Bishop Schneider Appeals to the Pope for the SSPX

I am forced to ask: Does Pope Leo hate the Tradition of the Church as much as Pope Francis did? It's looking more and more like he does.

From One Peter Five

By His Lordship Athanasius Schneider, Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Mary Most Holy in Astana

"Demonstrate that you are building bridges, as you promised to do before the whole world when you gave your first blessing after your election."

Miss Diane Montagna has published His Excellency’s fraternal appeal to the Holy Father regarding the SSPX at her Substack. As she notes, Bishops Schneider, more than the vast majority of bishops has had intimate contact with the SSPX, serving as a Vatican visitator of the SSPX seminaries.

Not surprisingly, anyone who has had real contact with the SSPX bishops and priests often comes away with a very favourable impression. This was true of another famous Vatican-appointed visitator, Cardinal Gagnon, whom Paul VI had previously entrusted to investigate and uncover Vatican Freemasonry, which he did. He was entrusted with a visitation of the SSPX shortly before that fateful year of 1988, and he returned a very favourable opinion.

And so it is also true of Bishop Schneider. Nevertheless, Bishop Schneider has also criticised the SSPX in writing on the pages of Christus Vincit, and disagrees with the SSPX’s position on the Novus Ordo Missae.

Thus, whether you agree or disagree with him, it is clear that Bishop Schneider is attempting in all things to form a truthful and charitable judgement of this fraternal society of Catholic  priests, and is not viewing them as some do from the both sides – either as the last hope and remnant of the true Church, or else as a hopelessly schismatic mess of Pharisees. Therefore I encourage all to hear the words of His Excellency with an open heart.

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A Fraternal Appeal to Pope Leo XIV to Build a Bridge with the Priestly Society of St. Pius X

by Bishop Athanasius Schneider

The current situation regarding the episcopal consecrations in the Priestly Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) has suddenly awakened the entire Church. Within an extraordinarily short time following the February 2nd announcement that the SSPX will proceed with these consecrations, an intense and often emotionally charged debate has arisen throughout wide circles of the Catholic world. The spectrum of voices in this debate ranges from understanding, benevolence, neutral observation, and common sense to irrational rejection, peremptory condemnation, and even open hatred. Although there is reason for hope—and it is by no means unrealistic—that Pope Leo XIV could indeed approve the episcopal consecrations, already now proposals for the text of a bull of excommunication of the SSPX are being put forward online.

The negative reactions, though often well-intentioned, reveal that the heart of the problem has not yet been grasped with sufficient honesty and clarity. There is a tendency to remain at the surface. Priorities within the life of the Church are reversed, elevating the canonical and legal dimension—that is, a certain juridical positivism—to the supreme criterion. Moreover, there is at times a lack of historical awareness concerning the Church’s practice with respect to episcopal ordinations.  Disobedience is thus too readily equated with schism. The criteria for episcopal communion with the Pope, and consequently the understanding of what truly constitutes schism, are viewed in an overly one-sided manner when compared with the practice and self-understanding of the Church in the Patristic era, the age of the Church Fathers.

Read the rest at her Substack here.

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The most important point I want to emphasise in Bishop Schneider’s statement is the fact that the tradition seems clear that disobeying the pope on a matter of episcopal consecrations is a minor offence compared to the immensity of offences committed by numerous bishops in desecrating Our Eucharistic Lord, poisoning the minds of the faithful with heresy, and causing the faith of little ones to stumble.

I did not realise that even in the 1917 code – which was very much excessive in the fact that a universal code was even being brought into existence! – this act of disobedience did not even get punished by an excommunication. So it seems that after the False Spirit of Vatican One created the modern Vatican bureaucracy regime which was already unsustainable and against subsidiarity, the False Spirit of Vatican II (the one we all know and loathe) only tightened these reins and this situation.

It seems to me that the excessive emotion poured out about the SSPX rather reveals the animosity in the hearts of clerics and faithful, due to the wounds that go back to the failed dialogos between the OPs and the SJs, shortly before Vatican II (as documented in Kirwan and Minerd). In my view, this failed dialogos happened because of the False Spirit of Vatican One, and it had a direct result in the bitter fruit of the False Spirit of Vatican II.

Stay tuned to OnePeterFive for more coverage on the SSPX. In line with our editorial stance, we will continue to publish articles on all sides of the “SSPX question,” as long as they come from a traditionalist perspective.