"Semi-heretical" prelates leading faithful astray, says Catholic bishop

The Catholic Church is ubiquitous. You could say it's catholic. But is it big-C Catholic any more? Does it still hold and teach the Faith of our Fathers, the traditional Catholic Faith handed down to us through the apostles by Our Lord Himself? Many say not. Many, beginning with Pope Paul VI, say "the smoke of Satan" entered the Church through the window of Vatican II, and that we are now experiencing the Great Apostasy foretold in the Apocalypse.

Many say that those who lead the Church, from Pope Francis on down, are guilty of leading the faithful astray, of teaching and promoting a neo-Catholicism which is at odds with the traditional Faith and therefore heretical. That's the point being made by Michael Matt and Christopher Ferrara in "Luther's Revenge: The Surrender of Pope Francis", the must-see video posted here yesterday.

Messrs Matt and Ferrara are "scary Traditionalists", targets of constant criticism by the likes of Jimmy Akin (see yesterday's post) and Jeff Mirus, neo-Catholic publisher of The Daily Pope (aka Catholic World News), who think that the sun, moon and stars shine out from under the Holy Father's cassock. When Rome speaks, they tell us, we must not only listen, but jump through the hoop which the Pope holds out for us. Thank God for the Protestant Revolt? "Yes, Holy Father!" Stop praying for the conversion of the Jews? "Yes, Holy Father!" And so on, ad nauseam.

Not all Catholics agree. And not all who disagree are dreaded Traditionalists. A Roman Catholic prelate who has serious reservations about the direction in which the Pope and certain Cardinals are leading the Church is Most Reverend Athanasius Schneider, auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Astana, Kazakhstan.

In a wide-ranging interview with Rorate Caeli, he charges that many "semi-heretical" Church leaders are misleading the faithful, and must take responsibility for the crisis of faith evident in the mainstream Catholic Church. Here are some excerpts from the interview; the Bishop's words are in purple.

The very crisis of the Church in our days consists in the ever growing phenomenon that those who don’t fully believe and profess the integrity of the Catholic faith frequently occupy strategic positions in the life of the Church, such as professors of theology, educators in seminaries, religious superiors, parish priests and even bishops and cardinals. And these people with their defective faith profess themselves as being submitted to the Pope. [Hello, Jeff Mirus!]

...The very source of the current crisis in the Church, the crisis of marriage, of the family and of the morality in general is not the liturgical reform, but the defects in faith, the doctrinal relativism, from which flows the moral and liturgical relativism. For, if I believe in a defective manner, I will live a defective moral life and I will worship in a defective, indifferent manner. It is necessary first to restore the clearness and firmness of the doctrine of faith and of morals in all levels and, from there, start to improve the liturgy. The integrity and the beauty of the faith demands the integrity and the beauty of one’s moral life and this demands the integrity and the beauty of the public worship.

Bishop Schneider laments the decision by Pope Francis to allow the washing of women’s feet in Holy Thursday services, saying that the move “generates confusion” regarding the all-male priesthood; he adds that it is “improper and even indecent” for a bishop or priest to wash or kiss a woman’s feet.

Bishop Schneider also speaks of the Society of St. Pius X. He describes Bishop Bernard Fellay, the head of the SSPX as an exemplary and true Catholic bishop.... Those who have fear of the Priestly Society of St. Pius X ultimately have fear of the perennial Catholic truths and of its demands in the moral and the liturgical domain.

When the SSPX tries to believe, to worship and to live morally the way our fore-fathers and the best-known Saints did during a millennial period, then one has to consider the life and the work of these Catholic priests and faithful of the SSPX as a gift for the Church in our days – even as one of the several instruments which the Divine Providence uses to remedy the enormity of the current general crisis of the faith, of the morals and of the liturgy inside the Church.

Although not referring to Traditionalists like Messrs Matt and Ferrara et al. [Hello, John Vennari!] directly, Bishop Schneider had something to say about the right of faithful Catholics to question the pronouncements of their leaders, even the Pope. If the Pope would tell the entire church to do something, which would directly damage an unchangeable Divine truth or a Divine commandment, every Catholic would have the right to correct him in a due respectful form, moved out of reverence and love for the sacred office, and person of the Pope.

I think in a time in which a great part of the holders of the office of the Magisterium are negligent in their sacred duty, the Holy Spirit calls today, namely the faithful, to step into the breach and defend courageously with an authentic sentire cum ecclesia the Catholic Faith.

One can think that the Church in our days is being flagellated as our Lord, is being denuded as was Our Lord, on the tenth Cross station. The Church, our mother, is being bound in cords not only by the enemies of Christ but also by some of their collaborators in the rank of the clergy, even sometimes of the high clergy.

All good children of Mother Church as courageous soldiers we have to try to free this mother – with the spiritual weapons of defending and proclaiming the truth, promoting the traditional liturgy, Eucharistic adoration, the crusade of the Holy Rosary, the battle against the sin in one’s private life and striving for holiness.

We have to pray that the Pope may soon consecrate explicitly Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, then She will win, as the Church prayed since the old times: "Rejoice O Virgin Mary, for thou alone have destroyed all heresies in the whole world."

Click here to read the interview in full, on the Rorate Caeli website.