Speaking to Catholic commentator Matt Gaspers, Bishop Schneider issued a call for popes to return to promoting the primacy of Jesus Christ.
VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — After Pope Leo XIV’s opening speech, Bishop Athanasius Schneider has warned against basing a pontificate upon only a focus on Vatican II, saying that a pope’s “first commitment” is to the Gospel.
Delivering his inaugural address to the College of Cardinals on Saturday morning, Pope Leo XIV highlighted the priority of the Second Vatican Council for his papacy. “I would like us to renew together today our complete commitment to the path that the universal Church has now followed for decades in the wake of the Second Vatican Council,” he said.
Such a comment has sparked interest from many, especially those who have been concerned about aspects predominant in the Francis pontificate, including Bishop Athanasius Schneider, the auxiliary of the Archdiocese of Astana, Kazakhstan.
“I think a pope should not speak so because our first complete commitment is to Jesus Christ’s Gospel – this is our first commitment of every pope and bishop,” the bishop told Matt Gaspers of Veritatis Vox during a Monday interview.
“A council is an act of the Magisterium … which is the teaching office of the Church,” added Schneider. “The teaching office of the Church is defined as not being above tradition but subordinate to it.”
Continuing, he rebuffed a notion that popes should make any particular council the focal point of a pontificate, drawing from historical precedent to support his argument:
It was not common to the popes in history to present the beginning of their pontificate with a public commitment to a specific council. Even in the famous council of Nicaea … which was more important than Vatican II, which was only pastoral.
One specific council “cannot be our first commitment,” Schneider re-iterated. “Our first commitment is the clear words and teaching of Our Lord, the constant clear teaching of tradition and the Apostles, and all the solemn and definitive teaching of the Magisterium. This should be our first commitment.”
The prominent auxiliary added that though Catholics should “take some positive inspiration of every council,” one particular council should not be “absolutized” so as to form the center of magisterial teaching under a pontiff.
Indeed in his address at the solemn opening of the Council, Pope John XXIII said: “The main purpose of this Council is not, therefore, the discussion of one or another theme of the fundamental doctrine of the Church.” He added that the character of the Council’s magisterium would be “predominantly pastoral” (October 11, 1962). For his part, Pope Paul VI said in his address at the last public session of the Council, that Vatican II “made its program” from “the pastoral character” (December 7, 1965).
Noting also how he could not make any certain predictions about the new pontiff, Schneider welcomed how “at least his appearance” and his opening speech from the balcony was “positive” and gave “hope and encouragement.”
Leo’s manner was “very spiritual,” added Schneider, who was also encouraged by the pope’s evident devotion to Mary. "He had a kind of radiance of calm," commented Schneider.
Certainly such an aspect has already been noted by others in and around the Vatican, who have spoken with relief of such an aspect. Indeed, Archbishop Georg Gänswein highlighted such himself, saying that with Leo “the season of arbitrariness” was at an end.
READ: Archbishop Gänswein on Pope Leo XIV: ‘The season of arbitrariness is over’
Catholics should “thank the Lord for his election” instead of other candidates “who would have really been a damage for the Church,” opined Schneider about Leo, whose election he dubbed as “a positive sign.”
Pressing issues for the ChurchSchneider has become widely known for his forthright and robust defense of the Catholic faith along with his many public interventions regarding various crises and confusions which have emerged in the Church’s life of latter years.
While always professing a filial and charitable spirit, his interventions have often addressed controversial aspects of Pope Francis’ pontificate.
Asked by Gaspers about what “pressings issues” he would recommend a pope address, Schneider highlighted doctrinal and liturgical issues, along with personnel appointments.
This threefold action plan, he said, would have to start first with reaffirming the primacy of Christ:
First: to confirm, to strengthen all the faithful in faith as Jesus gave it to Peter and to him [Leo] also in this case, in view of the evident confusion in which the Church has sunk in doctrinal, moral, it is really urgent to strengthen and to confirm in faith.
Expanding on the doctrinal aspect of the Church crisis, Schneider divided this into three further points which, he said, needed addressing:
To concretely [deal with] three topics which are mostly confused in the life of the Church:
- Truth about the uniqueness of Jesus Christ as the only way to salvation, and that other religions are not means of grace or ways of salvation. Must be stated with a crystal clear affirmation.
- The divine order of human sexuality must be addressed in a highly clear formula. The main topics which concern this theme, which in our day are evidently causing so much confusion in the Church, are regarding the intrinsic immorality and evilness of homosexual acts and lifestyle and then divorce. This must be stressed. And the indissolubility of marriage.
- To make a solemn or definitive clarification regarding the sacrament of ordination, establishing that the sacrament of orders – since it is in one sacrament in three grades of episcopacy, preliterate and diaconate – are by divinely established right reserved to the faithful of male sex.
As for liturgy, Schneider expanded on his previous condemnation of Pope Francis’ restriction of the traditional Mass as contained in Traditionis Custodes, calling for the document to be rescinded:
Regarding worship, the pope should abrogate Traditionis Custodes completely:
It is really a humiliation, a persecution of a part of the faithful and also a rejection of the entire tradition of the liturgy of the Church. So this must be healed. He must restore the complete liberty of use of the liturgy of all ages.
Aside from any particular plans which Leo might already have, his implementing these will be heavily reliant upon the cooperation of the Roman Curia with his wishes. In such circumstances personnel will indeed prove to be policy.
To this end, Schneider added that episcopal selection is key:
He must very carefully appoint bishops, because bishops should really be men of God, of Catholic faith. To this he should pay much attention.
Schneider echoed Gaspers’ clarification that neither individual was attempting to instruct the pope, but that such a process was an exercise in hypotheticals while also highlighting current issues in the Church.
READ: What are Pope Leo XIV’s priorities and why did he choose that name?
Emerging themes of Leo’s pontificate are trickling through but have yet to become fully fleshed out, given the fact that he is only less than one week into his papacy.
It appears set to be a mixture of many aspects drawn from the last three holders of the papal office, albeit with many predicting a calmer and somewhat more orthodox style than that seen under Francis.
As yet, though, the pope has still to make decisive actions on many of the sizable issues which he will have become acquainted with in the opening hours of his pontificate, including the moral confusion in the Church, the Vatican’s debilitating financial scandal, and the key aspect of his own Curial appointments.
