As churches stay shut and Mass stays unsaid, Pope Francis and Cardinal John Dew are telling us Catholics that we "must be prudent". But Bishop Athanasius Schneider of Kazakhstan says "we are not to be fearful! Catholics "need to be courageous!"
Which do we choose? To be prudent or courageous?
To add ballast to his argument for prudence, Cardinal Dew whistles up Fr Ron Bennett of Otari, whose credentials would seem to rest on surviving five stints in Antarctica rather than getting lost on Mount Taranaki, as he had the misfortune to do.
Look, Cardinal Dew and Father Bennett, we know you mean well but what we need from the virtual pulpit is not a rejig of TvOne 'News' propaganda. We don't need understudies for Drs Fauci and Bloomfield, we need shepherds.
What you're talking about is worldly prudence. That's very different from the supernatural prudence which is your proper concern as clergy, and indeed the proper concern of every Catholic. Yes, the silly old world thinks it's prudent to do everything and anything to avoid catching Covid-19. But God's will - which is a prelate's and a priest's primary business - is not the way of the world.
God's will is that we all do everything and anything to avoid Hell, especially when threatened with an untimely demise. That is prudence in the eyes of God.
By far the best means we have for avoiding Hell is the Mass. And how have Pope Francis and you, Cardinal Dew, responded to our need for the Mass in order to avoid Hell? You cancelled it.
Supernatural prudence guides all the other virtues, and tells us to use each and every moment to practise virtue, because "the night cometh, when no man can work" (Jn 9:4).
The Masses and Holy Communions which we need to love God and our neighbour more, and which the hierarchy have denied us, are lost to us forever. There may be other Masses in future - please God, soon- but the graces we'd have won from the Masses we've missed are gone - but not forgotten. We have much to forgive, and forgive we must.
Jesus tells us, "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves" (Mt 7:15). The hierarchy who stole the Mass are selling us false doctrine: by preaching safety for our physical health and obedience to the Government, they offend the doctrine of worshipping God as the first duty of man (the first Commandment), and of keeping the Sabbath Day holy (the third).
Let's get the nasty taste of heterodoxy out of our mouths by returning to Bishop Schneider, for what John-Henry Westen in an interview on Tuesday called "spiritual leadership from afar".
"This crisis (Covid-19) is the first time since the persecution of Christians in Roman times that public worship has stopped. This phenomenon has deep spiritual meaning for us. This could be divine intervention to awake people and also to awaken the Church. Catholics deprived of Holy Mass and the Sacraments must appeal to bishops and priests to reflect and repent for sins inside the Church, especially committed in the Eucharist, in Holy Communion.
"God says "You have outraged Me, you have trampled on Me in the churches." Now Communion has been taken away from us. God has done this before in the history of salvation as the judgement and punishment of a loving Father, a Father who wants to awaken His children through extraordinary signs to repentance, to a deeper esteem for the Holy Mass."
Asked whether, if there is no repentance for such mistreatment of the Eucharist, the punishment might end, Bishop Schneider quoted Our Lord weeping over Jerusalem, saying "They shall not leave in thee a stone upon a stone: because thou hast not known the time of thy visitation" (Lk 19:44).
"Because we "did not know the things that are to thy peace, but now they are hidden from thy eyes" (ibid., 42) we need to make acts of public repentance, especially for sins against Our Lord in the sacraments, and against the commandments, especially the First Commandment which was committed in the Church last year.
"We must ask for repentance individually and publicly. We have to ask the Holy Father to make acts of repentance for crimes against Our Lord inside the Church and make public acts of reparation for crimes outside the Church, especially killing innocent children in the womb of their mother, and make public reparation for sins against the Sixth Commandment, against holy Matrimony."
Pope Francis obviously does not know the time of this visitation: for Pope Francis, Covid-19 is not a chastisement by God for mistreating the Eucharist, but earth's punishment for mistreating the planet.
On this particular papal notion, Bishop Schneider says that "the Pope is not speaking ex cathedra, as infallible. Climate change, the earth, they are temporal realities. He can commit errors in these and it is legitimate to say, "this is error". The Pope has to have a supernatural view of all events, like Jesus did, like the saints and the prophets did. At least Pope Francis sees it as a punishment."
On the topic of bishops forbidding their priests to celebrate Mass in public when "it is easily done, but forbidden", Bishop Schneider says priests can ignore this. "This is an obvious abuse of the bishop's powers, his authority. Never did God give a bishop the power to stop celebrating Mass." He concedes that safety measures can and should be put in place but bishops cannot just prohibit the celebration of the Mass.
"In the Middle Ages during the plague, St Charles Borromeo obliged his priests to celebrate Mass to ask forgiveness. He closed the churches for a time to protect the people: the plague was far more dangerous than Covid-19; the mortality rate was up to 90%. But he ordered Mass in public places, in squares, to multiply Masses for the public to assist from their windows.
"Forbidding priests to give the sacraments to the sick and the dying and to celebrate Mass is wrong. Priests are not to obey man, but to obey God! The bishops are committing a grievous sin against God."
Asked about civil authorities permitting grocery stores to be open, Bishop Schneider asked if it is not forbidden to visit a store, why is it forbidden to visit a church? "Bishops should be happy if their priests have zeal to find creative solutions for Mass and the sacraments without infringing on the laws of the state.
"But many governments' laws have followed what the bishops had to say. It is a grievous omission by the bishops. They should insist to the Government on at least the same rights for the Church as for stores, with the same prescriptions and observing the same safety measures. That should have been the method of the bishops and the Holy See.
"If a Government refuses the Church the same rights as stores have, that is implicit persecution of the Church. This is what we are witnessing."
Asked about the UK proposal to extend social distancing and other extraordinary laws until after CHristmas, Bishop Schneider pointed out that Germany and Austria will re-open churches for limited numbers - up to 50 - in May and that what's suggested for the UK is "completely against proportionality. Covid-19's mortality rate is not such that would warrant it.
"We are going into a time of the catacombs. We are not to be fearful! We need to be courageous! The Church has a lot of experience to be underground. God gave plenty of spiritual fruits as reward. This visitation is to purify the Church through persecution, otherwise the Church would not be awakened or purified in our time.
"Confusion on morals, doctrines and heresies is so deep in the life of the Church, there must be a very strong intervention from the Divine to awaken us. A time of catacombs would be good for the Church.
"It is the Lord who will determine the time of our visitation, not governments. Christ is Ruler; He is King. We have to have this trust and live our Catholic faith. Christ is Victor; He is the Winner. We have to accept this from the hands of God. Be defenders of the rights of Christians! Protest when there is discrimination! We have to protest, we have to defend the rights of Christians."
On natural family planning, Bishop Schneider said that it's "a very delicate issue. Catholic couples have to gather in the presence of God to ask for strength and trust. "You are the Giver of life. We are only collaborators."
"The beginning of potential citizens of Heaven is tremendous, really tremendous In past generations people accepted children as they came, and the last children in big families were often a great gift to the Church. If those parents had applied natural family planning, some great saints and geniuses would not have been born.
"Trust God. He will always reward. God will never abandon a family which accepts all children. That is the loving Providence eof the Father, vesting the lilies of the field and feeding the birds in the sky.
"Catholics deprived of the Mass should make acts of Spiritual Communion, live a more intense spiritual life. Make acts of Examination of Conscience, exercise the virtues, make acts of perfect loving contrition in view of your next Confession. Ask for priests like the Irish had in penal times.
"Go to church spiritually. And at least some are still open. Or send your guardian angel to represent you at the tabernacle."
Bishop Schneider described the extent of the prohibition on the Mass as "apocalyptic" and connected it with the third part of the Third Secret of Fatima. "The signs of the End Times could come slowly."
In conclusion, Bishop Schneider agreed that the Consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary should be made in the way Our Lady asked.
In conclusion, may I say that Pope Francis, Cardinal Dew, Father Bennett and their allies Jacinda Ardern et Al have not got a leg to stand on. Not doctrinally, not commonsensically, not realistically, not morally, not ethically.
Not empathetically, even. But - perhaps - pathetically.
This evening we prayed the following as the Magnificat Antiphon for today's feast, of Pope St Pius V:
"This is the faithful and wise steward whom the Master placed over his household to give their measure of food at the proper time, alleluia."
Lord, please grant us faithful and wise stewards.
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| Bishop Athanasius Schneider, Auxiliary Bishop of Astana, Kazkhstan |
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