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Lord Jesus Christ, Our God and Saviour, You are the Head of the Church, Your spotless Bride and Mystical Body. Look mercifully upon the profound distress to which Our Holy Mother Church has been subjected. Doctrinal confusion, moral abomination, and liturgical abuse have, in our day, reached an unprecedented height. “The heathens have come into your inheritance, having defiled your holy temple, and laid Jerusalem in ruins” (Ps 79:1). Churchmen who have lost the true Faith and become promoters of a worldly globalist agenda, are intent on changing Your truths and Commandments, the Divine Constitution of the Church, and the Apostolic tradition.
O Lord, with humble spirit and contrite heart we beseech You, prevent the enemies of the Church from exulting in a victory over the authentic Catholic Church obtained by imposing a counterfeit church under the guise of “synodality.” Stir up Your power, O Lord, and come to the aid of Your Church with Your almighty strength. For where sin and apostasy in the Church abounds, the victory of Your grace will abound the more.
We firmly believe that the gates of Hell will not prevail against Your Church. In this hour, in which our beloved and holy Mother Church is suffering her Golgotha, we promise to remain with her. Graciously accept our interior and exterior sufferings, which we humbly offer in union with the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Mother of the Church, as a reparation for our own sins and for the sins of sacrilege and apostasy within the Church.
O Lord, send forth your Holy Angels under the command of Saint Michael the Archangel, to bring your heavenly light to the Pope and synod participants, and to frustrate the plans of your enemies within the synod assembly. O Lord, look mercifully upon the little ones in the Church, look upon the hidden souls who sacrifice themselves for the Church, look upon all the tears, sighs and supplications of the true children of the Church, and through the merits of the Immaculate Heart of Your Most Holy Mother, arise, O Lord, and by Your intervention grant Your Church holy shepherds who, imitating Your example, will give their lives for You and Your sheep. O Lord, we beseech You: Through the Blessed Virgin Mary, grant us a holy Pope, zealous in promoting and defending the Catholic Faith, we implore You, grant it! Through the Blessed Virgin Mary, grant us holy and intrepid bishops, we implore You, grant it! Through the Blessed Virgin Mary, grant us holy priests, who are men of God, we implore You, grant it! In You, O Lord, we rest our hope: let us never be put to shame. To You, O Lord Jesus Christ, be given all honour and glory in Your Holy Church. You live and reign with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit: God, forever and ever. Amen.
September 29, 2023
+ Athanasius Schneider
Bishop Athanasius (Anton) Schneider is the author of two books: Dominus Est – It is the Lord!, and Propter Sanctam Ecclesiam Suam (not yet available in English.)
He was born of German parents on 7 April 1961 in Tokmok, Kirghiz SSR in the Soviet Union, where his family received the pastoral care of Fr. Oleksa Zaryckyj, later to become a beatified martyr for the faith. Bishop Schneider himself received his first holy communion in secret, since the practice of the faith was outlawed under the communist regime. In 1973, he left with his family for Germany.
He later joined the Canons Regular of the Holy Cross of Coimbra, a Catholic religious order, where he was given the religious name Athanasius. He was ordained a priest on 25 March 1990. In 1997, he received a doctorate in patrology at the Augustinianum in Rome; and in 1999, he became a professor of Patristics at Mary, Mother of the Church Seminary in Karaganda.
In June 2006, he was consecrated Bishop at the Altar of the Chair of Saint Peter in the Vatican. He was then assigned to the position of auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of Astana. He is the General Secretary of the Bishops’ Conference of Kazakhstan and Titular Bishop of Celerina, Switzerland.