(LifeSiteNews) — In a live interview Thursday with longtime Vatican journalist Robert Moynihan, Bishop Athanasius Schneider revealed that he has spoken off the record with several bishops who have said that they do not submit in “mind and will” to the authentic magisterium of Pope Francis. Bishop Schneider added that the bishops he has spoken to “do not dare to say this” publicly but only in private.
“When I ask them personally, off the record, could you accept the switching of your mind on Amoris Laetitia, and the Communion for the divorced and so on, and they say ‘no,’ but publicly they don’t dare to say this,” Schneider told Moynihan.
The revelation is very significant because the Code of Canon Law (833.3) requires bishops to make the 1989 Profession of Faith, wherein they promise to “adhere with religious submission of will and intellect to the teachings which … the Roman Pontiff (the pope) … enunciate(s) when they exercise their authentic Magisterium, even if they do not intend to proclaim these teachings by a definitive act.”
In the interview, which you can watch here, Bishop Schneider also enumerates several teachings of Pope Francis to which he himself says he cannot assent.
READ: Open letter to cardinals: Can’t we consider the possibility that Francis and Leo are anti-popes?
“How can I, even myself, submit my intellect and my will to accept what Pope Francis did in his ordinary magisterium – authentic – to allow divorced people to go to Holy Communion?” he asks rhetorically. Bishop Schneider adds: “How I can accept it? How can I accept with the submission of my intellect and my will? … To accept the Fiducia Supplicans document to blessing same-sex couples.”
Beyond those examples, Bishop Schneider also indicates there are some statements of Vatican II to which he also cannot submit. He mentions specifically an example from the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium at No. 16, which speaks of adoring the same God with the Muslims.
Or even the Vatican II there are some expressions … which would be also difficult – honestly – for many Catholics to accept with submission of intellect and will. For example, Lumen Gentium states that we Catholics together with the Muslims, we adore the one God. ‘Adore’ – I cannot accept this phrase. How can I adore (God) together with the Muslims? Because the act of adoration is substantially different. The Christians, the Catholics always pray in a supernatural level as children of God. … While Muslims adore on a natural level, not the supernatural level – they don’t have the sonship of God through baptism.
Bishop Schneider says that this and other problematic phrases of the Council need to be corrected or at least clarified. And he suggests the same of the teachings of the Pope, even from his “authentic magisterium.”
And that, my friends, hits on a minefield of debate within the Church. Because the idea of submission in mind and will to the Pope is not new. But that, as they say, is another story. Stay tuned to LifeSiteNews and Sign of the Cross Media for all your breaking news on the Church.
Watch the full interview between Bishop Schneider and Robert Moynihan below or by clicking here.
