ROME (LifeSiteNews) — Bishop Athanasius Schneider has warned that current trends in the Catholic Church, especially the Synod on Synodality, are “dangerous” to the Catholic faith and are “spiritual poisons.”
Speaking to LifeSiteNews recently in Rome, the auxiliary bishop of Astana, Kazakhstan, discussed “ecological conversion” and ecumenism, but also the dangers presented by the Synod on Synodality.
Synod on Synodality presents ‘spiritual poisons’
Bishop Schneider warned how the current Synod on Synodality is “a tool used to dilute evermore the clarity of the Catholic faith, as we are now observing, dribbling evermore confusion and doctrinal confusion into the life of the Church.”
“It’s a grave abuse of the institution of the synod, which the Church for 2,000 years understood,” he stated.
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The Vatican has highlighted how the multi-year Synod on Synodality is about “listening,” even to the point of “listening” to non-Catholics or lapsed Catholics.
But Bishop Schneider noted that a properly ordered synod has clear prerogatives: “The synod is an instrument of the Magisterium, but its first aim is to clarify doctrine without any ambiguity, without any doubt.”
The second task of a Synod should be to “reject the errors of the time,” yet Schneider warned that the current actions of the Synod are allowing “poison, spiritual poisons” to spread. A true synod should also be concerned with “disciplinary” issues to give a “remedy against abuses,” he noted.
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Instead, he described the Synod on Synodality as resembling a “parliament in a worldly manner,” something which “is contrary to the entire history of the Church and the entire method of God. It is worldly, it is not Christian even.”
Christ did not say ‘go and listen to all people’
Expanding on this, Bishop Schneider pointed out the peculiarity of focusing the Catholic Church on “listening” instead of teaching.
“The entire humanity has to listen to Christ’s voice, not each other,” he stated. To listen to each other instead of Christ is “against revelation,” he added.
And then Christ did not say to all the Apostles: “Go and listen to all the people,” but “Go and teach and instruct them, in what I have taught you.”
This is the message of the Church — not to present Herself, not to make parliamentary sessions and to listen to people — but to proclaim the truth, with clarity and charity of course.
Such a mission of proclaiming the Catholic faith is a “duty” of the bishops, along with the Pope, noted Schneider. “Also it is an expression of love for those who do not know the clarity of faith.”
Referencing the Synod’s concept of “coming together to listen,” Schneider suggested that such an action is a “dilution of the Catholic faith and an irresponsibility, and a gesture even of non-charity from the side of the Pope and the bishops.”
This is because people “are in need of clarity, in need of structure,” he stated.
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Highlighting the example of widespread practices of homosexuality, adultery, and numerous moral sins, Schneider also suggested that prelates who fail in their duty of warning against such sins are actually sinning themselves:
When the Pope and bishops are not instructing them with the most possible clarity, and in respect and charity, they are sinning. Such synods are against the basic mission, the divine mission, which God gave to the Pope and the bishops, and are also sinning against the commandment of charity for one’s neighbor.
Make the Eucharist the ‘center of your life’
Despite warning of the dangers represented by the many currents of modern thought in the Catholic Church, Bishop Schneider offered encouragement to Catholics on how to preserve the faith.
“Study the Catholic faith,” he stated. “Study well the old catechisms where is the unchanging faith.”
He mentioned certain post-Conciliar texts, such as Humanae Vitae, Vertitatis Splendor, but highlighted chiefly that Catholics attend to the pre-conciliar teachings and documents due to their clarity.
The auxiliary bishop also urged Catholics to make the Holy Eucharist “the center of your life.” He encouraged receiving Holy Communion with great reverence, kneeling and on the tongue “to avoid any danger of profanation or minimilization of reverence.”
Additionally, Schneider — a vocal proponent of the Church’s traditional liturgy — stated that to seek out the traditional Mass is a “gesture of love” to neighbors and an act of “fidelity to Holy Mother Church.”
“Be adorers of the Eucharist, lovers of the Eucharist and also of the traditional Mass, which is the Mass of the saints,” he said. “Promote this, seek this, make this known to your neighbors and to young people: this is a gesture of love to them and of fidelity to Holy Mother Church.”