Cardinals over the written statements of Cardinal Hoyos?
CMTV is an odd duck.
I’ve reached out to them. Based on the response I received, it seems unlikely that they will make the right choice.
I’m sure people would pay money for a podcast if that ever happened 🙂
Yeah, I have certainly noticed that. I hope Bishop Athanasius turns them down the next time they pester him for a soundbite and rebukes them for slandering good Catholics.
CMTV advertises their interview with Bishop Schneider with a note that you have to be a paying member to access it. I wonder if in the uncut version of the interview the good Bishop made some ‘uncomfortable’ remarks about the SSPX? LOL!
This is a wonderful interview, but why couldn’t an editor who is also a native English speaker have gone through it and corrected the somewhat annoying errors in translation and grammar?
This interview is 100% Grade ‘A’ Bombshell. For a “Novus Ordo” Bishop to take the words of St. Athanasius and recognize that the same condition exists today is unheard of!
Athanasius quoting Athanasius…. beautiful indeed!
It’s ironic; those who promulgated the novus ordo mass are asked to regularize the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass that Pope Saint Pius V codified in PERPETUITY in his apostolic constitution ‘Quo Primum’.
From wiki:
In the bull Pope Pius V declared: “By this present Constitution, which will be valid henceforth, now, and forever, We order and enjoin that nothing must be added to Our recently published Missal, nothing omitted from it, nor anything whatsoever be changed within it.” And he concluded: “No one whosoever is permitted to alter this notice of Our permission, statute, ordinance, command, precept, grant, indult, declaration, will, decree, and prohibition. Should anyone dare to contravene it, let him know that he will incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul.”
‘Quo Primum’ was written in 1570 for very serious problems within the Church at that time. – Actually the Protestant Reformation.
Popes can not bind other Popes into the future regarding RUBRICS.
Rubrics are not “Dogma” or “Doctrine of the Faith”.
This link to the Vatican web site, explains your reference.
http://w2.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/apost_constitutions/documents/hf_p-vi_apc_19690403_missale-romanum.html
The link you provided is wholly unhelpful. See above.
It is only unhelpful for sedevacantists, and schismatics.
MIKE, it appears a valid objection has been raised to the point you were making.
You said, “If your Priest or others are not referring to the Sacrifice of the Mass, they are not adhering to Doctrine of the Faith…”
CumExApostolatus says that Pope Paul VI never referred to it as the Sacrifice of the Mass. It seems that you have a conflict that needs either a corrective citation or some other resolution.
Also, Quo Primum did not bind in the matter of rubrics alone, but in the missal itself. The very form of the liturgy. I have to this day never heard a compelling argument as to how, based on the grant of perpetuity in Quo Primum, any priest could ever be forced to celebrate liturgy according to a different form, or that the Missal of that time could have ever been abrogated.
There is something to liturgy which, given the veneration of immemorial custom, transcends discipline and governance, and goes from small “t” tradition to big “T” Tradition. Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi isn’t just a fancy saying.
I’ve yet to reach any conclusive stance on whether Quo Primum makes impossible the licit promulgation of the Novus Ordo, but I believe there are points worth considering on both sides.
For the purpose of this conversation, I think we are both interested in Tradition with a Capital T.
If you get a chance check the paragraphs I mentioned in the CCC regarding Sacrifice of the Mass.
The CCC of 1997 was promulgated as part of the Apostolic Constitution as containing the “Deposit of Faith” and does use the terminology “Sacrifice of the Mass” in 3 separate paragraphs.
As we know Pope JP II promulgated the CCC, and Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict) was instrumental in its writing.
(Not related – I’m not crazy about Pope Paul’s VI writing style either. And I attend the EF Mass 90% of the time.)
But MIKE, you explicitly said, “If your Priest or others are not referring to the Sacrifice of the Mass, they are not adhering to Doctrine of the Faith…”
If Pope Paul VI didn’t refer to the Sacrifice of the Mass, what’s the logical conclusion?
“Sacrifice” is in the OF Missal – and in the EF Missal.
It is in the CCC of 1997, which contains the Deposit of Faith.
It does not need to be in every document.
So you’re not going to address it, then?
Try this – I will supply the Vatican link.
Vatican II Document – “Sacrosanctorum Concilium” on the Sacred Liturgy by Pope Paul VI
Paragraph # 7.
“…. He is present in the SACRIFICE of the MASS, ……”
(Caps are mine for ease of reading)
http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19631204_sacrosanctum-concilium_en.html
You are comparing apples to apples when comparing the OF missal and EF 1962 missal, since the OF Is a translation of the 1962 missal and the 1962 missal is well known to be the product of changes made in the 1950s.
It is up to Steve (owner of site) if he wants to promote heresy and schism through the posts of others.
Once again, Mike, this is a forum for discussion. I’m not interested in clamping down on legitimate discussion. Simply because I allow people to present their points does not signal an endorsement.
I do occasionally ban people for just being perpetually annoying, though.
It is also up to CM if they choose to promote schism and calumny and falsehood through the posts of others after producing hit pieces that negate even the admonitions of those clerics who they have previously extolled as reliable. Your presence here, MIKE, excoriating others for free speech is nothing but CM’s spreading its divisiveness via indoctrination of followers deprived of the full story.
You have provided zero documentation for any of your personal accusations.
MIKE, the documentation is there in comparing the two rites. But that is something YOU refuse to do.
Moving forward, you should look to your own false, unauthorized accusations and insinuations. And again, I would advise you to engage in the true charity advised by both Bishop Morlino and Bishop Schneider, instead of globbing onto the CM train of manufactured schism because CM demands it to be so.
Are you a Sedevacantist, or a SSPXer ?
The link wasn’t useful because it took one to Francis’ documents, not to Pope St. Pius V documents or to Paul VI documents.
You seem to get around quite a bit, “MIKE” of the Voris Vortex comm box. And your flame-thrower name calling is most abrasive. What moniker should we attach to you? Cult Member of the New Montinian Church?
When heretics on the far right and or far left can not win a debate they result to name calling.
Stick to the facts.
“…’Quo Primum’ was written in 1570 for very serious problems within the Church at that time. – actually the Protestant Reformation, and many doing their “own thing” with the Mass.
‘Quo Primum’ gave direction to Priests and Printers on what was required of them.”
….and in today’s crisis we have Protestantism within the Church aided by a Protestantized mass that stripped away those solid Catholic elements and that which kept priests from doing what they will instead of keeping it Catholic.
The 1962 Missal, and the OF Missal have mostly the same prayers – in all the important the “fixed” parts of the Mass.
This is Tradition.
Rather than merely giving opinions, please provide official Church documentation for your post.
Document and page number please.
No, they don’t. The two forms of the Mass are manifestly dissimilar.
People should take both the 1962 Missal (Latin Mass), and the Ordinary Form Missal and compare the “fixed” prayers themselves.
They can determine if many of them are the same.
Oh, I agree. They absolutely should.
http://www.lms.org.uk/resources/comparison-between-the-traditional-and-novus-ordo-missals
Thanks for this link.
They should also watch this video, because not all the comparisons are obvious from the prayers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fc7_OhT3fA
(And no, Mike, Novus Ordo Watch didn’t make this video. I simply couldn’t find the original that wasn’t posted under their account.)
Thanks for all the links.
None of them are from the Magisterium, and some are merely personal opinions by individuals.
One has to draw a distinction in this “conversation” between the “fixed” prayers versus the actions.
Yes the actions are different.
Again, let people decide for themselves regarding most (but not all) of the “fixed” prayers by comparing the Missals for themselves.
Yes, Mike, they are from the Magisterium. The comparison of Mass texts is a comparison of official Mass texts – promulgated by the Church. The video shows the Masses as they are celebrated under the guidance and rubrics provided by the Church. The Ottaviani Intervention came from the Cardinal charged with defending the Catholic faith in his position as chief doctrinal enforcer.
Keep peddling your unthinking adherence to contemporary Church documents. You’re not persuading anyone.
Ottaviani was a Cardinal who died in the late 1970s, and yes he was prefect of CDF in the late 60s.
He was not the “Magisterium”.
At the Council Ottaviani worked with, amongst others, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (SSPX) who was later excommunicated in 1988 and died in 1991.
The “Magisterium” are the Bishops in communion with the successor of Peter, the Bishop of Rome. (See CCC 85 – 87 for more information.)Individual Bishops even if members of the curia are not the Magisterium.
(Btw I agree with Ottaviani’s assessment of Karl Rahner.)
Your dodges are exhausting, Mike.
So what about the Intervention do you disagree with?
We can’t know everything, because we were not there.
But I disagree with many of the points Ottaviani made about the OF Mass.
I do not have a copy of the OF Mass as was proposed back in the late 1960s.
Based upon today’s Roman Missal of 2011, and using Ottaviani’s “brief summary” I disagree with the following: II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII.
Btw, Ottaviani was legally blind during most of the Second Vatican Council and had to rely on the writing and good faith of others to get his point across.
….good grief, man, do the excuses never stop?
MIKE – I really can’t tell and would like a straight answer: do you work for or have personal relationships with *anyone* inside CMTV or anything a degree removed from that?
Too bad you don’t agree with His Excellency Bishop Schneider’s valid assessments. If you’d take his word on signing a petition to the Pope, you’d benefit from going full on with giving His Excellency credit for being the learned and holy man CMTV claims that he is.
If you’ll read the links over there you’ll come across the Moderators admonition that in light of His excellencies stature, that it would be FOOLISH to dismiss his prudential admonitions.
Can’t have it both ways, MIKE. At least not here where lies and falsehoods are not tolerated.
Stop making things up. Who said I don’t agree with Abp Schneider’s assessments. He can only assess the information provided.
But I would be shocked if his assessment would remain the same if he saw the SSPX teaching video that states that attending the OF Mass is sinful, or that it is better to miss Mass on Sunday than attend an OF Mass.
That’s a more common opinion than you may like to believe. I’ve heard it (either personally or through friends and family) from several priests in good standing, all from different orders. They say if the Novus Ordo is an occasion of sin, it’s better to observe the Sabbath some other way. A close friend of mine got that advice in the confessional when they missed a Mass on Sunday because the only one they could get to was the late day bongo Mass.
I don’t know that I’d advise this as a general rule, but there’s no question that the Novus Ordo has been proven to be destructive to the faith of millions. It undermines what it allegedly celebrates. Validity is not the problem. It’s the theology and anthropology of worship that is.
What “Orders” were these Priests from,
that stated that missing Mass on Sunday is not a mortal sin ?
The old saying, “Monkey see, monkey do,” is appropriate here as human beings learn by example. So while the Novus Ordo Missae may be the ordinary form, the perpetual example of less-than-Catholic practice surrounding Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament does teach children and the faithful to be increasingly disrespectful and, in too many cases, dismissive.
Exactly. He can only assess the information provided. That is why you need to get your head out of CM as ‘the’ source because, contrary to what you’ve been fed, you’re not being provided with the whole truth.
And the reason why you would be shocked is because VORIS has primed you to see schism where there is none. The Vatican already knows the Societies position in this area as does Bishop Schneider (please, give the man credit for being the learned and holy man he is. That means he’s savvy, MIKE, not indoctrinated by way of half truths and black balling. That is also why, despite Voris’s attempts to twist his words, His Excellency doubled down very clearly on his assessments.)
That is why CM’s protestations of desiring more than any other the regularization of relations between the SSPX and Rome is merely the lady protesting too much. Because their actions are currently, ever since the onset of the $$$ that bought the new warehouse, decidedly those of an entity bent on sowing misunderstanding, misrepresentation, division, and manifesting schism. That is a shameful act in and of itself. As is the willful distortion of Bishop Schneider’s words and admonitions.
That is the real shock.
If you have any official Church documentation to the contrary, please provide it.
Otherwise quit making things up.
You may want to listen to Francis, MIKE, and stop looking for the safety net of official papers to cover your own skin.
As to the rest of your CM trolling, quit making things up and speaking on behalf of the Pope. It is his job to make the declaration of schism and you would do well to remember that. Otherwise, in acting on behalf of the Pope, you are making yourself an authority and behaving no better than the Sedevecantists you regularly deride.
Steve, I have never spoken on behalf of the Pope – anywhere, any place, any time.
I have no such authority, nor have I implied that I have any such authority.
Discussion is one thing, but allowing posters to flat out lie about others is
calumny.
“…Discussion is one thing, but allowing posters to flat out lie about others is calumny.”
This is why you shouldn’t follow Voris in intimating that there is schism where there is none. That is preempting that which belongs to a higher authority.
Saying things like Steve shouldn’t allow posters to promote heresy and schism is not a innocent statement, MIKE. You should own it if you’re going to say it.
You’ve wasted enough of my time. I can’t keep babysitting you. Go find another comment box to harangue people in. I just can’t keep up with your predictable “papers please!” fusillades on every post.
You are a one trick pony.
Try not to be too shocked. I’ve been blackballed from Voris’ Vortex for bringing up Pope St. Pius V and for bringing up Pope Paul IV’s Cum Ex Apostolatus Officio (using exact words from the documents in context and on point). Voris’ Vortex will have none of that. To be fair, I was ‘warned’ not to say anything ‘bad’ about the man who currently claims the papal title, but when faced with comm box ignorance about what came before Vatican II as well as purposeful omissions on the part of those running the site; well, I couldn’t stay quiet. In fact, I’ve been blackballed from several sites for bringing up the obvious –like the masons.
I personally believe that people like Voris have been promoted/given backing, in order to act as steam vents to prevent a revolt by the prols. It’s the ‘knight-in-shining armor’ or cavalry-coming-over-the-hill syndrome. These kinds of sites keep people thinking that someone else is going to rescue the day and they can avoid doing the heavy lifting themselves. As long as Voris keeps people in the pews, by having them cling to the false obedience to the ‘holy father’, the institutional church will leave Voris alone and let him continue to grow his ‘apostolate’. It’s similar to how they handle(d) Fr. Gruner, John Vennari, Michael Matt and the rest of the neo-conservatives & traditionalists. They all acted as steam vents.
If we had real Catholic men available (in a reasonable number) we could’ve prevented at least some of the recent parish closings in NYC, for instance. But, after all these years, we have only a patchy network of true Catholics who can’t seem to get past organizing their own little chapels. Those are needed of course, but more urgent is the need to confront these soulless, anti-Christs who’ve taken over the buildings and take the buildings back. Our forebears built those beautiful churches with their prayers and works and the past few feckless generations have let their patrimony slip through their hedonistic fingers. I’m sick to death of seeing Catholic structures, art, literature, etc. torn down, shredded, put in dumpsters or used for vulgar, secular purposes, in order to bring in more ‘aggiornamento’. What passes for Catholic should make a thinking person’s skin crawl with disgust and loathing.
I’m not shocked. And while I do not share the Sedevecantist position, I do take issue with all of the name calling associated with Catholics who, for the most part, just want to actually BE Catholic. In accordance with what the Church has always taught.
That is why I appreciate OnePeterFives open discussion format. No skirting difficult issues, no black balling and absolutely no attempt at mind control. How healthy is that!
As a homeschooling mom, I do not take kindly to the notion that disinformation and the purposeful withholding of the truth – especially those truths which are precisely what folks need to be armed with in order to navigate this mess – is helping anyone. Such an approach only forms idealogues who believe themselves to be, as you say, the shining knights.
The subsequent set up for disillusionment borders on the criminal. And with Catholics having to scrabble it out with what is too often apostate clergy, I find the squeamishness of CM revolting and anything but promoting the ‘manliness’ they advertise as being so important.
I also take issue with poor MIKE being used as a trumpeter for spin. And that is precisely what he’s being used for. That too is reprehensible as Catholics have been deprived of solid catechesis for too long already. To take Catholics under one’s wing under the auspices of educating them only to condition/indoctrinate them is to contribute to the crisis in the Church and render even more ineffectual and effeminate the very masculine effort required to right the ship.
“…Keep peddling your unthinking adherence to contemporary Church documents. You’re not persuading anyone.”
God bless you for saying it like it is, Steve. This stuff is hard enough to endure over at CMTV, but this is exactly the type of ‘education’ and ‘evangelization’ that is lauded as faithful. So MIKE has been misled entirely.
That is why I am telling everyone I know to visit OnePeterFive for accurate discussion without the name calling, ridicule, and black balling that does nothing but indicate that that what others are pedaling is rank.
I could barely watch this through my tears….
And they should read this, from the former prefect of what is now the CDF:
https://www.fisheaters.com/ottavianiintervention.html
The “Mass is a meal” meme is a severe or even extreme reduction of what it actually is.
However, lost in what Catholic once knew and understood of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is that everything Jesus did and said at the Last Supper, and later on Mt. Calvary, brought final fulfillment to the Passover instituted in Egypt for the deliverance of the Jews.
That sacrifice of the lamb, the sprinkling of blood, and the eating of the sacrificed lamb were required of every Israelite family under pain of death of the first-born son. In the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the Sacrifice of the Lamb fulfills the Last Covenant.
Our part today – like the ancient practice of eating the sacrifice – is to partake of the Body and Blood of the Lamb, so that in the Mass all three ancient actions are performed again in a manner permitting our assent to that Sacrifice and our participation in it, similar to that of our spiritual ancestors.
The progressives focused upon the meal concept and got it only partially correct, but their full understanding was lacking because their motives were less than pure. The result was the success in attaining their agenda to reduce the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass (a term rarely heard any longer) to a modernist Happy Meal. They forgot (or wished to forget) that eating the Sacrifice completes our fiat to the fulfilled Covenant.
We cannot divorce partaking of the Sacrifice from the Sacrifice itself, or else we wind up with what we ultimately have today: the Mass as just a meal in the minds of most Catholics, along with the suggestion that this meal is spiritual in some way they don’t fully grasp any longer.
“Catechism of the Catholic Church, second edition” of 1997 (aka CCC) –
CCC: ” 1330 The memorial of the Lord’s Passion and Resurrection. The Holy Sacrifice, because it makes present the one sacrifice of Christ the Savior and includes the Church’s offering. T he terms holy sacrifice of the Mass, “sacrifice of praise,” spiritual sacrifice, pure and holy sacrifice are also used, since it completes and surpasses all the sacrifices of the Old Covenant.
The Holy and Divine Liturgy, because the Church’s whole liturgy finds its center and most intense expression in the celebration of this sacrament; in the same sense we also call its celebration the Sacred Mysteries.
We speak of the Most Blessed Sacrament because it is the Sacrament of sacraments. The Eucharistic species reserved in the tabernacle are designated by this same name.”
Also see CCC # 1621, & 1088.
If your Priest or others are not referring to the Sacrifice of the Mass, they are not adhering to Doctrine of the Faith which is contained in the CCC.
Yes, modernists, neo-protestants such as Paul VI, in his Apostolic Constitution, “Missale Romanum” called the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the ‘Lord’s Supper’ (page 3, paragraph 3); or the ‘Eucharistic Sacrifice’ (page 1, paragraph 1 and page 2, paragraph 2). Not once did he refer to the Mass as the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The word “new” however was used 9 times. The words “new rite”, “new texts”, “new composition”, “new regulations”, “new needs” and “updating [Roman Missal] for present-day mentality” were also used. We are to think that ‘present-day mentality’ is in line with the thinking of Jesus Christ, the Holy Bible, and Catholic Tradition. It seems to me that was more than a change in ‘rubrics’ as our friend “Mike” below would have us believe.
http://w2.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/apost_constitutions/documents/hf_p-vi_apc_19690403_missale-romanum.pdf
Indeed, you are correct!
SACRED SCRIPTURE:
Psalm 95:6 – “O come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker !”
Rom 14:11 – ” for it is written, “As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall give praise to God.”
Eph 3:14 – “For this reason I bow my knees before the Father,”
Phil 2:10 – “that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,”.
We should all kneel (unless disabled) to receive the Lord in Holy Communion.
At the EF (aka Extraordinary Form, Latin, TLM,) Mass this is required – per the 1962 Missal.
At the OF (aka Ordinary Form, Novus Ordo) Mass this is the option of the communicant only (not the Bishop or Priest) as approved by the Vatican – GIRM (General Instruction of the Roman Missal) # 160.
For those who do not have a copy – here are the official links.
They can be printed off the Vatican web site.
If needed, you may need to show them to certain Bishops or Priests.
“SUMMORUM PONTIFICUM”
http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/motu_proprio/documents/hf_ben-xvi_motu-proprio_20070707_summorum-pontificum.html
and
” INSTRUCTION on the APPLICATION of the APOSTOLIC LETTER
SUMMORUM PONTIFICUM of HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI GIVEN MOTU PROPRIO”
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_commissions/ecclsdei/documents/rc_com_ecclsdei_doc_20110430_istr-universae-ecclesiae_en.html
For the EF Mass –
Here are locations for FSSP Masses in the USA and Canada.
http://fssp.com/press/locations/
The FSSP will train interested Diocese Priests as well.
If there is no FSSP location within your Diocese, contact your Diocese for the nearest EF Mass.
“I think the issue of Vatican II should not be taken as the “condicio sine qua non”, since it was an assembly with primarily pastoral aims and characteristics. A part of the conciliar statements reflects only its time and possesses a temporary value, as disciplinary and pastoral documents do.”
To whom it may concern:
This statement made by Mons. Schneider may reveal that he is unaware of John Paul II”s public statements concerning the Second Vatican Council.
(please see below)
Maybe he should study the issue more before trying to teach others?
God bless.
John Paul II describing the ecclesiological inspiration of the 1983 Code of Canon Law:
“The instrument, which the Code is, fully corresponds to the nature of the Church, especially as it is proposed by the teaching of the Second Vatican Council in general, and in a particular way by its ecclesiological teaching. Indeed, in a certain sense, this new Code could be understood as a great effort to translate this same doctrine, that is, the conciliar ecclesiology, into canonical language. If, however, it is impossible to translate perfectly into canonical language the conciliar image of the Church, nevertheless, in this image there should always be found as far as possible its essential point of reference.”
Sacrae Disciplinae Leges
What We Have Lost
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qrEZRnTch8