Bishop Athanasius Schneider is appealing to Pope Francis to rescind new norms that grant equal voting rights to bishops and laity at the October 2023 Synod on Synodality in Rome, saying they are a “radical novelty” that undermine the Church by “conforming it more to a Protestant or even secular model”.
The norms, issued on April 26 by the Secretary General of the Synod of Bishops, Maltese Cardinal Mario Grech, and its General Rapporteur, Luxembourger Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, SJ, emphasise that special priority is to be given to women and young people who, along with other non-bishop members, will comprise 25 per cent of the vote.
In comments to the Catholic Herald in June, Bishop Schneider said the changes to the composition of the assembly make the upcoming synod resemble “a democratic or egalitarian parliament rather than a monarchical hierarchy established by Our Lord Jesus Christ”.
The auxiliary bishop of St Mary in Astana, Kazakhstan, contends that “the synodal processes and documents, and the upcoming Synod in Rome, have adopted a method which is alien to the spirit of the Apostles, Church Fathers and genuine tradition of the Church.”
He added: “The matter before us is urgent, and I appeal fraternally to Pope Francis to rescind the new norms of the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops, which grant equal voting rights to the bishops and the laity.”
Bishop Schneider also appealed to the Pope to issue clear goals for the Synod so bishops can profess “courageously and unambiguously … the uniqueness of Christ and His saving work, the validity of God’s commandments, and the divinely established order of the Church.”
While the Synod Secretariat insists the decision does not change the episcopal nature of the assembly but rather “confirms” it by “making visible thecircular relationship between the prophetic function of the People of God and the discernment function of the Pastors”, Bishop Schneider said he finds such “rescue attempts” unconvincing.
“A synod of bishops is an instrument by which the hierarchy exercises its teaching and governing office,” he explained, adding that lay people can participate and advise but that the voting norms “have always reflected the essential difference between the hierarchical/ministerial and the common priesthood”.
Bishop Schneider observed that when Pope Paul VI established the Synod of Bishops in 1965, he stressed the guiding and decisive role of the hierarchy. It would therefore be very beneficial, he said, for the following admonition of Paul VI to be read at the start of the upcoming synod: “Can we suppose that the hierarchy is free to teach in the religious sphere what it likes, or what may please certain doctrinal, or rather anti-doctrinal currents of modern opinion? No. We must remember that the episcopate is invested with a primordial duty: that of witness, that of the rigorous and faithful transmission of Christ’s original message, that is, of the complex of truths revealed by Him and entrusted to the Apostles, with regard to salvation.”
According to Bishop Schneider, the spiritual illness plaguing the Church today is the “conformation to the spirit of this world” (Rom 12:2), ie the spirit of Modernism. He said Paul VI had already warned of this danger in 1964, saying the Church was “being engulfed and shaken by this tidal wave of change, for however much men may be committed to the Church, they are deeply affected by the climate of the world”.
The October assembly in Rome could remedy this illness by proposing the “ever-valid truths and effective norms of the Church’s perennial tradition”, the bishop argued, but said giving equal voting rights to the episcopacy and laity is “unprecedented and seriously undermines the divine constitution of the Church, conforming it more to a Protestant or even secular model”. He said the “absence of clear goals for the synod, which would bring clarity at a time of great doctrinal confusion, is also very harmful to the Church” and so it is “clear that the upcoming synod is a vehicle to accelerate the Protestantisation and secularisation of the Catholic Church”.
He insisted “the Cardinals cannot simply re- main silent as the Church is harmed and the salvation of souls is jeopardised. They are obliged to appeal to the Pope, with clarity and all due reverence, as the Apostle Paul did towards Peter, when he was not walking “uprightly unto the truth of the gospel” (Gal 2:14).
Bishop Schneider concluded by saying: “The Synod should propose concrete and effective remedies against the spiritual viruses and maladies which severely and almost globally affect the body of the Church today. If the 2023-2024 synodal assemblies fail to do this, Cardinal Charles Journet’s prediction will come to pass: ‘One day the faithful will wake up and realise that they have been intoxicated by the spirit of the world.’”
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