Bishop Schneider's outstanding interview has implications for the transgenderism debate


Recently, the bishops of Kazakhstan and Central Asia made their visit to Rome ad limina apostolorum. This is a journey which bishops normally make every five years, to visit the tombs of the apostles St Peter and St Paul, and to give a report to the pope on the state of their dioceses. It is an opportunity for the bishops to acknowledge the universal ordinary jurisdiction of the pope, to receive his counsel, and to manifest their own concerns to him.

LifeSite News has an interview with Bishop Athanasius Schneider who participated in the recent ad limina visit. He says that some of the bishops raised concerns such as Holy Communion for the divorced and civilly "remarried", Holy Communion for Protestant spouses, and the issue of the spread of homosexuality in the Church. Bishop Schneider himself asked the Holy Father to clarify the “Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together” which Pope Francis signed jointly with with Ahmad el-Tayeb, Grand Imam of al-Azhar, during an interreligious meeting in Abu Dhabi in early February.

The part of that document which has caused most confusion among Catholics is the statement:
“The pluralism and the diversity of religions, color, sex, race and language are willed by God in His wisdom, through which He created human beings.”
As many commentators have pointed out, the pluralism and diversity of religions cannot be positively willed by God because Jesus Christ is our unique Saviour:
“There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12)
God cannot positively will a different religion in which salvation is promised by some other means such as following the Koran, becoming one with Brahma, reaching nirvana, or indeed being devoted to the Flying Spaghetti Monster. As the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's 2000 document Dominus Iesus "On the Unicity and Salvific Universality of Jesus Christ and the Church" put it:
"It must therefore be firmly believed as a truth of Catholic faith that the universal salvific will of the One and Triune God is offered and accomplished once for all in the mystery of the incarnation, death, and resurrection of the Son of God." (n.13)
The plurality and diversity of religions can only be the "permissive" will of God, something that God allows to happen, even though it is not a good. So far, many commentators have already explained that this is the only way in which diversity of religions can be willed by God. However, Bishop Schneider makes a further and also highly important point.

He said that he tried to go more deeply into the question since "There is an evident comparison between the diversity of religions and the diversity of sexes." However, the diversity of sexes is not the permissive will of God but is positively willed by God. It is therefore misleading to mention pluralism of religions in the same clause of the same sentence, since it looks as though that is also declared to be positively willed by God.

Bishop Schneider's principal purpose in raising this concern with the Holy Father was to correct the idea that God somehow positively wills a diversity of religions. However, the truth that the diversity of sexes is something positively willed by God is important in its own right. In various western countries, including the UK and the USA, there is increasing pressure on people to accept that someone can change their "gender" by exercising a choice. This pressure can be extended by imposing sanctions against those who do not then use the gendered pronoun that suits the person's new choice of gender. Organisations will be coerced into including recognition of a newly chosen gender as part of their diversity and equality policy.

Compassion and sensitivity are not sufficiently compliant for those who would impose the ideology of transgenderism. Being kind and understanding is not enough; you must give external assent to the claim of a quasi-ontological change, you must publicly acknowledge a supposedly real condition by using the relevant pronoun and designation of man or woman. To do so would be to contradict what Bishop Schneider insisted upon, that the diversity of the sexes, the maleness and femaleness of each one of us, is positively willed by God. This is in fact the teaching of the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
Man and woman have been created, which is to say, willed by God: on the one hand, in perfect equality as human persons; on the other, in their respective beings as man and woman. "Being man" or "being woman" is a reality which is good and willed by God: man and woman possess an inalienable dignity which comes to them immediately from God their Creator. (n.369)
Bishop Schneider's outstanding interview with LifeSite News is wide-ranging and covers many other matters, I do encourage you to read it in full.

Popular posts from this blog

1962 Missal pdf online

The Church Music Association of America and Jeffrey Tucker of the New Liturgical Movement have made available the 1962 Missal online in pdf format (72Mb). The file is hosted at Musica Sacra , the website of the CMAA, thanks to a generous gift from Fr Robert Skeris While you are at it, take a look at the articles clarifying the rules for music at Low Mass and music at High Mass .
Read more

Plenary indulgences not impossible

Dilexit Prior in Letters from a Young Catholic asked some useful questions today about indulgences. I thought it would be best to do a post here especially to cover the controversial question of detachment from venial sin. But first the other questions: The conditions for gaining a plenary indulgence Pope Paul VI set down a number of norms relating to indulgences at the end of Indulgentiarum Doctrina . Norm 7 states: To acquire a plenary indulgence it is necessary to perform the work to which the indulgence is attached and to fulfil three conditions: sacramental confession, Eucharistic Communion and prayer for the intentions of the Supreme Pontiff. It is further required that all attachment to sin, even to venial sin, be absent. If this disposition is in any way less than complete, or if the prescribed three conditions are not fulfilled, the indulgence will be only partial, except for the provisions contained in n.11 for those who are “impeded.” It is worth reading the other norms bec
Read more

Saint Gabriel

Image
The angels call for our veneration and awe as part of God’s creation. Part of the destructive modernism of the 1970s included advice to Catholic school teachers that they should not talk to children about angels. This wrought lasting damage which continues to need rectifying. We should include in our prayers a heartfelt recourse to our own Guardian Angels. The Archangel Gabriel “God is my strength” would be terrifying were he to appear to any of us. Our Lady was “troubled” at the word of Saint Gabriel and wondered at the manner of the salutation. Immediately, according to his mission, the awesome messenger explained himself. Modern retelling of the event is often reduced to the jejune “Mary said Yes to God”. In fact, she said “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word”. This conveys more accurately the flawless faith and trust of the Immaculata. In the infinitely wise providence of the Father, we now know the structure of the event in even more detai
Read more

Request for Novena to Blessed Pius IX

Image
A priest friend of mine is ill in hospital. He has a special devotion to Blessed Pius IX. Could I ask you, of your charity, to say a Novena for his speedy recovery. Novena In Honour of Blessed Pius IX Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, hear our prayers and glorify your servant Pius IX, who consecrated the Universal Church to you. (Our Father...) O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to you, hear our prayer and glorify your servant Pius IX who declared you Immaculate. (Hail Mary...) Saint Joseph, spouse of the most pure Virgin Mary, hear our prayer and glorify your servant Pius IX who declared you the Patron of the Universal Church. (Glory be...) Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Immaculate Mary, our Hope, and Saint Joseph hear our prayers and glorify your servant Pius IX , granting to us through his merits and intercessions the graces which we ardently desire: that the glory of God be revealed through Father's illness. (Our Father..., Hail Mary..., Glory be
Read more

Downloadable booklets for Vespers

Image
Gregorian Chant Hymns is a most helpful website that I mentioned in a post just over a year ago. As I said then, the site "[...] promotes the learning of Gregorian Chant by making sheet music, recordings, translations, and instructions. There is a short guide to Gregorian Notation (those square notes) and to Latin pronunciation. Everything is available free of charge, in line with other great traditional music websites." Work has continued at the site and there is now a section which makes available pdf (or .docx format) booklets for Vespers for every Sunday of the Year and a few major feasts. There is the basic booklet for ordinary Sunday Vespers which is supplemented by separate files for the Sundays after Pentecost which contain the Magnificat and Collect. Then there are booklets, for example for Advent and Lent, where the office is different from the regular Sunday Vespers with its antiphons. All of the booklets have texts and notation for Benediction and the Maria
Read more