(LifeSiteNews) — Bishop Athanasius Schneider of Astana, Kazakhstan, has exhorted Catholics to call out Pope Francis for his support of homosexual couple “blessings,” just like a child called out an emperor for being “naked” in Hans Christian Anderson’s folktale “The Emperor’s New Clothes.”
In a Thursday interview with podcaster Father Daniel Maria Klimek, Bishop Schneider commented on the widespread condemnation of Fiducia Supplicans by prelates around the world, including bishops in Poland, Africa, Ukraine, Greece, and Hungary.
“This is an evident sign that this document is inacceptable in itself to everyone who still uses his reason, who still has common sense,” Bishop Schneider told Fr. Klimek, calling Fiducia Supplicans “evidently a blessing for sin” in “a very cunning sophistic form.”
In face of the “mental acrobatics” involved in justifying blessings for homosexual couples, prelates are insisting that the Vatican cannot take them “for idiots.”
Schneider stressed that the Vatican document specifically refers to “couples,” which “in our language is … for a sexual relationship,” “and so saying that they will only bless the couple but not the relationship is a deception and is an insult to our reason.”
He compared the Vatican’s promotion of obvious error with the story “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” in which an emperor parades around naked after being told by con men that they have clothed him with garments invisible only to those who are incompetent or stupid. Everyone around him remains silent despite his nakedness, for they have accepted the same deception and are afraid of being labeled a dunce. It is only when a child cries out “the emperor has no clothes” that people realize they have been deceived.
“So we have to be this child and say with all respect, ‘Holy Father this is not true what you are doing.’ You are damaging your own soul in the first place … and then you are putting in danger the entire world,” Bishop Schneider exhorted.
He pointed out that even though Fiducia Supplicans has been approved by the Pope himself, it is still “promoting sin” and is therefore an “abuse of the magisterial power” of the Pontiff as well as the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF). Such magisterial authority, when properly used, “protect(s) divine revelation, to keep it even scrupulously, and to avoid any ambiguity, not only errors,” Bishop Schneider said.
“We must reject this, protest against this, of course respectfully, not polemically, (a)nd ask the pope to retract it,” he continued.
The Kazakhstan bishop noted that there is historical precedent for papal error, such as when Pope Honorius I “expressed himself quite ambiguously regarding the dogma of the humanity of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,” and even “undermining this dogma,” in two letters to the patriarch of Constantinople, considered “ordinary magisterium."
"Therefore, after his death Pope Honorius was condemned by three ecumenical councils,” said Bishop Schneider, adding that they had concluded that the pope had “used his magisterium to promote heresy.”
Fr. Klimek pointed out that Bishop Schneider refrains from viewing Francis “with any type of antagonism,” but rather has a kind of “pity for his soul.”
The bishop affirmed, “I have very much pity for him. I love him. This must be a supernatural love, because he is in (such a) sad situation. He is abusing his powers to undermine the Catholic faith.” He added that such abuses are contrary to “the nature of the papacy,” and that he has “so much compassion” for Francis as a “brother who must one day answer (for) this before the judgment of God.”
He went on to stress that it is “true love” to admonish him and pray for him, that he may “strengthen all the church in faith, clearly (and) unambiguously as Christ commanded him (through) Peter.
Asked in a Wednesday interview by Christopher Wendt of the Confraternity of Our Lady of Fatima whether the laity should respond to the implementation of Fiducia Supplicans in their own dioceses, Bishop Schneider said they certainly should, since such blessings of homosexual couples “are an abomination.”
“This is a public blessing of sin,” which in the case of homosexual couples “cr(ies) to heaven for vengeance,” said Bishop Schneider, noting that such blessings both promote, de facto, sodomy “in the life of the society” and constitute “even blasphemy against God” by abusing what is holy to support sin.
He encouraged the laity to “respectfully protest,” and, most importantly, make “acts of reparation which must be done in the church for these sins of blessing of homosexual or adulterous couples.”
“Do reparation for those people who ask such things and for the bishop and the priests or other clergy who allow this or promote this,” Bishop Schneider added.
He suggested that group acts of reparation be done publicly outside of churches, but that individuals make private and silent acts of reparation in prayer for the “sacrilege” of blessings of homosexual couples.
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