'The first task of a pope – as Our Lord said to St. Peter – is to strengthen all the faithful in faith, to confirm them in the faith,' said Bishop Schneider.
VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — Bishop Athanasius Schneider has issued a call for Pope Leo XIV to urgently and formally correct the “tremendous doctrinal confusion” present in the Church.
Speaking on the monthly webinar for the Confraternity of Our Lady of Fatima, Schneider offered assessments of the new papacy and the issues which need to be addressed in the current pontificate.
"The first task of a pope – as Our Lord said to St. Peter – is to strengthen all the faithful in faith, to confirm them in the faith,” said the bishop.
Continuing, he issued a forthright call for Leo to take action regarding the Francis pontificate:
Regarding the current situation of the Church, of the tremendous doctrinal confusion which reigns in the life of the Church which is so evident, therefore it would be most urgent act of the new Pope to issue a document or magisterial act – he can do this in various forms as an encyclical or apostolic exhortation or an even more solemn way – to clarify, rectify, those issues in doctrine and morals which were in the last decades and especially in the last pontificate undermined and disfigured, or sometimes even denied.
This, said Schneider, “should be done as the most urgent act of the new pope.”
As already highlighted, a number of elements of Francis’ papacy have been cause for great confusion amongst Catholics, including his restrictions on the traditional Mass, the promotion of blessing same-sex "couples," and the upending of the Church’s moral order.
READ: Bishop Schneider: Pope’s ‘first commitment’ is to the Gospel, not Vatican II
Schneider had previously urged that Francis correct such aspects prior to his death, but also that – failing this – Francis’ successor should assume responsibility for dispersing the confusion and returning order to the Church’s teaching. A pope’s “first task” should be to issue a decree that “abrogates and condemns” Francis’ “documents and expressions” that contradict Catholic teaching, Schneider said last month.
In a previous interview, Schneider offered further specifics about what such a correction might resemble. Speaking prior to Francis’ April 21 death, Schneider called for a new pope to “make a profession of faith where he rectifies the errors – most important and widespread errors of our time,” first among which would be to proclaim Catholicism as the only true faith.
Next, he said, would come teaching on human sexuality, especially the “indissolubility of marriage, intrinsically evil character of sexual acts outside matrimony and especially to state clearly the intrinsically evil character of homosexual acts and lifestyle.”
He also cited Francis’ apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia as needing to be “explicitly, namely retracted by the pope,” and for the “blasphemy” of Fiducia Supplicans, in which Francis permitted blessings for same-sex “couples,” to be completely retracted.
Schneider further called for the infamous 2019 Abu Dhabi document to be “clearly retracted” in order to preserve the authenticity of the Catholic faith, along with the synodal process and the recent three-year extension approved by Pope Francis.
He also urged that the next pope should iterate “the uniqueness of Jesus Christ as the Redeemer of mankind, that Jesus Christ and the Church founded by Him are the only path to salvation intended by God.”
On this aspect, Schneider expressed some satisfaction that in Leo’s opening address to the world on May 8 after his election, the new pope made prominent reference to Christ.
READ: Pope Leo XIV’s words from the balcony: Full transcript
“Therefore, without fear, united hand in hand with God and each other let us go forward,” said Leo in a prepared speech. “We are disciples of Christ. Christ goes before us. The world needs His light. Humanity needs Him like a bridge to be reached by God and His love.”
Appointed auxiliary of the Diocese of Karaganda in Kazakhstan by Pope Benedict XVI in 2006, and then auxiliary of Archdiocese of Astana in 2011, Schneider has emerged as a leading figure in the Catholic Church under Francis’ pontificate.
READ: What are Pope Leo XIV’s priorities and why did he choose that name?
Emerging themes of Leo’s pontificate are still only 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.
