Against Pharisees

A Stunning Interview with Bishop Athanasius
Schneider
concerning the Corruption in
Amoris Laetitia
“The Church and the
world urgently need intrepid and candid witnesses of the whole truth
of the commandment and of the will of God,
of the whole truth of Christ’s words on marriage. Modern clerical Pharisees
and Scribes, those bishops and cardinals who throw grains of incense
to the neo-pagan idols of gender ideology and concubinage, will not
convince anyone to either believe in Christ or to be ready to offer
their lives for Christ”, said + Athanasius Schneider Auxiliary Bishop
of the Archdiocese of Saint Mary in Astana, Kazakhstan in interview
with Izabella Parowicz:
Izabella Parowicz: Your Excellency, what is Your Excellency’s opinion about the Synod? What
is its message to families?
Bishop Schneider:
“During the Synod there had been moments of obvious manipulation on
the part of some clerics who held key positions in the editorial and
governing structure of the Synod. The interim report (Relatio post
disceptationem) was clearly a prefabricated text with no reference
to the actual statements of the Synod fathers.
In the sections on homosexuality,
sexuality and “divorced and remarried” with their admittance to the
sacraments the text represents a radical neo-pagan ideology. This is
the first time in Church history that such a heterodox text was actually
published as a document of an official meeting of Catholic bishops under
the guidance of a pope, even though the text only had a preliminary
character.
Thanks be to God and
to the prayers of the faithful all over the world that a consistent
number of Synod fathers resolutely rejected such an agenda; this
agenda reflects the corrupt and pagan main stream morality of our time,
which is being imposed globally by means of political pressure and through
the almost all-powerful official mass media, which are loyal to the
principles of the world gender ideology party.
Such a synod document,
even if only preliminary, is a real shame and an indication to the extent
the spirit of the anti-Christian world has already penetrated such important
levels of the life of the Church. This document will remain for the
future generations and for the historians a black mark which has stained
the honour of the Apostolic See.
Fortunately the Message
of the Synod Fathers is a real Catholic document which outlines the
Divine truth on family without being silent about the deeper roots of
the problems, i.e. about the reality of sin. It gives real courage and
consolation to Catholic families. Some quotations: “We think of the
burden imposed by life in the suffering that can arise with a child
with special needs, with grave illness, in deterioration of old age,
or in the death of a loved one. We admire the fidelity of so many families
who endure these trials with courage, faith, and love. They see them
not as a burden inflicted on them, but as something in which they themselves
give, seeing the suffering Christ in the weakness of the flesh. … Conjugal
love, which is unique and indissoluble, endures despite many difficulties.
It is one of the most beautiful of all miracles and the most common.
This love spreads through fertility and generativity, which involves
not only the procreation of children but also the gift of divine life
in baptism, their catechesis, and their education. … The presence of
the family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph in their modest home hovers over
you”.
Izabella Parowicz: Those groups of people who had been expecting a change in the Church’s
teaching with regard to the moral issues (e.g. allowing divorced
and remarried people to receive Holy Communion or granting any form
of approval for homosexual unions) were probably disappointed by
the content of the final Relatio. Isn’t there, however, a danger
that questioning and discussing issues that are fundamental for
the Church’s teaching may itself open doors for serious abuses and
for similar attempts to revise this teaching in the future?
Bishop Schneider:
“In fact a Divine commandment, in our case the sixth commandment,
the absolute indissolubility of the sacramental marriage, a Divinely
established rule, means those in a state of grave sin cannot be admitted
to Holy Communion. This is taught by Saint Paul in his letter inspired
by the Holy Spirit in 1 Corinthians 11, 27-30, this cannot be
put to the vote, just as the Divinity of Christ would never be put
to a vote. A person who still has the indissoluble sacramental
marriage bond and who in spite of this lives in a stable marital cohabitation
with another person, by Divine law cannot be admitted to Holy Communion.
To do so would be a public statement by the Church nefariously legitimizing
a denial of the indissolubility of the Christian marriage and at the
same time repealing the sixth commandment of God: “Thou shalt not
commit adultery”. No human institution not even the Pope or an
Ecumenical Council has the authority and the competency to invalidate
even in the slightest or indirect manner one of the ten Divine commandments
or the Divine words of Christ: “What therefore God has joined together,
let man not separate.” (Mat. 19:6).
Regardless of this lucid
truth which was taught constantly and unchangingly — because unchangeable
— through all the ages by the Magisterium of the Church up to our days
as for instance in “Familiaris consortio” of Saint John Paul
II, in the Catechism of the Catholic Church and by Pope Benedict XVI,
the issue of the admissibility to Holy Communion of the so called “divorced
and remarried” has been put to the vote in the Synod. This fact is
in itself grievous and represents an attitude of clerical arrogance
towards the Divine truth of the Word of God. The attempt to
put the Divine truth and the Divine Word to a vote is unworthy of those
who as representatives of the Magisterium have to hand over zealously
as good and faithful rules (cf. Math 24, 45) the Divine deposit.
By admitting the “divorced
and remarried” to Holy Communion those bishops establish a new tradition
on their own volition and transgressing thereby the commandment of
God, as Christ once rebuked the Pharisees and Scribes (cf. Math
15: 3). And what is still aggravating, is the fact that such bishops
try to legitimize their infidelity to Christ’s word by means of arguments
such as “pastoral need”, “mercy”, “openness to the Holy Spirit”.
Moreover they have no fear and no scruples to pervert in a Gnostic manner
the real meaning of these words labeling at the same time those who
oppose them and defend the immutable Divine commandment and the true
non-human tradition as rigid, scrupulous or traditionalist.
During the great Arian
crisis in the IV century the defenders of the Divinity of the Son of
God were labeled “intransigent” and “traditionalist” as well. Saint
Athanasius was even excommunicated by Pope Liberius and the Pope justified
this with the argument that Athanasius was not in communion with the
Oriental bishops who were mostly heretics or semi-heretics. Saint Basil
the Great stated in that situation the following: “Only one sin is nowadays
severely punished: the attentive observance of the traditions of our
Fathers. For that reason the good ones are thrown out of their places
and brought to the desert” (Ep. 243).
In fact the bishops
who support Holy Communion for “divorced remarried” are the new Pharisees
and Scribes because they neglect the commandment of God, contributing to the fact that out of the body and of the heart
of the “divorced remarried” continue to “proceed adulteries” (Math 15:
19), because they want an exteriorly “clean” solution and to appear
“clean” as well in the eyes of those who have power (the social media,
public opinion). However when they eventually appear at the tribunal
of Christ, they will surely hear to their dismay these words of Christ:
“Why are you declaring my statutes and taking my covenant in your mouth?
Seeing you hate instruction, and cast my words behind you, … when you
have been partaker with adulterers” (Ps 50 (49): 16-18).
The final Relatio
of the Synod also unfortunately contains the paragraph with the vote
on the issue of Holy Communion for “divorced remarried”. Even though
it has not achieved the required two third of the votes, there remains
nevertheless the worrying and astonishing fact that the absolute majority
of the present bishops voted in favor of Holy Communion for the “divorced
and remarried”, a sad reflection on the spiritual quality of the
Catholic episcopacy in our days.
It is moreover sad,
that this paragraph which hasn’t got the required approval of the qualitative
majority, remains nevertheless in the final text of the Relatio
and will be sent to all dioceses for further discussion. It will surely
only increase the doctrinal confusion among the priests and the faithful,
being in the air, that Divine commandments and Divine words of Christ
and those of the apostle Paul are put at the disposal of human decision
making groups. One Cardinal who openly and strongly supported the
issue of Holy Communion for “divorced and remarried” and even the shameful
statements on homosexual “couples” in the preliminary Relatio,
was dissatisfied with the final Relatio, and declared impudently:
“The glass is half-full”, and analogously he said that one has to work
that next year at the Synod it will be full. We must believe firmly
that God will dissipate the plans of dishonesty, infidelity and betrayal.
Christ holds infallibly the rudder of the boat of His Church in midst
of such a big storm. We believe and trust in the very ruler of the Church,
in Our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the truth.
Izabella Parowicz:
We are currently experiencing a culmination of aggression against
the family; this aggression is accompanied by a tremendous confusion
in the area of science about human and human identity. Unfortunately,
there are certain members of Church hierarchy who, while discussing
these matters, express opinions that contradict the teaching of
Our Lord. How should we talk with those people who become victims
of this confusion in order to strengthen their faith and to help
them towards salvation?
Bishop Schneider:
“In this extraordinarily difficult time Christ is purifying our Catholic
faith so that through this trial the Church will shine brighter and
be really light and salt for the insipid neo-pagan world thanks to the
fidelity and the pure and simple faith firstly of the faithful, of the
little ones in the Church, of the “ecclesia docta” (the learning church),
which in our days will strengthen the “ecclesia docens” (the teaching
Church, i.e. the Magisterium), in a similar way as it was in the
great crisis of the faith in the IV century as Blessed John Henry Cardinal
Newman stated: “This is a very remarkable fact: but there is a moral
in it. Perhaps it was permitted, in order to impress upon the Church
at that very time passing out of her state of persecution the great
evangelical lesson, that, not the wise and powerful, but the obscure,
the unlearned, and the weak constitute her real strength. It was mainly
by the faithful people that Paganism was overthrown; it was by the faithful
people, under the lead of Athanasius and the Egyptian bishops, and in
some places supported by their Bishops or priests, that the worst of
heresies was withstood and stamped out of the sacred territory. … In
that time of immense confusion the divine dogma of our Lord's divinity
was proclaimed, enforced, maintained, and (humanly speaking) preserved,
far more by the “Ecclesia docta” than by the “Ecclesia docens”;
that the body of the Episcopate was unfaithful to its commission,
while the body of the laity was faithful to its baptism; that at one
time the pope, at other times a patriarchal, metropolitan, or other
great see, at other times general councils, said what they should not
have said, or did what obscured and compromised revealed truth; while,
on the other hand, it was the Christian people, who, under Providence,
were the ecclesiastical strength of Athanasius, Hilary, Eusebius of
Vercellæ, and other great solitary confessors, who would have failed
without them” (Arians of the Fourth Century, pp. 446, 466
We have to encourage
ordinary Catholics to be faithful to the Catechism they have learned,
to be faithful to the clear words of Christ in the Gospel, to be faithful
to the faith their fathers and forefathers handed over to them. We have
to organize circles of studies and conferences about the perennial teaching
of the Church on the issue of marriage and chastity, inviting especially
young people and married couples.
We have to show the
very beauty of a life in chastity, the very beauty of the Christian
marriage and family, the great value of the Cross and of the sacrifice
in our lives. We have to present ever more the examples of the Saints
and of exemplary persons who demonstrated that in spite of the fact
that they suffered the same temptations of the flesh, the same hostility
and derision of the pagan world, they nevertheless with the grace of
Christ led a happy life in chastity, in a Christian marriage and in
family. The faith, the pure and integral Catholic and Apostolic faith
will overcome the world (cf. 1 John 5: 4).
We have to found and
promote youth groups of pure hearts, family groups, groups of Catholic
spouses, who will be committed to the fidelity of their marriage vows.
We have to organize groups which will help morally and materially broken
families, single mothers, groups who will assist with prayer and with
good counsel separated couples, groups and persons who will help “divorced
and remarried” people to start a process of serious conversion, i.e.
recognizing with humility their sinful situation and abandoning with
the grace of God the sins which violate the commandment of God and the
sanctity of the sacrament of marriage.
We have to create groups
who will carefully help persons with homosexual tendencies to enter
the path of Christian conversion, the happy and beautiful path of a
chaste life and to offer them eventually in a discrete manner a psychological
cure. We have to show and preach to our contemporaries in the neo-pagan
world the liberating Good News of the teaching of Christ: that the commandment
of God, and even the sixth commandment is wise, is beauty: “The law
of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the Lord
is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the Lord are right,
rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening
the eyes” (Ps 19(18): 7-8).
Izabella Parowicz:
During the Synod, Archbishop Gądecki from Poznań and some other
distinguished prelates were publicly expressing their disagreement
with the fact that the results of the discussions departed from
the perennial teaching of the Church. Is there a hope that, amid
this confusion, there will be an awakening of members of clergy
and those faithful who were so far unaware of the fact that, in
the very Church’s bosom, there are people who undermine the teaching
of Our Lord?
Bishop Schneider:
“It is certainly an honor for Polish Catholicism that the President
of the Catholic episcopate, His Excellency Archbishop Gądecki, defended
with clarity and courage the truth of Christ about marriage and human
sexuality, thus revealing himself to be a true spiritual son of Saint
John Paul II.
Cardinal George Pell
characterized the liberal sexual agenda and the alleged merciful and
pastoral support of Holy Communion for “divorced remarried” during the
Synod very aptly, saying that this is only the tip of the iceberg and
a kind of a Trojan horse in the Church. That in the very bosom of the
Church, there are people who undermine the teaching of Our Lord became
an obvious fact and one for the whole world to see
thanks to the internet and the work of some Catholic journalists who
were not indifferent to what was happening to the Catholic faith which
they consider to be the treasure of Christ.
I was pleased to see
that some Catholic journalists and internet bloggers behaved as good
soldiers of Christ and drew attention to this clerical agenda of undermining
the perennial teaching of Our Lord. Cardinals, bishops, priests, Catholic
families, Catholic young people have to say to themselves: I refuse
to conform to the neo-pagan spirit of this world, even when this spirit
is spread by some bishops and cardinals; I will not accept their
fallacious and perverse use of holy Divine mercy and of “new Pentecost”;
I refuse to throw grains of incense before the statue of the idol of
the gender ideology, before the idol of second marriages, of concubinage,
even if my bishop would do so, I will not do so; with the grace of God
I will choose to suffer rather than betray the whole truth of Christ
on human sexuality and on marriage.
The witnesses will convince
the world, not the teachers, said Blessed Paul VI in “Evangelii nuntiandi”.
The Church and the world do urgently need intrepid and candid witnesses
of the whole truth of the commandment and of the will of God, of the
whole truth of Christ’s words on marriage. Modern clerical Pharisees
and Scribes, those bishops and cardinals who throw grains of incense
to the neo-pagan idols of gender ideology and concubinage, will not
convince anyone to either believe in Christ or to be ready to offer
their lives for Christ. Indeed “veritas Domini manet in aeternum”
(Ps 116: the truth of the Lord remains forever) and “Christ is the same
yesterday, today and forever” (Heb. 13: 8) and “the truth will set
you free” (John 8: 32). This last phrase was one of the favorite
biblical phrases of Saint John Paul II, the pope of the family.
We can add: the revealed and unchangeably transmitted Divine truth about
human sexuality and marriage will bring true freedom to the souls inside
and outside the Church. In midst of the crisis of the Church and the
bad moral and doctrinal example of some bishops of his time Saint Augustine
comforted the simple faithful with these words: “Whatsoever we bishops
may be, you are safe, who have God for your Father and His Church for
your mother” (Contra litteras Petiliani III, 9, 10).
+ Athanasius Schneider,
Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Saint Mary in Astana, Kazakhstan.
This interview was published
in the latest issue of “Polonia Christiana” magazine.
Note: All emphases
in the way of bold text have been added.
http://www.pch24.pl/against-pharisees,31907,i.html
Read more:
http://www.pch24.pl/against-pharisees,31907,i.html#ixzz540RCGkM6
Editor
Boston Catholic Journal
January 12, 2018
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