Posted on 02/18/2017 6:28:09 AM PST by marshmallow
CFN Intro: On February 16 Rorate Caeli and Adelante la Fe posted a comprehensive video interview with the well-known conservative Bishop Athanasius Schneider of Kazakistan that runs about 48 minutes. The interview covered a myriad of topics, but CFN is spotlighting Bishop Schneider’s magnificent response regarding a recent Vatican document that names the heresiarch Martin Luther as a witness to the Gospel. We know you will benefit from Bishop Schneider’s forthright commentary (JV).
Question: A controversial document from the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity equates Saint Ignatius of Loyola and Saint Francis of Borgia with Martin Luther, calling him a witness to the Gospel. We as Catholics are aware of the serious damage Luther caused to the Church, what should be our position if our ecclesiastical authorities invite us to consider Luther as a witness to the Gospel?
Bishop Schneider. Well, this document is issued by the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, this Council has no doctrinal authority. We have no need to take seriously this document, which is objectively wrong. It is against the evidence. We cannot put on the same level Luther and Saint Ignatius. This is a contradiction. Luther cannot be a witness to the Gospel, and the Church will not ask us to accept this because it is only a statement from the pontifical Council so it need not be taken seriously.
When we examine in sincerity and honesty Luther and his work, he caused immense damage to the entire Christianity. He divided Christianity. He is not a witness of the Gospel.He denied almost the entire previous tradition from 1500 years. This cannot be a witness to the Gospel who puts himself as the authority to interpret the Word of God. This is against the Faith which Christ gave us and which the apostles transmitted to us in a basic manner – to reject the Holy Tradition as really a fount of revelation and the entire thinking of the Church which the Holy Ghost guided in the dogmatic and doctrinal issues, and this is the case. Luther did not reject [merely] the disciplinary tradition, the pastoral tradition, but he rejected the fundamental doctrinal tradition of the Church. And the doctrinal tradition of the Church is the Gospel. This is Gospel. And when I reject the substance of the entire Apostolic and immutable constant tradition of the Church (in the case of Luther, 1500 years) I am rejecting the Gospel.
For example, in Kazakistan where I am living there was a holy martyr priest who was beatified, Blessed Oleksa Zarytsky whom my parents had known personally, he blessed me when I was a child. This priest was from the Byzantine Rite, but Catholic. And the Communist asked them not to deny Christ, not to deny the sacraments, but only to deny one point of the Gospel: the primacy of Peter, the papacy (which is in the Gospel). Blessed Oleksa told the tribunal, “If I would deny this point on the primacy of Peter, I will deny entire Gospel. I will be the anti-witness of the entire Gospel.” This is in our time, he died in 1963.
So, in the case of Luther, he rejected the heart of the Church, which is the Eucharist. He rejected the sacrificial essence and substance of the Eucharistic celebration, and this is the heart of the Church – the Eucharist. This is just one example. So how could one be a witness to the Gospel when he rejects the heart of the Church, the sacrificial nature of the Mass itself?
Luther called the Mass an invention of the devil, a blasphemy. He called the papacy an invention of satan. How can we name this person as a witness? When we do this, we don’t believe in the sacrificial character of the Mass, or we don’t believe in the primacy of Peter, or we don’t believe in the Catholic manner of the unchangeable doctrinal tradition of the Church, or we are committing a lie and playing only a game of political correctness. This is very dishonest. Or we have an intellectual position of relativism, that truth and untruth are the same. And so in this case when this document from the Pontifical Council states that Luther is more or less the same level as St. Ignatius, they are putting truth and error at the same level. This is the position of philosophical and theological relativism. And this is very dangerous.
So I think we need not take this document seriously, because it has no doctrinal authority. It is in itself contradictory and completely wrong. This document will not last for many years. Because the Church is more powerful, the unchangeable truth is more powerful than this weak and very wrong document. It will pass away with time.
“Are you unaware that the prayers to Mary are simply asking here to pray for us, as she is in the presence of Christ? Did not Moses and Elijah appear with the living Christ in front of Peter and other Apostles?”
Moses and Elijah’s appearance was a vision. See Matthew 17:9.
1 Timothy 2:5 -
“For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus”
Nice attempt at deflecting. I don't bow before statues and idols of my friends or family. Of course, you cannot answer my question, can you?
Commanded to pray for each other:
Ephesians 6:19
.. and pray on my [Pauls] behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, ...
Colossians 1:9
For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, ...
1 Thessalonians 5:25
Brethren, pray for us.
Who do we pray to (and how we should pray):
Matthew 6:6-13
“But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.
“And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words.
“So do not be like them; for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.
“Pray, then, in this way:
‘Our Father who is in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
‘Your kingdom come.
Your will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven.
‘Give us this day our daily bread.
‘And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
‘And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. [For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.’]
All verses from the NASB
Forgot to include you on the post. My apologies.
I deny that I have a promise that Mary can hear anything I say.
If I ask my cousin to pray for me, but he's in another state and I didn't use the telephone, then I'm pretty sure he didn't hear me and my prayer request was useless. However, if I ask him in person or on the telephone to pray for me, and he says he will pray for me, then I'm pretty sure he heard me and I didn't waste my time.
Wishful thinking and conjecture are foolish ways to practice religion.
Thanks for posting the video. It’s an excellent presentation of the gospel.
Is there not in the scriptures that there is a “mighty cloud of witnesses” ?
You are wasting your time.
If millions of Catholics are praying to Mary at the same time and she can hear all of them, you are giving her the attribute of omnipresence.
Of course you would. Schneider makes all the same (traditional, since Council of Trent, but less-so since Vatican II) mistakes.
You diminish the value of FR by doing so.
Difficult to do for the religion section of FR. As usual, standard disclaimers apply: IMHO & YMMV.
**Wedding if Cana**
So you think that the Son of God had no clue what awaited him in Cana, or how he would handle it? He knew Lazarus was dead before anyone else, and probably knew exactly how he would handle that.
Do you pray to Martha? She understood that Jesus Christ is THE mediator between God and man:
“Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. But I know, that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee.” John 11:21,22
**I wouldn’t be hating on His mother.**
“hating”.....leftist extremist style response, IMO.
oh...so you don’t pray for family and friends?
God wants each of us to pray only for our own selfish interests?
kosciusko51 did a nice job of listing the Scriptural citations for praying for one another in the post following yours.
Since we know that Mary, Moses, and Elijah are in heaven with Christ, it is just fine asking them to pray to Christ on our behalf.
In case you’re not aware of the words in the Hail Mary, that is what we’re asking.
HA!
How do you conclude Mary can’t hear our requests for her to ask her Son for help?
You need a promise?
What is faith?
Perhaps you would do well to learn about the process for canonization of Saints?
It requires that 2 documented miracles be attributed to having asked the “saint” to ask Christ for help in a certain matter.
It is a very strict process that begins with extreme skepticism.
Did not Moses and Elijah appear with Christ in front of Peter?
Why do you believe they are unaware of anything on earth?
you’re WRONG!
You should study the Council of Trent.
You might learn something.
They include a detailed account of Luther’s mistakes.
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