Posted on 03/24/2025 4:45:55 PM PDT by ebb tide
Bishop Athanasius Schneider has urged Catholics to pray for Pope Francis that he might “retract” certain documents and statements which have “undermined the clarity” of the faith.
With Pope Francis having recently returned to the Vatican on Sunday after spending 38 days in the Gemelli hospital for bilateral pneumonia, many of his close supporters have welcomed what they say will be a new stage of his pontificate.
Speaking to Catholic radio host Joe McLane on Monday, Bishop Athanasius Schneider also called for a new stage in the pontificate, but one in which Francis might seek to “rectify” some of the “errors” which Schneider said he is responsible for spreading.
Schneider first urged prayers for the Pope who is the father of a family, “because we have to keep always the supernatural view of the Church.”
Catholics, said the auxiliary bishop of Astana, Kazakhstan, should pray for Francis to receive necessary graces from God to “strengthen the entire Church in this last period of his pontificate.”
Explaining what this might look like, Schneider said:
That is to say that he may issue a document to restate the truth of the faith, regarding the errors which are most spread in our day in the Church, and to rectify some confusions and some ambiguities which were made in his pontificate and which he himself made, [and] so that he may have the strength, the humility, the wisdom to rectify, to retract some acts which he did in his pontificate, some documents, some words with which he made confusion and or undermined the clarity of the divine faith.
Such an action, said Schneider, should be Francis’ “first task” now that he has been discharged from hospital.
May the Lord give him the grace, the mercy that he could have still the possibility to rectify, to retract some necessary aspects of his pontificate. For this also we should pray fervently.
Issues of confusion and error abound today in the realms of human sexuality and marriage, the primacy of the Catholic faith, the sacraments, and the necessity of believing in God. But should Francis not correct these confusions, Schneider urged his successor in Rome to do so.
A new pope should also teach Catholic doctrine with regard to the impossibility of allowing the divorced and “re-married” to receive Holy Communion as well as the truth about homosexual blessings, said Schneider.
Schneider commented that a pope “must be the faithful servant, administrator of Christ, not of the spirit of this world, not of the fashion of this world.”
Should Francis die before issuing necessary doctrinal clarifications, then Schneider called for the next pope to prioritize performing “rectifications and retractions of very ambiguous, erroneous documents and acts of the pontificate of Pope Francis.”
Giving precise examples, 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.
The Kazakhstan-based bishop has emerged as one of the most vocal prelates during Pope Francis’ pontificate, issuing regular statements promoting traditional Catholic teaching in light of some of Francis’ more controversial texts and declarations.
Most recently, Schneider made a public response to a comment which has become one of Francis’ most controversial in his 12-year reign, namely his September 2024 comments about God and the plurality of religions.
READ: Pope Francis: ‘Every religion is a way to arrive at God’
Speaking to Raymond Arroyo, Schneider commented that “such an affirmation of Pope Francis is clearly against the divine revelation, it contradicts directly the first Commandment of God which is ever valid – ‘You shall not have other gods beside me’ – this is so clear, and such a statement contradicts the entire Gospel.”
During a German-language interview with LifeSiteNews journalist Andreas Wailzer recently, Schneider also urged Francis’ eventual successor to issue such a doctrinal clarification if Francis did not do so before his death.
Schneider 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.”
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Schneider commented that a pope “must be the faithful servant, administrator of Christ, not of the spirit of this world, not of the fashion of this world.”
Ping
God bless Bp. Schneider for trying and always being hopeful, but you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Bergoglio ain’t retracting anything. The far more likely outcome is him believing that God spared his life not to give him a chance to repent but rather to triple down on what he’s been doing.
Do a thought experiment: If a pope were not to issue an ex cathedra statement, but simply in his weekly general audience, repeatedly, week after week, say "There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet," or "Jesus Christ is not actually, you know... God", and when challenged on this, double down on it, would he have apostatized? Would he have left the Church? Would he still be Catholic? Would he still be pope?
How much personal heresy does it take to lose the papacy?
I understand your concern and I wish the division and confusion didn’t exist.
Yet, I feel that God is permitting it so that we may become stronger in our faith and follow God’s will and not our own.
On one hand, the leadership should strongly indicate the conflict with what Jesus taught and passed down over the centuries, yet we see that many seem to fully support the comments of the Pope and the liberal world view and are weak leaders. Some have spoken out so, but many are silent. We have seen the reaction to Archbishop Vigano.
On the other hand, Catholics are called to be obedient to the Pope (Jesus and Blessed Mother has instructed many saints to be obedient) even when he is wrong but not deny God’s Truths. It will be Jesus who will judge Pope Francis. Luke 17:3-4 and 1Peter 1:21-24
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