Letter #164, 2021, Fri, Dec 3: Schneider: The Complete Tapes

Acasă > Ştiri > Arhiva Ştiri

Timp stanga: 0.03s...

Ştiri şi Evenimente

Letter #164, 2021, Fri, Dec 3: Schneider: The Complete Tapes

[2021-12-03]

[Engleză]

Bishop Athanasius Schneider, 60, from Kazakhstan
Letter #164, 2021, Friday, December 3: The Schneider Tapes: The Full Interview

We have now posted the complete interview from my late October interview with Bishop Athanasius Schneider, 60, of Astana, Kazakhstan, and it is now available on Rumble (link) and YouTube (link).

In this complete interview, Bishop Schneider speaks about his faith in Jesus Christ and about the present crisis of the Church and our society, which is a crisis of faith, and also of human dignity and freedom.

I wish to thank Bishop Schneider for his willingness to sit down with me for more than two hours to discuss these questions of such importance for our Church and world.

***

Schneider’s vision of our present predicament differs in some ways from that of Archbishop Viganň, but the two are united in a fundamental conviction: both men, one from the heart of the former Soviet Union, the other from the heartland of once-Catholic Italy, see a profound danger for humanity, and of course also for the Church, in a type of abandonment of traditional Christian religious belief and practice.

To repeat: both men see the loss of faith in Christ as the most grave danger.

Why do these two men see this loss of faith as the gravest danger?

Because they see that humanity’s fate, humanity’s future, without faith in Christ, is quite dark, filled with shadows, fears, obsessions, addictions, enslavements.

***

Both Schneider and Viganň, and many around the world who listen to them with respect and appreciation, see the perennial Catholic faith, handed down from the Apostles and taught faithfully for 2,000 years, set forth clearly in the Creed, as that “light” which shines forth amid the shadows of our world, guiding us, individually and collectively, amid various physical and spiritual oppressions, follies, lies and cruelties.

Both men see in Jesus Christ — whom St. John the Evangelist at the beginning of his Gospel calls “the Logos of God” (we might translate the Greek word “logos” variously as “the Word of God” or “the Reason of God” or even “the Meaning of God” = Christ was “the meaning of God”) — both Schneider and Viganň see in Christ the answer to the long quest of the human mind and heart, individually and collectively, for truth, reason and blessedness.

The “Logos,” once encountered, Christ once encountered, provides rest, joy, faith, true happiness, and in the end, true life.

Both Schneider and Viganň, despite some differences on specific points, agree on this one central point: both emphasize the centrality of the Logos, of Christ, as the true answer to humanity’s longings and hopes.

***

And therefore, by placing Christ at the center, both men place at the periphery, and ultimately banish into outer darkness, the many false answers being continuously broadcast by every secular (and many self-proclaimed religious) media to all of us today (as also in past times).

By placing Christ at the center, both men staunchly oppose the multitude of gnostics, ideologues, deniers of the Logos, all of whom in the end agree and proclaim that the Logos (Christ) is “a myth,” “not real,” “incapable of providing any help or hope to men and women,” and that, instead, only “naked human will,” “raw human self-reliance,” “fully embraced human pre-eminence” — human beings in the place of every divinity or God — can truly offer a pathway forward for humanity.

***

This is the battle.

***

It is a battle between the sacred (the holy) and the secular (the profane).

It is a battle between the transcendent and the denial of the transcendent.

It is a battle between the spiritual and the material, between faith and the denial of faith… between faith and the proscription of faith, the suppression of faith, the criminalization of faith, the construction of new gulags and concentration camps…

It is a battle between belief in the possibility of redemption after sin, failure and despair, and belief in the impossibility, the unreality, of such redemption — indeed, the denial of the possibility of such redemption, and even more, the embrace of that denial as a sign of psychological and spiritual maturity.

***

And so both Schneider and Viganň stand against the dominant spirit of our age, which one might say is the dominant spirit of every age, for it is the spirit of this world, and of the Prince of this world, whose soft words tempted our first parents, and Jesus himself, and still tempt us today…

***

And so, as in every age, also in our own age, this “secular humanist” spirit — this mentality which opposes and sets aside Christ as the central truth of all reality, this mentality which sets aside the Logos of God as the true, life-giving spiritual source for any and all authentic life for “im-personed” beings, beings endowed by their Creator with personhood (for all persons endowed with free will and capable of love are made to be in relationship with the infinite, personal, holy God, ontologically constituted as Holiness itself, Holy Personhood itself, eternally self-existent prior to the beginning and after the end of time) — this “secular humanist” spirit seeks to impose on all humanity its own vision, its false vision, its “anti-Logos” vision, and so to close off to every human soul all access to the sky, to heaven, to “that which is above.” —RM

***

All 10 Schneider tapes have been posted individually on our Rumble channel and YouTube channel, so be sure to subscribe and turn on notifications to ensure you do not miss any content in the future.

Click the video below for the full interview.

P.S. If you would like to support further tapes of this type, please click here. If you would like to order the book Finding Viganň, click here.

Here is the transcript of the entire interview. We provide this transcript even though the interview is already in English for three reasons: 1) so you have the complete transcript also in written form to email to others, etc.; 2) so that the transcript in typed form is available to be translated into other languages by those who wish to share the text with people in other countries; 3) so that any expressions which seem unclear in the spoken video are clarified in the transcript.
Transcript, The Schneider Tapes: The Full Interview
In which Bishop Schneider reflects on his three-week trip to the United States in October 2021, and the meaning of his episcopal motto.

Robert Moynihan: Hello. We are here today with Bishop Athanasius Schneider, 60 years old, from Astana in Kazakhstan. Bishop Schneider, we had a few questions to ask you about your trip in recent weeks to the United States, and then more generally about the situation of the Church, and the world, in late 2021.

As we speak, it’s October 24, and you have been traveling in the United States for three weeks.

Can you tell us briefly about your trip? Where did you go? What have you seen? And what caused you some concern?

Bishop Athanasius Schneider: I had a general positive impression very much this time.

The reason why I came: I was invited by the Catholic Identity Conference in Pittsburgh and then by the Call to Holiness conference in Detroit. These were the main events, and then also the Solemn Pontifical Mass in honor of Blessed Emperor Karl [of Austria] last 21st of October here in Virginia and in the Washington D.C. area.

These were the three main events why I came here to the United States, and then I visited also other places and gave some conferences for the masses. I visited the Sophia Press Headquarters in New Hampshire.

I had really a general positive impression this time.

I would say I witnessed really signs of a true springtime of the Church.

I met so many young families. The masses which I celebrated and the conferences were crowded and the majority were young people, families, even children, the youth, students, and this was really a joy for a bishop to see young people.

They were all longing to hear the truth, the simple Catholic faith, to participate in the Liturgy, the Latin Mass, and the full traditional Latin Mass of all the Ages, of the saints. And then I also visited some colleges, some Catholic colleges. I witnessed the same vigor and joy and longing for the truth of the Catholic faith and the Liturgy.

I could say that these all were signs of hope in these difficult times and I’m believing that the United States is a country where now the true tradition is growing ever more among young people and your families.

Moynihan: Your judgment is really very positive even though at times you have been described as someone who is very conservative and speaking out against excesses or departures from the faith. But what you discovered here was really a very positive Catholic Church in the United States.

Bishop Schneider: Indeed. And these faithful which I met, young people, some young priests — I did not discover nothing of criticism against the Church or against the Vatican Council. I did not find nothing of this in these Masses which I celebrated, the traditional Masses.

There were large crowds. Large crowds participated, and after we had a meeting. These were joyful meetings. Simply a joy of the Catholic faith and the beauty of the traditional Liturgy.

Therefore the accusations to these faithful that they are divisive or they are against the Council or criticizing, I did not discover this time. In no place. Therefore such accusations are in such a general form are very unjust and uncharitable.

Moynihan: I wanted to ask about your episcopal motto. It’s a Greek phrase: Kyrie eleison. You are one of the very few Catholic bishops who have a motto in Greek; almost all of them have a motto in Latin. Can you tell us how you chose this motto, what it means to you, and what it means to all of us?

Bishop Schneider: This motto came to me spontaneously after I was informed that I was appointed a bishop and the nuncio told me to choose a motto, and this came to me immediately in my mind. Kyrie eleison.

First the meaning is “Lord have mercy on us.”

I think everyone of us in the world today, what we need mostly is the mercy of God, in the entire world.

And I chose this in the Greek form because it is in the Latin Mass of All Ages. We say Kyrie eleison even in the Latin Mass. We say not in Latin Domine miserere, but Kyrie eleison.

And I chose this because I was appointed bishop in the East, in Kazakhstan, and where the Christians are mostly Eastern-rite Christians. And so I chose this, from the East, and this should be our bridge between the eastern Christians and the western, Latin, and this prayer, Kyrie eleison, this invocation, I think would express a prayer which unites us, the eastern Christians, Byzantines especially, because they are a Greek rite, and the Latin, Western Christians, the Holy See and Rome, and the eastern Christians, and so these were my thoughts when I chose this motto.

Moynihan: How would you say your motto in the Russian language?

Bishop Schneider: Bishop In Russian, would be Gospodi pomiluy. It is also in the Byzantine liturgy continuously repeated in the Slavonic language, Church Slavonic, Gospodi pomiluy, or in the Greek liturgy, Kyrie eleison. [Note: For a musical performance of Gospodi pomiluy, see here.)

Moynihan: So your motto is at the heart of the old Latin liturgy, but it is not in Latin. And it’s at the heart of the Eastern liturgy, whether spoken in Russian or in Greek. So in a way your heart is liturgical. Your motto as a bishop is liturgical…

Bishop Schneider: Yes, because in a way all beings that God created are created to be liturgical beings.

Moynihan: And what does that mean?

Bishop Schneider: That means to adore and glorify God.

This is the aim, why God created all, and why God created angels and man, reasonable creatures: to glorify Him.

Therefore we are substantially, essentially, liturgical beings.

Our existence is liturgical, in the broader sense.

To glorify and adore God, to give Him the first place.

And this is the task of the Church, to adore God in a worthy manner.

To give Him the priority, the primacy, as the Apostle said, to the prayer, and not to our actions, and activisms, but first to the prayer, and to the official worshipping which is the Holy Liturgy…
Bishop Schneider reflects on the present effort to transcend the bounds of the human through technology

Robert Moynihan: Well, in modern times, this idea, that the essential purpose of man is to glorify God, has slightly been shifted, to glorifying man. This is called humanism.

In some way, this is the central distinction between the Christian view of the world — glorifying God — and the modern secular humanist view — glorifying man.

Do you see it in those terms?

Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Of course, this is evident.

So we see, as you mentioned correctly, since the so-called Renaissance time, and then more stressed in the 18th century of the so-called Enlightenment and then promoted officially and mainly by the Freemason societies in this public life to put man into the center, and that man should be the judge of truth, and of what is good and what is evil.

And then man should be adored, instead of God.

So God is becoming in the modern society, therefore, an obstacle.

God is becoming an obstacle completely, since God can be only an idea for someone.

But God is concrete and he incarnated himself.

God became man, visible, Jesus Christ, true God and true man.

And, therefore, Jesus Christ as true God and true man is, for this anthropocentric, humanistic, and especially Freemasonic ideology, the main obstacle — Jesus Christ as God and man, who is present here on earth since his incarnation, in the Church and the sacraments, and in the crosses and all the signs.

These had to be removed and to replaced by a new religion which is the religion of man, to adore man.

And this is the deepest wound of the modern culture, and this was the greatest danger and the greatest sin.

And this was the core, the essence, of the sin, first of the fallen angels, to adore themselves and not God, and then, especially, also the core of the sin of Adam and Eve.

They wanted to decide.

We are deciding.

We are deciding what is good, and not God.

And we are doing something independent of God.

It was, of course, they were seduced by the serpent, by the devil, but they accepted this fault and then they repented, thanks be to God, and God gave them the sign of the redemption.

Moynihan: But what you are really speaking about is what humanity chooses as its goal in being human, and in recent years, it’s become quite common to say, “We will transform humanity, we will become a new humanity, we will become Homo Sapiens 2.0, a new version.”

And that we will do this by certain additions, to our brain — maybe some [micro] chips — and to our bodies — maybe some special technology — and the question of the soul really doesn’t emerge in this view, because the soul is regarded as a myth.

So we have a humanity that looks at 1,000 or even 2,000 years — we could say — of Christian or “Christo-centric” culture, and then, for 100 or 200 years, an increasing distance from that, and now reaching a kind of crisis.

And you said in your very interesting book interview, Christus Vincit, “Pure technology is spiritually cold, and therefore people are not happy. They’re empty, they’re continuously seeking pleasures to escape the inner void. To avoid the ugliness, the insanity, people are running after new pleasures, new technologies, and they become, in their souls, cold, egoistic, and cruel.”

What spiritual alternative do you see to this soul-less, technological culture? And do you think it’s important?

Bishop Schneider: Of course.

You mention these temptations, attempts to transhumanism, and this is really an expression of the greatest pride and the greatest sin against God, [for man] to put himself, to place himself in the place of God and to create something new as a human being.

But they will not succeed, never, because God will not allow this.

God is the only Lord and Creator of the human being.

They can try to do some technical additions, or…

They will not succeed to change the nature of man.

This is God-given and God created this.

They can maybe harm the human nature, but they cannot change human nature.

Sursa: www.InsideTheVatican.com

Contor Accesări: 568, Ultimul acces: 2026-08-02 00:59:14

Timp total: 0.04s...

[]:1