Bishop Schneider on Crisis, Disobedience, & the SSPX | A Michael Matt I...

Listen carefully to the good Bishop's words. He has words here for priests who must disobey and yet, must also fall under the authority of a bishop. I expect if the worst happens, the Society of St. Pius X will need to develop a system of affiliation. Bishop Schneider also indicates other, perhaps retired bishops. May God guide us all.

Bishop Athanasius Schneider sits down with Warroom's Steve Bannon

 

Bp Athanasius Schneider & Dr Taylor Marshall discuss Theology and Liturgy

Bishop Athanasius Schneider comments in The Remnant on the being beaten by the so-called, "Shepherd's" stick!

The Remnant Newspaper - TRADITION BETRAYED: Diane Montagna Interviews Bishop Schneider on “Traditionis Custodes”

The Remnant Newspaper - TRADITION BETRAYED: Diane Montagna Interviews Bishop Schneider on “Traditionis Custodes”

Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Pachamama was worshiped at Vatican and it wasn’t harmless

Bishop Athanasius Schneider has written an article for Kath.net and has authorised an approved English translation at LifeSiteNews. 

His Excellency lays out the idolatry and blasphemy committed by Bergoglio and the others over the worship of pagan deities in Rome. It reads as a lawyer's opening statement in a devastating trial. He has convicted Jorge Mario Bergoglio and others of being the false prophets that they are and even worse. They are devils. 

"For all of the gods of the gentiles are devils; and the LORD made the heavens."

"Blessed be the name of the LORD."

Read all of this at:

https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/bishop-athanasius-schneider-pachamama-was-worshiped-at-vatican-and-it-wasnt-harmless

Bishop Athanasius Schneider denounces Bergoglio's Synod paganists!

Here below is the full text of the open letter by Bishop Athanasius Schneider.

1. “You shall have no other gods before Me,” says the Lord God, as the first of the commandments (Ex 20:3). Delivered originally to Moses and the Hebrew people, this command remains valid for all people and all times, as God tells us: “You shall not carve idols for yourselves in the shape of anything in the sky above or on the earth below or in the waters beneath the earth; you shall not bow down before them or worship them” (Ex 20:4-5). Our Lord Jesus Christ kept this commandment perfectly. When offered the kingdoms of the world if only he would bow to the devil, Jesus responded, “Begone, Satan! for it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve’” (Mt 4:10; Dt 6:13-14). The example of Christ, therefore, is of the utmost importance for all people who desire “the true God and eternal life”; as St. John the Apostle exhorts us: “Little children, keep yourselves from idols” (1 Jn 5:20-21).

In our day, this message has special importance, for syncretism and paganism are like poisons entering the veins of the Mystical Body of Christ, the Church. As a successor to the Apostles, entrusted with care for God’s flock, I cannot remain silent in the face of the blatant violation of God’s holy will and the disastrous consequences it will have upon individual souls, the Church as a whole, and indeed the entire human race. It is therefore with great love for the souls of my brothers and sisters that I write this message.

2. On October 4, 2019, on the eve of the Amazon Synod, a religious ceremony was held in the Vatican gardens, in the presence of Pope Francis and of several bishops and cardinals, which was led partly by shamans and in which symbolic objects were used; namely, a wooden sculpture of an unclothed pregnant woman. These representations are known and belong to indigenous rituals of Amazonian tribes, and specifically to the worship of the so-called Mother Earth, the Pachamama. In the following days the wooden naked female figures were also venerated in St. Peter’s Basilica in front of the Tomb of St. Peter. Pope Francis also greeted two bishops carrying the Pachamama object on their shoulders processing it into the Synod Hall where it was set in a place of honour. Pachamama statues were also put on display in the church of Santa Maria in Traspontina.

In response to outcries from the Catholic faithful regarding these rites and the use of these statues, Vatican spokesmen and members of committees of the Amazon Synod downplayed or denied the evident religious syncretistic character of the statues. Their answers, however, were evasive and contradictory; they were acts of intellectual acrobatics and denials of obvious evidence.

The American visual media company “Getty Images” made an official press photograph of this ritual with this description: “Pope Francis and Cardinal Cardinal Cláudio Hummes, Archbishop Emeritus of São Paulo, President of the Pan-Amazonian Ecclesial Network (REPAM), stand in front of a statue representing Pachamama (Mother Earth).” Rev. Paulo Suess, a participant in the Amazon Synod, left no doubt as to the pagan character of the ceremonies with the wooden images in the Vatican Gardens and dared even to welcome pagan rites, saying: “Even if this was a pagan rite, it is nevertheless a pagan worship of God. One cannot dismiss paganism as nothing” (October 17, Vatican News interview). In an official statement, on October 21, the Pan-Amazonian Ecclesial Network (REPAM) condemned the heroic act of the gentlemen who had thrown the wooden images into the Tiber as an act of “religious intolerance.” They thereby unmasked the lies and tricks with which they denied the religious character of the venerated wooden images. Volunteers of the Carmelite Church Santa Maria in Traspontina, where the wooden statues were displayed, corroborated this statement, saying: “The [carved] mother that I brought from Brazil … that was in the procession, well, we brought it from Brazil. It was done by an indigenous artist, and we asked him for a piece of art that would symbolize all of that connection of Mother Earth, of women, the feminine aspect of God, that God is the one who protects and nourishes life,” she said, calling it both a symbol of “Mother Earth” and the “Pachamama.”

Objective sources note that the Pachamama is an object of veneration, a goddess to which some Bolivians sacrifice llamas, an earth deity worshipped by some Peruvians, rooted in pagan Incan beliefs and practices.

3. Catholics cannot accept any pagan worship, nor any syncretism between pagan beliefs and practices and those of the Catholic Church. The acts of worship of kindling a light, of bowing, of prostrating or profoundly bowing to the ground and dancing before an unclothed female statue, which represents neither Our Lady nor a canonized saint of the Church, violates the first Commandments of God: “You shall have no other gods before Me” and the explicit prohibition of God, who commands: “Beware lest you lift up your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, you be drawn away and worship them and serve them, things which the Lord your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven” (Dt 4:19), and: “You shall make for yourselves no idols nor graven image, neither rear you up a standing image, neither shall you set up any image of stone in your land, to bow down unto it: for I am the Lord your God” (Lev 26:1).

The Apostles prohibited even the slightest allusions or ambiguity in regard to acts of venerating idols: “And what agreement has the temple of God with idols?” (2 Cor, 6:15-16), and “Flee from idolatry.  The things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not that you should have fellowship with devils. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: you cannot be partakers of the Lord’s table, and of the table of devils. Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?” (1 Cor 10:16, 21-22).

St. Paul, without doubt, would say to all who actively participated in the acts of veneration of Pachamama statues, which symbolize material or creatural things, these words: “But now, after that you have known God, or rather are known by God: how turn you again to the weak and needy elements, which you desire to serve again?” (Gal 4:9). The pagans, indeed, worshipped the elements as though they were living things. And observing the syncretistic or at least highly ambiguous religious acts in the Vatican’s Garden, in St. Peter’s Basilica and in the church of Santa Maria in Traspontina, St. Paul would say: “They worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever” (Rom 1:25).

All true Catholics, who still have the spirit of the Apostles and of the Christian martyrs, should weep and say about the pagan ceremonies which took place in the Eternal City of Rome, paraphrasing the words of Psalm 79:1: “O God, the heathen have come into thine inheritance; thy holy city of Rome have they defiled; they have laid Rome in ruins”

4. The uninterrupted tradition of the Church avoided the slightest ambiguities or collaborations with idolatrous acts. The explanations which were given by Vatican spokesmen and by persons connected with the Amazon Synod, in order to justify the religious veneration of the wooden figure of a pregnant naked woman, were very similar to the arguments given by the pagans in the time of the Fathers of the Church, as reported by St. Athanasius. St. Athanasius refuted the pseudo-arguments of the pagans, and his refutations apply fully to the justifications given by Vatican authorities. St. Athanasius said: “They will boast that they worship and serve, not mere stocks and stones and forms of men and irrational birds and creeping things and beasts, but the sun and moon and all the heavenly universe, and the earth, deifying thereby the creation” (Contra Gentiles, 21, 1-3) and: “They will combine all together, as constituting a single body, and will say that the whole is God” (Contra Gentiles, 28, 2). “Instead of the real and true God they deified things that were not, serving the creature rather than the Creator (see Rom. 1:25), thus involving themselves in foolishness and impiety” (Contra Gentiles, 47, 2).

The second-century apologist Athenagoras said about the veneration of material elements by pagans: “They deify the elements and their several parts, applying different names to them at different times. They say that Kronos is time, and Rhea the earth, and that she becomes pregnant by Kronos, and brings forth, whence she is regarded as the mother of all. Missing to discover the greatness of God, and not being able to rise on high with their reason (for they have no affinity for the heavenly place), they pine away among the forms of matter, and rooted to the earth, deify the changes of the elements” (Apol. 22).

The following words of the Second Council of Nicaea are fully applicable to all churchmen, who supported the above mentioned syncretistic religious acts in Rome: “Many pastors have destroyed my vine, they have defiled my portion. For they followed unholy men and trusting to their own frenzies they calumniated the holy Church, which Christ our God has espoused to himself, and they failed to distinguish the holy from the profane, asserting that the icons of our Lord and of his saints were no different from the wooden images of satanic idols.”

As established by the Second Council of Nicaea, the Church permits the veneration with exterior gestures of worship such as bowing, kissing and blessing, no other symbols, pictures, or statues but “the icons of our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ, that of our Lady the Theotokos, those of the venerable angels and those of all saintly people. Whenever these representations are contemplated, they will cause those who look at them to commemorate and love their prototype.”

5. Believers in the One True God have always worked to eliminate worship of false gods, and to remove their images from the midst of God’s holy people. When Hebrews bowed before the statue of the Golden Calf—encouraged and abetted by the high clergy—God condemned such acts. His servant Moses also condemned these acts of “welcoming and tolerance” towards the local indigenous divinities of those times and ground the statue to powder and scattered it on the water (see Ex. 32:20). Similarly, the Levites were commended for stopping all who worshipped the golden calf (Ex 32:20,29). Throughout the ages, true Catholics also have worked to overthrow the “powers of this present darkness” (Eph 6:12), and the veneration of images that represent them.

Amid the consternation and shock over the abomination perpetrated by the syncretistic religious acts in the Vatican, the entire Church and the world has witnessed a highly meritorious, courageous and praiseworthy act of some brave Christian gentlemen, who on October 21 expelled the wooden idolatrous statues from the Church of Santa Maria in Traspontina in Rome, and threw them into the Tiber. Like a new “Maccabees” they acted in the spirit of the holy wrath of Our Lord, who expelled the merchants from the temple of Jerusalem with a whip. The gestures of these Christian men will be recorded in the annals of Church history as a heroic act which brought glory to the Christian name, while the acts of high-ranking churchmen, on the contrary, who defiled the Christian name in Rome, will go down in history as cowardly and treacherous acts of ambiguity and syncretism. 

Pope St. Gregory the Great, in a letter to St. Aethelbert, the first Christian king of England, exhorts him to destroy idolatrous images: “Suppress the worship of idols; overthrow their buildings and shrines” (Bede, Ecclesiastical History, Book I).

St. Boniface, the Apostle of Germany, felled by his own hand an oak dedicated to the idol Thor or Donar, which was not only a religious, but also a symbol of the protection of soldiers, of vegetation and even of fertility of the indigenous culture of the Germanic tribes.

St. Vladimir, the first Christian prince in Kiev, went on to have the wooden idols he had erected, torn down and hacked to pieces. The wooden statue of the chief pagan God, Perun, he cast into the River Dnieper. This act of St. Vladimir is very reminiscent of the heroic act of those Christian gentlemen, who on October 21, 2019, threw the wooden statues of the pagan indigenous culture of Amazonian tribes into the Tiber River.

If the actions of Moses, of Our Lord Jesus Christ in violently expelling the merchants from the Temple, of St. Boniface and of St. Vladimir had taken place in our times, the Vatican spokesmen would surely have condemned them as acts of religious and cultural intolerance and theft.

6. The sentence of the Abu Dhabi document, which reads: “The pluralism and the diversity of religions, color, sex, race and language are willed by God in His wisdom” found its practical realization in the Vatican ceremonies of the veneration of wooden statues, which represent pagan divinities or indigenous cultural symbols of fertility. It was the logical practical consequence of the Abu Dhabi statement.

7. In view of the requirements of the authentic worship and adoration of the One True God, the Most Blessed Trinity, and Christ Our Savior, in virtue of my ordination as a Catholic bishop and successor to the Apostles, and in true fidelity and love for the Roman Pontiff, the Successor of Peter, and for his task to preside over the “Cathedra of the truth” (cathedra veritatis), I condemn the veneration of the pagan symbol of Pachamama in the Vatican Garden, in St. Peter’s basilica, and in the Roman church of Santa Maria in Traspontina.

It would be good for all true Catholics, first and foremost bishops and then also priests and lay faithful, to form a worldwide chain of prayers and acts of reparation for the abomination of the veneration of wooden idols perpetrated in Rome during the Amazon Synod. Faced with such an evident scandal, it is impossible that a Catholic bishop would remain silent, it would be unworthy of a successor of the Apostles. The first in the Church who should condemn such acts and do reparation is Pope Francis.

The honest and Christian reaction to the dance around the Pachamama, the new Golden Calf, in the Vatican should consist in a dignified protest, a correction of this error, and above all in acts of reparation.

With tears in one’s eyes and with sincere sorrow in the heart, one should offer to God prayers of intercession and reparation for the eternal salvation of the soul of Pope Francis, the Vicar of Christ on earth, and the salvation of those Catholic priests and faithful who perpetrated such acts of worship, which are forbidden by Divine Revelation. One could propose for this aim the following prayer:

“Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, receive through the hands of the Immaculate Mother of God and Ever Virgin Mary from our contrite heart a sincere act of reparation for the acts of worship of wooden idols and symbols, which occurred in Rome, the Eternal City and the heart of the Catholic world, during the Synod for the Amazon. Pour out in the heart of Our Holy Father Pope Francis, of the Cardinals, of the Bishops, of the priests and lay faithful, your Spirit, who will expel the darkness of the minds, so that they might recognize the impiety of such acts, which offended your Divine majesty and offer to you public and private acts of reparation.

Pour out in all members of the Church the light of the fullness and beauty of the Catholic Faith. Enkindle in them the burning zeal of bringing the salvation of Jesus Christ, true God and true man, to all men, especially to the people in the Amazon region, who still are enslaved in the service of feeble material and perishable things, as they are the deaf and mute symbols and idols of “mother earth”, to all people and especially to the people of the Amazonian tribes, who do not have the liberty of the children of God, and who do not have the unspeakable happiness to know Jesus Christ and to have in Him part in the life of your Divine nature.

Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, you the one true God, besides Whom there is no other god and no salvation, have mercy on your Church. Look especially upon the tears and the contrite and humble sighs of the little ones in the Church, look upon the tears and prayers of the little children, of the adolescents, of young men and young women, of the fathers and mothers of family and also of the true Christian heroes, who in their zeal for your glory and in their love for Mother Church threw in the water the symbols of abomination which defiled her. Have mercy on us: spare us, O Lord, parce Domine, parce Domine! Have mercy on us: Kyrie eleison!”

Oh, so now, we are to believe that Bergoglio really meant, God's "permissive will?"

We are familiar with what Bergoglio did in Abu Dhabi signing the document with the Imam from Egypt. He stated that God willed the diversity of religions. At the time, we knew that nuance could be used to legitimise Bergoglio's blasphemy by saying it was God's "permissive" will. But if Bergoglio meant it to be interpreted that way, he would have had it written that way. It is the "Pope's" job to be clear, to be concise and to speak the truth. 


On a recent "ad limina" visit, Bishop Athanasius Schneider of Kazakhstan questioned Bergoglio and he allegedly received permission from Bergoglio to issue a statement that he, Bergoglio, really meant, God's "permissive" will.

What a wiley Modernist. What a manipulative con man is this Bergoglio.

Oh, Bishop Schneider, how you have been used. It is a shame to see it occur to you in real time.


https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/bishop-schneider-extracts-clarification-on-diversity-of-religions-from-pope-francis-brands-abuse-summit-a-failure

Cardinal Kasper has only demonstrated that he himself does not anymore live in the true Faith - Bishop Schneider

As the crisis in the Church brought about by Bergoglio and his minions, Bishop Athanasius Schneider has stated his support for Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller’s "Manifesto of Faith." He also deals quite firmly and harshly with the obvious heretic, Walter Kasper, the Cardinal who has done Bergoglio's bidding from the very beginning.

Cardinals and Bishops, you must speak now. You must confront Francis to his face. Your soul is at risk.

https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/bishop-schneider-cdl.-muellers-manifesto-of-faith-a-necessary-and-a-very-ti

Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller’s recent Manifesto of Faith is a necessary and a very timely initiative, edifying the Faith and bringing light in the enormous spiritual confusion, which for quite a while reigns in the life of the Church and which has reached in our days unimagined dimensions.

This initiative brings to the faithful consolation and encouragement. In this Manifesto of Faith is being made from the mouth of a high-ranking representative of the Church’s hierarchy a public and unmistakable profession of the immutable Catholic Faith. This profession from Cardinal Müller covers particularly those truths of the Faith and of its sacramental practice, which in our days are mostly disfigured, being such a disfiguration often through a cunning and gnostic interpretation passed off as a hermeneutic or a “development of doctrine, in continuity.”

A clear profession of the Divinely revealed truths is in our days in the life of the Church often not anymore tolerated and is perceived even as a provocation, as one could see this, for instance, from the prompt, intolerant and astonishingly aggressive reaction with which Cardinal Walter Kasper has rejected the Manifesto of Faith of Cardinal Müller. With his reasoning against the Manifesto of Faith, Cardinal Kasper has only demonstrated that he himself does not anymore live in the true Faith of the Apostles and of the Church of all times, but, on the contrary, he represents a Christianity that in the manner of a gnosis has built up for itself a world of an alleged faith after the taste of one’s own ego or the predominance of the respective “Zeitgeist” (the spirit of the age).

Cardinal Müller’s initiative of Faith deserves full recognition. It is an important contribution to stem the flood of the neo-gnostic Christianity inside the Catholic Church. One must wish and pray, that inside the Church there will now sound a numerically growing, uniform voice of the true Faith, an “una vox verae fidei,” comprising all members of the Mystical Body of Christ, representatives both of the Magisterium and of the Lay Faithful. In their profession of Faith, they should not allow themselves to be confused or intimidated by anybody – not even from a Cardinal Kasper – for with Saint Paul they can serenely and convincingly say: “I know Whom I have believed! (scio, Cui credidi!)” (2 Tim. 1: 12).

Müller's Manifesto

Only a day after Bishop Schneider issued a correction (my word choice) to Bergoglio's latest heresy,  Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, former Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has issued a "Manifesto of Faith," wherein he upholds the Catholic faith in what can only be considered as a direct contradiction of Francis' ongoing heresy.

Let us not complain that it is too little, too late, We should know by now that nothing in the Church has ever worked quickly, except for tearing Her down. Destruction always is easier than building. What is important is that the Dubia, the Filial Correction and more, continue and build upon one another. Note as well, it is not prudent for diocesan bishops and cardinals to undertake what these have done. Bishop Schneider, Cardinal Müller and Cardinal Burke and others are in different positions. 

There can be no doubt now that the text signed by Bergoglio with the Islamic leader from Egypt is a heretical document. It is so blatantly heretical and blasphemous it cannot be considered to have referred to God's "permissive" will. 

Bergoglio must be confronted. Prelates must act. More must come forward to oppose this heretic and apostate who sits on the Chair of Peter.

Manifesto of Faith

“Let not your heart be troubled!” (John 14:1)

In the face of growing confusion about the doctrine of the Faith, many bishops, priests, religious and lay people of the Catholic Church have requested that I make a public testimony about the truth of revelation. It is the shepherds' very own task to guide those entrusted to them on the path of salvation. This can only succeed if they know this way and follow it themselves. The words of the Apostle here apply: “For above all I have delivered unto you what I have received” (1 Cor. 15:3). Today, many Christians are no longer even aware of the basic teachings of the Faith, so there is a growing danger of missing the path to eternal life. However, it remains the very purpose of the Church to lead humanity to Jesus Christ, the light of the nations (see LG 1). In this situation, the question of orientation arises. According to John Paul II, the Catechism of the Catholic Church is a “safe standard for the doctrine of the faith” (Fidei Depositum IV). It was written with the aim of strengthening the Faith of the brothers and sisters whose belief has been massively questioned by the “dictatorship of relativism.”[1]

1. The one and triune God revealed in Jesus Christ

The epitome of the Faith of all Christians is found in the confession of the Most Holy Trinity. We have become disciples of Jesus, children and friends of God by being baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The distinction of the three persons in the divine unity (CCC 254) marks a fundamental difference in the belief in God and the image of man from that of other religions. Religions disagree precisely over this belief in Jesus the Christ. He is true God and true Man, conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. The Word made flesh, the Son of God, is the only Savior of the world (CCC 679) and the only Mediator between God and men (CCC 846). Therefore, the first letter of John refers to one who denies His divinity as an antichrist (1 John 2:22), since Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is from eternity one in being with God, His Father (CCC 663). We are to resist the relapse into ancient heresies with clear resolve, which saw in Jesus Christ only a good person, brother and friend, prophet and moralist. He is first and foremost the Word that was with God and is God, the Son of the Father, Who assumed our human nature to redeem us and Who will come to judge the living and the dead. Him alone, we worship in unity with the Father and the Holy Spirit as the Only and True God (CCC 691).

2. The Church

Jesus Christ founded the Church as a visible sign and instrument of salvation realized in the Catholic Church (816). He gave His Church, which “emerged from the side of the Christ who died on the Cross” (766), a sacramental constitution that will remain until the Kingdom is fully achieved (CCC 765). Christ, the Head, and the faithful as members of the body, are a mystical person (CCC 795), which is why the Church is sacred, for the one Mediator has designed and sustained its visible structure (CCC 771). Through it the redemptive work of Christ becomes present in time and space via the celebration of the Holy Sacraments, especially in the Eucharistic Sacrifice, the Holy Mass (CCC 1330). The Church conveys with the authority of Christ the divine revelation, which extends to all the elements of doctrine, “including the moral teaching, without which the saving truths of the faith cannot be preserved, explained, and observed” (CCC 2035).

3. Sacramental Order

The Church is the universal sacrament of salvation in Jesus Christ (CCC 776). She does not reflect herself, but the light of Christ, which shines on her face. But this happens only when the truth revealed in Jesus Christ becomes the point of reference, rather than the views of a majority or the spirit of the times; for Christ Himself has entrusted the fullness of grace and truth to the Catholic Church (CCC 819), and He Himself is present in the sacraments of the Church.

The Church is not a man-made association whose structure its members voted into being at their will. It is of divine origin. "Christ himself is the author of ministry in the Church. He set her up, gave her authority and mission, orientation and goal (CCC 874). The admonition of the Apostle is still valid today, that cursed is anyone who proclaims another gospel, “even if we ourselves were to give it or an angel from heaven” (Gal 1:8). The mediation of faith is inextricably bound up with the human credibility of its messengers, who in some cases have abandoned the people entrusted to them, unsettling them and severely damaging their faith. Here the Word of Scripture describes those who do not listen to the truth and who follow their own wishes, who flatter their ears because they cannot endure sound doctrine (cf. 2 Tim 4:3-4).

The task of the Magisterium of the Church is to “preserve God’s people from deviations and defections” in order to “guarantee them the objective possibility of professing the true faith without error” (890). This is especially true with regard to all seven sacraments. The Holy Eucharist is “source and summit of the Christian life” (CCC 1324). The Eucharistic Sacrifice, in which Christ includes us in His Sacrifice of the Cross, is aimed at the most intimate union with Him (CCC 1382). Therefore, the Holy Scripture admonishes with regard to the reception of the Holy Communion: “Whoever eats unworthily of the bread and drinks from the Lord's cup makes himself guilty of profaning the body and of the blood of the Lord” (1 Cor 11:27). “Anyone conscious of a grave sin must receive the sacrament of Reconciliation before coming to communion” (CCC 1385). From the internal logic of the sacrament, it is understood that civilly remarried divorcees, whose sacramental marriage exists before God, as well as those Christians who are not in full communion with the Catholic Faith and the Church, just as all who are not properly disposed, cannot receive the Holy Eucharist fruitfully (CCC 1457) because it does not bring them to salvation. To point this out corresponds to the spiritual works of mercy.

The confession of sins in Holy Confession at least once a year is one of the Church’s commandments (CCC 2042). When the believers no longer confess their sins and no longer experience the absolution of their sins, salvation becomes impossible; after all, Jesus Christ became Man to redeem us from our sins. The power of forgiveness that the Risen Lord has given to the Apostles and their successors in the ministry of bishops and priests applies also for mortal and venial sins which we commit after Baptism. The current popular practice of confession makes it clear that the conscience of the faithful is not sufficiently formed. God's mercy is given to us, that we might fulfil His Commandments to become one with His Holy Will, and not so as to avoid the call to repentance (CCC 1458).

“The priest continues the work of redemption on earth” (CCC 1589). The ordination of the priest “gives him a sacred power” (CCC 1592), which is irreplaceable, because through it Jesus becomes sacramentally present in His saving action. Therefore, priests voluntarily opt for celibacy as "a sign of new life" (CCC 1579). It is about the self-giving in the service of Christ and His coming kingdom. With a view to receiving the ordination in the three stages of this ministry, the Church is “bound by the choice made by the Lord Himself. That is why it is not possible to ordain women”(CCC 1577). To imply that this impossibility is somehow a form of discrimination against women shows only the lack of understanding for this sacrament, which is not about earthly power but the representation of Christ, the Bridegroom of the Church.

4. Moral Law

Faith and life are inseparable, for Faith apart from works is dead (CCC 1815). The moral law is the work of divine wisdom and leads man to the promised blessedness (CCC 1950). Consequently, the "knowledge of the divine and natural law is necessary" to do good and reach this goal (CCC 1955). Accepting this truth is essential for all people of good will. For he who dies in mortal sin without repentance will be forever separated from God (CCC 1033). This leads to practical consequences in the lives of Christians, which are often ignored today (cf 2270-2283; 2350-2381). The moral law is not a burden, but part of that liberating truth (cf Jn 8:32) through which the Christian walks on the path of salvation and which may not be relativized.

5. Eternal Life

Many wonder today what purpose the Church still has in its existence, when even bishops prefer to be politicians rather than to proclaim the Gospel as teachers of the Faith. The role of the Church must not be watered down by trivialities, but its proper place must be addressed. Every human being has an immortal soul, which in death is separated from the body, hoping for the resurrection of the dead (CCC 366). Death makes man's decision for or against God definite. Everyone has to face the particular judgement immediately after death (CCC 1021). Either a purification is necessary, or man goes directly into heavenly bliss and is allowed to see God face to face. There is also the dreadful possibility that a person will remain opposed to God to the very end, and by definitely refusing His Love, "condemns himself immediately and forever" (CCC 1022). “God created us without us, but He did not want to save us without us” (CCC 1847). The eternity of the punishment of hell is a terrible reality, which - according to the testimony of Holy Scripture - attracts all who “die in the state of mortal sin” (CCC 1035). The Christian goes through the narrow gate, for “the gate is wide, and the way that leads to ruin is wide, and many are upon it” (Mt 7:13).

To keep silent about these and the other truths of the Faith and to teach people accordingly is the greatest deception against which the Catechism vigorously warns. It represents the last trial of the Church and leads man to a religious delusion, “the price of their apostasy” (CCC 675); it is the fraud of Antichrist. “He will deceive those who are lost by all means of injustice; for they have closed themselves to the love of the truth by which they should be saved” (2 Thess 2:10).

Call

As workers in the vineyard of the Lord, we all have a responsibility to recall these fundamental truths by clinging to what we ourselves have received. We want to give courage to go the way of Jesus Christ with determination, in order to obtain eternal life by following His commandments (CCC 2075).

Let us ask the Lord to let us know how great the gift of the Catholic Faith is, through which opens the door to eternal life. “For he that shall be ashamed of me, and of my words, in this adulterous and sinful generation: The Son of Man also will be ashamed of him, when He shall come in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” (Mark 8:38). Therefore, we are committed to strengthening the Faith by confessing the truth which is Jesus Christ Himself.

We too, and especially we bishops and priests, are addressed when Paul, the Apostle of Jesus Christ, gives this admonition to his companion and successor, Timothy: “I charge thee, before God and Jesus Christ, Who shall judge the living and the dead, by His coming, and His kingdom: Preach the word: be instant in season, out of season: reprove, entreat, rebuke in all patience and doctrine. For there shall be a time, when they will not endure sound doctrine; but, according to their own desires, they will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears: And will indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned unto fables. But be thou vigilant, labour in all things, do the work of an evangelist, fulfil thy ministry. Be sober.” (2 Tim 4:1-5).

May Mary, the Mother of God, implore for us the grace to remain faithful without wavering to the confession of the truth about Jesus Christ.

United in faith and prayer

Gerhard Cardinal Müller

Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith 2012-2017

[1] The numbers in the text refer to the Catechism of The Catholic Church.

Bishop Athanasius Schneider corrects the latest Bergoglian Heresy

+Schneider for Rorate - The Christian Faith: The only valid and the only God-willed religion

Rorate note: Earlier this week, Pope Bergoglio signed the heretical “Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together.” If you haven't read the full document, please do, then read the piece below which actually doesn't contradict the Church's teachings or mock the countless Christians martyred over the last 1,400 years. 

Once again, we are honored to post this guest op-ed, submitted to us by His Excellency Bishop Athanasius Schneider. We not only allow but encourage all media and blogs to reprint this as well. 

***

By Bishop Athanasius Schneider

Special to Rorate Caeli

February 8, 2019

The Gift of Filial Adoption

The Christian Faith: the only valid and the only God-willed religion

The Truth of the filial adoption in Christ, which is intrinsically supernatural, constitutes the synthesis of the entire Divine Revelation. Being adopted by God as sons is always a gratuitous gift of grace, the most sublime gift of God to mankind. One obtains it, however, only through a personal faith in Christ and through the reception of baptism, as the Lord himself taught: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born again.” (John 3: 5-7).

In the past decades one often heard - even from the mouth of some representatives of the Church’s hierarchy - statements about the theory of “anonymous Christians.” This theory says the following: The mission of the Church in the world would consist ultimately in raising the awareness that all men must have of their salvation in Christ and consequently of their filial adoption in Christ. Since, according to the same theory, every human being possesses already the sonship of God in the depth of his personality. Yet, such a theory contradicts directly Divine Revelation, as Christ taught it and His Apostles and the Church over two thousand years always transmitted it unchangingly and without a shadow of a doubt.

In his essay “The Church, consisting of Jews and Gentiles” (Die Kirche aus Juden und Heiden) Erik Peterson, the well-known convert and exegete, long since (in 1933) warned against the danger of such a theory, when he affirmed that one cannot reduce being a Christian (“Christsein”) to the natural order, in which the fruits of the redemption achieved by Jesus Christ would be generally imputed to every human being as a kind of heritage, solely because he would share human nature with the incarnated Word. However, filial adoption in Christ is not an automatic result, guaranteed through belonging to the human race.

Saint Athanasius (cf. Oratio contra Arianos II, 59) left us a simple and at the same time an apt explanation of the difference between the natural state of men as God’s creatures and the glory of being a son of God in Christ. Saint Athanasius derives his explanation from the words of the holy Gospel according to John, that say: "He gave them power to be made the sons of God, to them that believe in his name. Who are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1: 12-13). John uses the expression “they are born” to say that men become sons of God not by nature, but by adoption. This shows the love of God, that He Who is their creator becomes then through grace also their Father. This happens when, as the Apostle says, men receive in their hearts the Spirit of the Incarnated Son, Who cries in them: "Abba, Father!" Saint Athanasius continues his explanation saying, that as created beings, men can become sons of God in no other manner than through faith and baptism, when they receive the Spirit of the natural and true Son of God. Precisely for that reason the Word became flesh, to make men capable of adoption as sons of God and of participation in the Divine nature. Consequently, by nature God is not in the proper sense the Father of all human beings. Only if someone consciously accepts Christ and is baptized, will he be able to cry in truth: "Abba, Father" (Rom. 8: 15; Gal. 4: 6).

Since the beginnings of the Church there was the assertion, as testified by Tertullian: “One is not born as a Christian, but one becomes a Christian” (Apol., 18, 5). And Saint Cyprian of Carthage formulated aptly this truth, saying: «He cannot have God for his Father, who has not the Church for his mother” (De unit., 6).

The most urgent task of the Church in our time is to care about the change of the spiritual climate and about the spiritual migration, namely that the climate of non-belief in Jesus Christ, the climate of the rejection of the kingship of Christ, be changed into the climate of explicit faith in Jesus Christ, of the acceptance of His kingship, and that men may migrate from the misery of the spiritual slavery of unbelief into the happiness of being sons of God and from of a life of sin into the state of sanctifying grace. These are the migrants about whom we must care urgently.

Christianity is the only God-willed religion. Therefore, it can never be placed complementarily side by side with other religions. Those would violate the truth of Divine Revelation, as it is unmistakably affirmed in the First Commandment of the Decalogue, who would assert that the diversity of religions is the will of God.  According to the will of Christ, faith in Him and in His Divine teaching must replace other religions, however not by force, but by loving persuasion, as expressed in the hymn of Lauds of the Feast of Christ the King: “Non Ille regna cladibus, non vi metuque subdidit: alto levatus stipite, amore traxit omnia” (“Not with sword, force and fear He subjects peoples, but lifted up on the Cross He lovingly draws all things to Himself”).

There is only one way to God, and this is Jesus Christ, for He Himself said: “I am the Way” (John 14: 6). There is only one truth, and this is Jesus Christ, for He Himself said: “I am the Truth” (John 14: 6). There is only one true supernatural life of the soul, and this is Jesus Christ, for He Himself said: “I am the Life” (John 14: 6).

The Incarnated Son of God taught that outside faith in Him there cannot be a true and God-pleasing religion: “I am the door. By me, if any man enters in, he shall be saved” (John 10: 9). God commanded to all men, without exception, to hear His Son: “This is my most beloved Son; hear Him!” (Mk. 9: 7). God did not say: “You can hear My Son or you can hear other founders of a religion, for it is My will that there are different religions.” God has forbidden us to recognize the legitimacy of the religion of other gods: “Thou shalt not have strange gods before me” (Ex. 20: 3) and “What fellowship has light with darkness? And what concord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has the faithful with the unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols?” (2 Cor. 6: 14-16).

If other religions likewise corresponded to the will of God, there would not have been the Divine condemnation of the religion of the Golden Calf at the time of Moses (cf. Ex. 32: 4-20); then the Christians of today could unpunished cultivate the religion of a new Golden Calf, since all religions are, according to that theory, God-pleasing ways as well.

God gave the Apostles and through them the Church for all times the solemn order to instruct all nations and the followers of all religions in the only one true Faith, teaching them to observe all His Divine commandments and baptize them (cf. Mt. 28: 19-20). Since the preaching of the Apostles and of the first Pope, the Apostle Saint Peter, the Church proclaimed always that there is salvation in no other name, i.e., in no other faith under heaven by which men must be saved, but in the Name and in the Faith in Jesus Christ (cf. Acts 4: 12).

With the words of Saint Augustine the Church taught in all times: “The Christian religion is the only religion which possesses the universal way for the salvation of the soul; for except by this way, none can be saved. This is a kind of royal way, which alone leads to a kingdom which does not totter like all temporal dignities, but stands firm on eternal foundations.” (De civitate Dei, 10, 32, 1).

The following words of the great Pope Leo XIII testify the same unchanging teaching of the Magisterium in all times, when he affirmed: “The view that all religions are alike, is calculated to bring about the ruin of all forms of religion, and especially of the Catholic religion, which, as it is the only one that is true, cannot, without great injustice, be regarded as merely equal to other religions.” (Encyclical Humanum genus, n. 16)

In recent times the Magisterium presented substantially the same unchanging teaching in the Document “Dominus Jesus” (August 6, 2000), from which we quote the following relevant assertions:

“Theological faith (the acceptance of the truth revealed by the One and Triune God) is often identified with belief in other religions, which is religious experience still in search of the absolute truth and still lacking assent to God who reveals himself. This is one of the reasons why the differences between Christianity and the other religions tend to be reduced at times to the point of disappearance.” (n. 7) “Those solutions that propose a salvific action of God beyond the unique mediation of Christ would be contrary to Christian and Catholic faith.” (n. 14) “Not infrequently it is proposed that theology should avoid the use of terms like “unicity”, “universality”, and “absoluteness”, which give the impression of excessive emphasis on the significance and value of the salvific event of Jesus Christ in relation to other religions. In reality, however, such language is simply being faithful to revelation” (n. 15) “It is clear that it would be contrary to the faith to consider the Church as one way of salvation alongside those constituted by the other religions, seen as complementary to the Church or substantially equivalent to her, even if these are said to be converging with the Church toward the eschatological kingdom of God.” (n. 21) “The faith rules it out, in a radical way, that mentality of indifferentism “characterized by a religious relativism which leads to the belief that ‘one religion is as good as another' (John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Redemptoris missio, 36).” (n. 22)

The Apostles and the countless Christian martyrs of all times, especially those of the first three centuries, would have been spared martyrdom, if they had said: “The pagan religion and its worship is a way, which as well corresponds to the will of God.” There would have been for instance no Christian France, no “Eldest Daughter of the Church,” if Saint Remigius had said to Clovis, the King of the Francs: “Do not despise your pagan religion you have worshiped up to now,and worship now Christ, Whom you have persecuted up to now.” The saintly bishop actually spoke differently, although in a rather rough way: “Worship what you burned, and burn what you have worshiped!”

True universal brotherhood can be only in Christ, and namely between baptized persons. The full glory of God’s sons will be attained only in the beatific vision of God in heaven, as Holy Scripture teaches: “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.” (1 John 3: 1-2). 

No authority on earth – not even the supreme authority of the Church – has the right to dispense people from other religions from the explicit Faith in Jesus Christ as the Incarnated Son of God and the only Savior of mankind with the assurance that the different religions as such are willed by God Himself. Indelible – because written with the finger of God and crystal-clear in their meaning – remain, however, the words of the Son of God: “Whoever believes in the Son of God is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God” (John 3: 18). This truth was valid up to now in all Christian generations and will remain valid until the end of time, irrespective of the fact that some people in the Church of our so fickle, cowardly, sensationalist, and conformist time reinterpret this truth in a sense contrary to its evident wording, selling thereby this reinterpretation as continuity in the development of doctrine.

Outside the Christian Faith no other religion can be a true and God-willed way, since this is the explicit will of God, that all people believe in His Son: “This is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life” (John 6: 40). Outside the Christian Faith no other religion is able to transmit true supernatural life: “This is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17: 3).

+ Athanasius Schneider, Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Saint Mary in Astana