In short, the priest should face the tabernacle and therefore his (and the congregation's) Lord and Savior. It is preferable that Mass be said in Latin. It seems absolutely correct that "Communion in the hand" is an outright abomination. That does not mean that sound beliefs on such matters makes one his own pope.
Athanasius Schneider, O.R.C. (born Anton Schneider on 7 April 1961) is a Roman Catholic bishop who is the auxiliary bishop of Astana, Kazakhstan and titular bishop of Celerina. He is a member of the Canons Regular of the Holy Cross of Coimbra.
Anton Schneider was born in Tokmok, Kirghiz SSR in the Soviet Union. In 1973, shortly after making his first Holy Communion by the hand of Bl. Oleksa Zaryckyj, priest and martyr, he left with his family for Germany. When he joined the Canons Regular of the Holy Cross of Coimbra, a Catholic religious order, he was given the religious name Athanasius. He 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 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.[1] Bishop Athanasius Schneider is the General Secretary of the Bishops’ Conference of Kazakhstan.[2]
Dominus est[edit]
Bishop Schneider is well known for his defense of the traditional form of receiving Holy Communion (kneeling, on the tongue) in Catholic liturgy.[3] This is the theme of his book Dominus est,[4] published in Italian, and since translated into English, German, Estonian, Lithuanian, Polish, Hungarian and Chinese. The book itself 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.
Bishop Schneider encourages Catholics who truly believe they are receiving Christ in the Blessed Sacrament should kneel and receive Communion on their tongues: “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”.[5]
English liturgical scholar and commentator Alcuin Reid wrote a noteworthy review of Dominus est in The Catholic Herald: “Bishop Athanasius Schneider, a patristic scholar, appointed a bishop by Pope Benedict in 2006, has raised his voice in prophetic call for the western Church to recall the importance, if not the necessity, of returning to the previous discipline of the reception of Holy Communion kneeling and on the tongue.”[6]
Bishop Schneider is not SSPX. He is a fully valid and licit auxiliary bishop in Kazakhstan. He conducted a pontifical mass at our fully legitimate, in communion with the Pope and local successor of the apostle, Summorum Pontificum, Tridentine Latin mass community. He is a decent man and prelate.
In short, you agree with all the Bishop says, but not his right to say it?
Good questions!
Pinging you for your opinion on this article, if you have the time.