Bishop Schneider likens treatment of four Cardinals to Soviet regime: ‘We live in a climate of threats’
Jan Bentz
Before a packed room in Rome’s Centro Lepanto on Monday, Bishop Athanasius Schneider of Kazakhstan urged the faithful to ardently hold on to the Church’s Magisterium on the indissolubility of marriage within the current state of ongoing ambiguities.
“When Christ preached 2,000 years ago, the culture and
reigning spirit were radically opposed to Him. Concretely religious
syncretism ruled, also Gnosticism among the intelligent leaders, as well
as permissibilism among the masses — especially regarding the
institution of matrimony. […] The sole purpose of the Son of God was to
reveal the truth to the world.”
With these words, Bishop Schneider opened his presentation
in the presence of Cardinals Raymond Burke and Walter Brandmüller and
Auxiliary Bishop Andreas Laun of Salzburg, Austria.
Schneider continued with a presentation on the history of
the Church’s dealings with marriage and its irregularities beginning
from the Old Testament to modernity with specific references to early
Christian writings by Henry VIII of England and Napoleon I, and recent
discussions.
Regarding the dubia published by the four
Cardinals, he told LifeSiteNews in an exclusive interview today that the
Church should always foster a “culture of dialogue.”
“The formulation of dubia, as the Cardinals here
have expressed in their own terms, has been a common practice in the
Church,” he explained. “We need to be able to ask questions openly
without being afraid of repressions.”
Bishop Schneider referred to the numerous attacks that the four Princes of the Church have suffered after their dubia was published. The questions still remain unanswered by Pope Francis.
“The reaction to the dubia is a proof of the
climate in which we actually live in the Church right now,” Bishop
Schneider said. “We live in a climate of threats and of denial of
dialogue towards a specific group.”
Schneider went to say that “dialogue seems to be accepted
only if you think like everyone else - that is practically like a
regime.”
Schneider brought up his experience in Russia, where he was
born in the time of the Soviet Union. His parents were sent by Stalin
to work camps, or “Gulags,” after the Second World War. “If you didn’t
follow the line of the party, or you questioned it, you couldn’t even
ask. That is for me a very clear parallel to what is happening now in
the reactions to the dubia — questions — of the Cardinals.”
“This is a very sad experience especially since everybody
is speaking about a ‘dialogue of culture’ after the Second Vatican
Council. While bishops openly teach heresies and nothing happens to
them, that is truly a grave injustice and very sad,” Bishop Schneider
added.
“If the Pope does not answer, the next step will be
recourse to prayer, to supernatural means,” Schneider said, “to pray for
the enlightenment of the Pope and that he will gain courage.”
Schneider speculated about what might happen in the near
future. “In Church history, we say that in an extreme case in which the
bonum commune of the faith is threatened, then the bishops as members of
the college of bishops, and in a truly collegial relation to the Pope
with a brotherly obedience to him, must ask him publicly to renounce the
misdeed of giving Communion to remarried divorced Catholics, as it is
already being done in many dioceses.”
Rebutting the attacks
of various persons against the Cardinals, he defended the four. “This
situation has already had precedences in saints — not in schismatics or
heretics. Hilary of Poitiers, St. Catherine of Siena, and I think this
should be possible in the Church without the person being called a
schismatic.”
Cardinal Burke has said a “formal correction”
might be in order to resolve the situation of uncertainty. “In the
language of moral theology, fraternal correction is an act of love — if
it is given in obedience and with reason,” Schneider commented. “We have
to return to this familiar way of dealing with it.”
Schneider ended his interview with LifeSiteNews by saying:
“The Holy Father has to bring clarity and support to his brothers in
resolving doubts. … We have to pray for that; only clarity will bring
unity. If there is to be an answer from the Pope, then it must be
unambiguous. He must say what is the truth.”
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