Traditionis Custodes

 

‘Bishop’ Athanasius Schneider issues Statement declaring Disobedience against Traditionis Custodes to be Legitimate

He rules no flock but presumes to issue directives to the Universal Church: Athanasius Schneider

“For the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, ‘Bishop’ Athanasius Schneider (b. 1961), auxiliary of the diocese of Maria Santissima in Astana, Kazakhstan, has released a statement for publication and dissemination in semi-traditionalists quarters that presumes to effectively overrule ‘Pope’ Francis’ anti-Latin-Mass decree Traditionis Custodes, declaring those who reject it to be free from the guilt of disobedience.

Rorate Caeli is one of the blogs carrying it:

• “The prohibition of the traditional Latin Mass is an abuse of ecclesiastical power and noncompliance with its prohibition does not in fact constitute disobedience” by Athanasius Schneider (June 29, 2023)

To someone who does not merely pay lip service to the Catholic understanding of the Papacy but actually adheres to it, this whole scenario appears grotesque. Once one steps outside the semi-trad recognize-and-resist bubble, the matter is quickly seen to be absurd: A bishop who has no flock of his own and for the last 17 years has merely assisted another, diocesan bishop out in the steppes of Central Asia, decides, single-handedly, to issue declarations for the Universal Church about what papal directives are and are not binding, how no guilt is incurred through disobedience, or rather, how manifest refusal of the papal judgment is not “really” disobedience.

In short, Schneider is acting as a kind of ‘substitute Pope’ who presumes to direct the world’s Catholics, not merely in the absence of a Pope (which could perhaps be justified) but directly against (the man recognized as) the living Pope, flatly contradicting the latter’s own directives and decrees. It is absurd. But what’s even worse is that this man’s antics are then accepted as traditional Catholicism by his cheerleaders!”(https://novusordowatch.org/2023/06/athanasius-schneider-overrules-traditionis-custodes/)