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Bishop Athanasius Schneider

WINNIPEG, Manitoba, November 16, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — Kazakhstan Bishop Athanasius Schneider will be the first and only recipient of a custom award devised by the Winnipeg-based Society of St. Dominic to mark the centenary year of the Marian apparitions at Fatima.

“As storm clouds continue to form on the horizon for Catholics all over the world while we pass the Fatima centenary, we have created this award to recognize and honor a tireless defender of the faith and devotee of Our Lady's Immaculate heart,” the Society said in a statement to LifeSiteNews.

The bishop will receive the Regina Sacratissimi Rosarii (Queen of the Holy Rosary) award in Winnipeg in May.

Bishop Schneider, 56, has been a major voice among those calling on Pope Francis to dispel the confusion caused by his Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia, which Schneider says contains “ambiguous affirmations” that are “causing a moral and disciplinary anarchy in the life of the Church.”

“Hearing Bishop Schneider in person will be different than not. Hence, the reason for our award and the event,” the Society stated, referencing St. Paul’s letter to the Romans: “Faith then cometh by hearing; and hearing by the word of Christ” (10: 17, Douay Rheims edition).

The award will be presented on the Society’s behalf by Dr. Peter Kwasniewski, professor and choirmaster at Wyoming Catholic College. A graduate of Thomas Aquinas, Kwasniewski is a prolific author, liturgical scholar and composer, as well as a blogger with LifeSiteNews.

The group will announce the ticket price by mid-December and will reveal more details, such as the name of the artist, the nature of the award, and possible additional speakers, as the event draws nearer.

The Society of St. Dominic is a private association of Catholic laity and not associated with the Order of Preachers.

Its mission is “to glorify God and sanctify souls through the rediscovery of the contemplative Catholic tradition in the arts, the liturgy and the lives and writings of her Saints,” according to its website.

The Society chose Bishop Schneider “owing not only to his outstanding defense of the Faith and Our Lady's role in it, but the providential role that Our Lady has played in his priestly formation,” the statement said.

Schneider is auxiliary bishop of the archdiocese of “Mary Most Holy (Maria Santissima) of Astana.”

The bishop “also taught patristics at Mary, Mother of the Church Seminary in Karaganda, and, reminiscent of Our Lady in the second Joyful Mystery of the Rosary, is a tireless traveler for Catholics scattered far and wide,” the Society said.

“It was revealed to St. Dominic that Our Lady, through the Rosary and the Scapular, would save the world.”

Bishop Schneider received his first Holy Communion from Ukrainian Catholic priest and martyr Blessed Oleksa Zaryckyj, who was appointed apostolic administrator of Kazakhstan and Siberia, and died October 30, 1963, in a Soviet labor camp near Karaganda.

Previous events of the Society of St. Dominic include an address by renowned Oxford theologian and priest Father John Saward on the Latin Mass, and a performance of Tomas Luis de Victoria's 1605 Requiem.

The Society “promotes spiritual conferences, public talks and cultural events which emphasize the Spiritual Acts of Mercy; to instruct the ignorant; to pray for the living and the dead.”

Its members “take seriously the dictum of St. Philip Neri, ‘love to be unknown,’” the Society’s website notes, hence, there is no name affixed to the Society’s statements.

View the Society of St. Dominic’s website here.

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