His Excellency, the Most Reverend Athanasius Schneider O.R.C.
Auxiliary Bishop of Mary Most Holy in Astana Titular Bishop of Celerina
Bishop Schneider in Chartres, France
Diocese	Mary Most Holy in Astana
Appointed	5 February 2011
Other posts	Titular Bishop of Celerina
Orders
Ordination	25 March 1990 by Manuel Pestana Filho
Consecration	2 June 2006 by Angelo Cardinal Sodano
Personal details
Birth name	Anton Schneider
Born	(1961-04-07) 7 April 1961 (age 57) Tokmok, Kirghiz SSR, Soviet Union (present day Kyrgyzstan)
Nationality	German
Denomination	Roman Catholic
Previous post	Auxiliary bishop of Karaganda
Motto	Kyrie eleison
Coat of arms

Styles of Athanasius Schneider
Reference style	The Right Reverend
Spoken style	Your Excellency
Religious style	Monsignor

Athanasius Schneider, O.R.C. (born Anton Schneider on 7 April 1961) is a Kazakhstani Roman Catholic bishop, the auxiliary bishop of Astana, Kazakhstan. He is a member of the Canons Regular of the Holy Cross of Coimbra.

Family and early life

Anton Schneider was born in Tokmok, Kirghiz SSR, in the Soviet Union. His parents were Black Sea Germans from Odessa in the Ukraine.^[1] After the Second World War they were sent by Stalin to a gulag in Krasnokamsk in the Ural Mountains. In Krasnokamsk, the family was closely involved with the underground church. Schneider’s mother, Maria, was one of several women who helped shelter the Blessed Oleksa Zaryckyj, a Ukrainian priest, who would later be imprisoned in the infamous Karlag by the Soviet regime for his ministry; he would eventually be martyred in 1963. The family traveled to the Kirghiz SSR after being released from the camps.^[2] Later, they left Central Asia for Estonia.^[3] As a boy, Schneider and his three siblings would attend clandestine masses with their parents, often traveling sixty miles from the family's home in Valga to Tartu, taking the first train in the morning under the cover of darkness and returning with the last train at night. Due to the great distance, infrequent visits by the clergy, and crackdowns by the Soviet authorities, they were only able to make the trip once a month.^[4] In 1973, shortly after making his first Holy Communion in secret, Schneider emigrated with his family to Rottweil in West Germany.^[5]

Training and priesthood

In 1982, Schneider joined the Canons Regular of the Holy Cross of Coimbra, a Roman Catholic religious order within the Opus Sanctorum Angelorum, in Austria. He took the religious name of Athanasius upon joining the order and was ordained a priest on 25 March 1990. Starting in 1999, he taught Patristics at Mary, Mother of the Church Seminary in Karaganda. On 2 June 2006 he was consecrated a bishop at the Altar of the Chair of Saint Peter in the Vatican by Angelo Cardinal Sodano. In 2011 he was transferred to the position of auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of Astana.^[6] He is the General Secretary of the Bishops' Conference of Kazakhstan.^[7]

In addition to German and Russian, Msgr. Schneider speaks English, French, Italian and Portuguese fluently, and he knows Latin and Ancient Greek.

Views

Schneider is widely seen as a supporter of Traditional Catholicism with conservative views that are occasionally perceived as clashing with those of other members of the Church's hierarchy.^[8]

Holy Communion

Schneider supports the posture of receiving Holy Communion on the tongue while kneeling in the liturgy.^[9] This is the theme of his book Dominus Est,^[10][11] published in Italian, and since translated into English, German, Estonian, Lithuanian, Polish, Hungarian and Chinese. The book contains a foreword written by Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith, then the Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, the current Archbishop of Colombo and Metropolitan head of the church in Sri Lanka.^{[citation needed]} In the book, Schneider writes that receiving Holy Communion in this way had become standard practice in the Church by the 5th century, and that Pope Gregory I strongly chastised priests who refused to follow this tradition.^[9]

Schneider encourages Catholics who truly believe they are receiving Christ in the Blessed Sacrament to kneel and receive Communion on their tongues. In 2009, he wrote, "The awareness of the greatness of the eucharistic mystery is demonstrated in a special way by the manner in which the body of the Lord is distributed and received."^[12]

Schneider offering Mass in 2009

In 2016, Pope Francis released the apostolic exhortation Amoris laetitia, which seemed to allow divorced and remarried persons to receive Holy Communion. This was despite the traditional teaching of the Church that divorce and remarriage outside of it constitutes adultery, a mortal sin, therefore making one ineligible to do so. This was extremely controversial, and afterwards some bishops began to allow the divorced and remarried to receive the sacrament. This development was strongly criticized by Schneider, who said that perennial teaching on marriage and Communion is "more powerful and surer than the discordant voice and practice of admitting unrepentant adulterers to Holy Communion, even if this practice is promoted by a single Pope or the diocesan bishops."^[13] On April 7, 2018, Schneider, along with conservative cardinals Raymond Leo Burke and Walter Brandmüller, participated in a conference rejecting the outline proposed by German bishops to allow divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to receive the Eucharist. Schneider spoke of the duty of popes to be "custodians" of authority.^[14]

Society of Saint Pius X

Schneider has been a major figure in attempts to reconcile the traditionalist Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) with Rome. He has repeatedly met with members of the Society, including the Superior General Bernard Fellay, to discuss doctrinal differences and to arrive at a solution. In August 2015, after remarks by Schneider were said to be favorable to the Society, he issued a clarification. He explained that the SSPX is still not in full communion with Rome, and that the situation has to be resolved. Schneider expressed the opinion that many of the SSPX's concerns regarding the texts of post-Vatican II documents and their interpretation are legitimate, but added that, "Unfortunately their criticism lacks sometimes the due respectful form." He also said:

This is the tragedy of the history, that in confused times as this is our time, the good forces in the Church, which want to restore the true faith and Divine worship often fight one against the other, to the detriment of the true renewal and to the joy of the enemies outside and inside the Church.^[8]

Clergy sex abuse

On August 25, 2018 Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, former apostolic nuncio to the United States, released an 11-page letter describing a series of warnings to the Vatican regarding sexual misconduct by Theodore McCarrick, who had been removed from active ministry on June 20 following allegations deemed credible of sexually abusing a minor. According to Viganò, Pope Benedict XVI placed secret restrictions on McCarrick, but Pope Francis removed these sanctions and made McCarrick "his trusted counselor." Viganò called on Francis and all those responsible for the coverrup to resign.^[15]

The letter provoked diverse reactions. It was said to read "in part like a homophobic attack on Francis" filled with "unsubstantiated allegations and personal attacks," with many speculating that Viganò's conservative views, among other things, led him into a "declaration of war" against Francis.^[16][17] A number of bishops sharply criticized it^[18][19] while others called for an investigation.^[20][21] Schneider came down on the side of those supporting the letter. He responded by saying that there was "no reasonable and plausible cause to doubt the truth content of the document." He demanded "ruthlessness and transparency" in cleansing the Church of evils, particularly "homosexual cliques and networks" in the curia that he and some others have blamed for helping to cause the abuse epidemic. Schneider called on all "cardinals, bishops and priests to renounce any compromise and any flirt with the world."^[22] He later referred to attempts by some Catholic clergy to argue that clerical abuse was not connected with homosexuality as "a denial of reality."^[23]

Immigration

In June 2018, Schneider spoke out against those in the Church who support open borders in Europe. In an interview with Il Giornale of Milan, he said:

The phenomenon of so-called “immigration” represents an orchestrated and long-prepared plan by international powers to radically change the Christian and national identities of the European peoples... These powers use the Church's enormous moral potential and her structures to more effectively achieve their anti-Christian and anti-European goal. To this end they are abusing the true concept of humanism and even the Christian commandment of charity.^[24]

In the same interview, Schneider condemned the European Union as "a kind of new Soviet Union" with "an unmistakably Masonic ideology."^[24]

Interreligious relations

On February 4, 2019, Pope Francis signed the "Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together" with Ahmed el-Tayeb, Grand Imam of the al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo, during an interreligious meeting in Abu Dhabi. The document incited controversy for stating that "the pluralism and the diversity of religions" are "willed by God in His wisdom," a statement which allegedly contradicts Catholic teaching. Schneider issued a statement about the role of the Christian religion. "Christianity is the only God-willed religion," he wrote. "Therefore, it can never be placed complementarily side by side with other religions. Those would violate the truth of Divine Revelation, as it is unmistakably affirmed in the First Commandment of the Decalogue, who would assert that the diversity of religions is the will of God."^[25]

In March 2019, following a meeting between himself, Francis, and nine other bishops from Central Asia, Schneider stated that Francis confirmed to him that the document was meant to signify permissive will and not positive will. The distinction is that permissive will refers to something that God allows, but does not positively desire, which is the case for positive will. Schneider said that he then brought up the fact that, in the document, the diversity of religions was compared to the diversity of sexes and mentioned in the same sentence, while Schneider and Francis both acknowledged that the diversiy of sexes was positively willed by God. "[I]t was my desire, and my request that the Holy Father rectify this. But he said to us bishops: you can say that the phrase in question on the diversity of religions means the permissive will of God," Schneider said.^[23]

Other

At a theological conference in Rome in December 2010, Schneider proposed the need for "a new Syllabus" (recalling the Syllabus of Errors of 1864), in which papal teaching authority would correct erroneous interpretations of the documents of the Second Vatican Council.^[26][27][28]

Throughout late 2018, Schneider appeared at a number of conferences and events by videocam instead of in person, as he had been accustomed to doing. This led to rumors among Traditional Catholics that his travel had been restricted as punishment for his criticisms of Pope Francis. "I am sad that such news is spreading," Schneider said. "I was asked on behalf of the Holy See to reduce the frequency of my travels outside my diocese, so that their duration will not exceed the limits indicated by Canon Law. Therefore there is no travel ban." Canon law requires that a bishop, unless fufilling some specific duty, not be absent from his diocese for more than one month out of the year.^[29]

References

Bibliography

• 
  Schneider, Athanasius (1999). "Propter sanctam ecclesiam suam": die Kirche als Geschöpf, Frau und Bau im Bussunterricht des Pastor Hermae (in German). Rome: Patristic Institute Augustinianum. ISBN 88-7961-030-9. LCCN 00688210.
  


• 
  Schneider, Athanasius (2008). Dominus Est, it is the Lord: Reflections of a Bishop of Central Asia on Holy Communion [Dominus est, riflessioni di un vescovo dell' Asia Centrale sulla sacra Comunione]. Translated by Gregoris, Nicholas L. Pine Beach, N.J.: Newman House Press. ISBN 978-0-9778846-1-2. LCCN 2011276875.
  

Interviews

• 
  Schneider, Athanasius (2016-05-27). "WATCH: Bishop Schneider's 12 steps to surviving as a Catholic family in a heretical wasteland". LifeSiteNews (Interview). Interviewed by Pete Baklinski. Toronto. Retrieved 2018-09-22.
  


• 
  Schneider, Athanasius (2018-09-21). "Bishop Schneider on Chastity vs. a Society 'Becoming Ever More Cruel'". OnePeterFive (Interview). Interviewed by Julian Kwasniewksi. Archived from the original on 2018-12-29. Retrieved 2018-09-22.
  


• Schneider, Athanasius; Fülep Dániel (6 March 2016). Exclusive interview with His Excellence DR. ATHANASIUS SCHNEIDER O.R.C. by Dániel Fülep director (Newman Center of Hungary) https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2016/04/exclusive-interview-with-bishop.html or here: http://newman.hu/index.php/interview-with-schneider/ or here at Gloria.tv https://gloria.tv/text/2wFmpf23UdG1CQZeWn1fWiNGE
  


• Schneider, Athanasius; Fülep Dániel (6 March 2016). REGNUM EUCHARISTICUM. The first visit of Bishop Athanasius Schneider to Hungary.

Three lectures, a sermon and an exclusive interview. Hungarian and English language e-book version: http://mek.oszk.hu/15500/15547/15547.pdf (For the English version, see page 77)

• Schneider, Athanasius; Fülep Dániel (July 2018). CATHOLIC CHURCH: WHERE ARE YOU HEADING?, Interview book, Theologian Dániel Fülep’s interview with Bishop Athanasius Schneider, Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Saint Mary in Astana. The e-book is free download. Hungarian Electronic Library

http://mek.oszk.hu/18600/18638/18638.pdf

External links

• Gloria Dei