Bishop Schneider on His New Compendium and the Current Crisis of the Faith

“Credo — Compendium of the Catholic Faith” and the Current Crisis of the Faith

Parish Hall of Our Lady of the Assumption and the English Martyrs

Cambridge, England

25th November 2023

By Bishop Athanasius Schneider

The book “Credo-Compendium of the Catholic Faith” was — to tell you the truth — neither my idea nor my initiative.

I was compelled to write it by the requests of brave Catholic lay faithful, fathers of families. So this was a kind of synodal method yet with a helpful and Catholic effect: The idea came from the faithful, addressed to those who in the Church have the sacred and grave task of being teachers of the faith — that is to say of the bishops and, in this case, to me.

Thanks to the insistence of good lay faithful, I agreed to undertake such a demanding and responsible work. This reminds me of the words of a Church Father from the 6th century — St. Caesarius of Arles (see his Sermon 4) — who said that when a calf is hungry, it goes to the cow, its mother, to get milk. The cow, however, does not give it right away: it seems that she withholds it. And what does the calf do? It knocks with its nose at the cow’s udder, so that the milk will come. It is a beautiful image! “This is how you must be with your pastors,” this saint said. “Always knock at their door, at their hearts, that they may give you the milk of doctrine, the milk of grace and the milk of guidance” (Pope Francis quoted these words at the Regina Caeli Prayer, on May 11, 2014).

I also owe my gratitude to several highly qualified theologians from different countries who made a major contribution to this text by proposing valuable suggestions and amendments. I would like to emphasize the contribution of those who wrote the endorsements for this book. They are a truly Catholic representation, both geographically and hierarchically: Africa, North and South America, Asia, and Europe; a cardinal, an Eastern and a Latin Rite bishop, a priest, contemplative nuns, a husband and father, a wife and mother — a kind of a “synodal” dimension.

“Teach all nations … to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you” (Mt 28:19-20). This authority and mandate to instruct peoples of every time and place in divine doctrine was directly conferred by the Eternal Son of God upon St. Peter and the apostolic college. Since that time, this has remained the proper mission of the Catholic hierarchy. “Woe to me if I do not proclaim the gospel!” (1 Cor 9:16). The Second Vatican Council recalled that each bishop, “as a member of the episcopal college and legitimate successor of the apostles, is obliged by Christ’s institution and command to be solicitous for the whole Church, and this solicitude … contributes greatly to the advantage of the universal Church. For it is the duty of all bishops to promote and to safeguard the unity of faith and the discipline common to the whole Church, to instruct the faithful to love for the whole mystical body of Christ.” (Council of Vatican II, Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium, 23)

A Catholic bishop is bound to fulfil his public oath: “To maintain the deposit of faith, entire and incorrupt, as handed down by the apostles and professed by the Church everywhere and at all times.” (Rite of Episcopal Ordination)

Therefore, I am compelled to respond to the requests of many sons and daughters of the Church who are perplexed by the widespread doctrinal confusion in the Church of our day. I offer this work, Credo: Compendium of the Catholic Faith, to strengthen them in their faith and serve as a guide to the changeless teaching of the Church. Mindful of the episcopal duty to be a “nurturer of the Catholic and apostolic Faith” (catholicae et apostolicae fidei cultoribus) as stated in the Canon of the Mass, I also wish to bear public witness to the continuity and integrity of the Catholic and apostolic doctrine. In preparing this text, my intended audience has been chiefly God’s “little ones” — faithful Catholics who are hungry for the bread of right doctrine. It is, therefore, in obedience to my duty toward them, laid upon me in my episcopal consecration to preach the truth in season and out of season (see 2 Tm 4:2), that I publish this Compendium at the present time.

The teaching of the catechism is in the words of Pope Benedict XIV “the most useful of institutions for the glory of God and the salvation of souls” (Cons. Etsi Minime). Pope Pius X wrote, as Cardinal Patriarch of Venice, a letter, where he stressed the vital importance of a clear and precise catechetical instruction, since one of the deepest thirsts of the people is the thirst for truth. In 1894 Cardinal Sarto (later Pius X) wrote: “We preach too much and teach too little. We must put aside these florid speeches and preach piously and simply to the people the truths of faith, the commandments of the Church, the teachings of the Gospel, the vices, and the virtues, because it often happens that persons well instructed in profane sciences do not know or mis-know the truths of faith and know less of the catechism than idiotic children do. Think of the good of souls more than the impression you hope to make. The people thirst for truth: let them be given what they need or the salvation of their souls; and so, instructed in their own language, touched, and moved, they will weep over their faults and approach the divine Sacraments.”

The Catholic Faith is greater, it precedes and transcends the popes and the bishops, because they are the first ones who must obey the Faith exemplarily and to transmit it integrally to the faithful. The Catholic Faith belong to all times, to all places and to all generations of Catholic, starting with the Apostles and going through all the Fathers and Doctors of the Church and all the Saints we know. What should true Catholics do, if they are confused or persecuted even within the Church. Saint Vincent de Lerins, a Church Father from the 5th century, gave useful guidelines in this regard when he said:

“If some new contagion seeks to infect not only an insignificant part of the Church, but the whole? Then it will be up to you to cling to antiquity, which today cannot be seduced by any fraud of novelty. He must consult and interrogate the opinions of the ancients, of those, that is to say, that, although they live in different times and places, but continue in the communion and faith of the only Catholic Church, recognized and approved authorities: and in any case it must make sure that it has been sustained, written, taught, not only by one or two of these authorities, but by all, equally, with a consent, openly, frequently, persistently” (Commonitorium, 7-8).

Cardinal Robert Sarah spoke the following luminous words, characterizing the exceptional state of crisis within the Church of our day:

“Indeed, a true cacophony reigns today in the teachings of pastors: bishops and priests. They seem to contradict each other. Each one imposes his personal opinion as if it were a certainty. The result is confusion, ambiguity, and apostasy. Great disorientation, deep bewilderment and devastating uncertainties have been inoculated in the souls of many Christian believers. … We believe in Him who said: ‘I am the light of the world: he that followeth me, walketh not in darkness, but shall have the light of life’ (Jn 8:12). In the absence of light everything becomes confused; it is impossible to tell good from evil. There is an urgent need, then, to see once again that faith is a light, for once the flame of faith dies out all other lights begin to dim. In fact, the light of faith is unique, since it is capable of illuminating every aspect of human existence. A light this powerful cannot come from ourselves but from a more primordial source: in a word, it must come from God (Lumen Fidei, 3-4). When we speak of a crisis in the Church, it is important to point out that the Church, as the Mystical Body of Christ, continues to be ‘one, holy, catholic and apostolic.’ The sources of theology and the Church’s doctrinal and moral teaching remain unchanged and unchangeable. The Church, as the continuation and extension of Christ in the world, is not in crisis. It is we, her sinful children, who are in crisis. She enjoys the promise of eternal life: the gates of hell will never prevail against her. Jesus says to Peter: ‘Tu es Petrus, et super hanc petram aedificabo Ecclesiam meam et portae inferi non praevalebunt adversum eam’ (Matthew 16:18). We know and we firmly believe that in her there will always be sufficient light for one who sincerely desires to seek God.

St Paul’s appeal to Timothy, his son in the faith, concerns us all: “I charge thee before God, who quickeneth all things, and before Christ Jesus, who gave testimony under Pontius Pilate, a good confession… keep that which is committed to thy trust (the deposit), avoiding the profane novelties of words, and oppositions of knowledge falsely so called. Which some promising, have erred concerning the faith” (1 Tim 6:13, 20-21). The deposit of faith continues to be a supernatural divine gift. But today, the crisis of the Church has entered a new phase: the crisis of the Magisterium. Certainly, the authentic Magisterium, as a supernatural function of the Mystical Body of Christ, exercised and guided invisibly by the Holy Spirit, cannot be in crisis; the voice and action of the Holy Spirit are constant, and the truth towards which it leads us is steadfast and unchanging. Lex credendi and lex orandi have walked hand in hand and nourished each other throughout the history of the Church.” (Presentation of “Credo: Compendium of the Catholic Faith”, Rome, 26 October 2023)

In his monumental work about catechetical instruction, De catechizandis rudibus, St. Augustine explained that the very aim of all knowledge of truth, that is to say, the very aim of a Catechism or a Compendium of the Faith consists in a virtuous life according to the recognized truth and according to the right worship, which on their part have as their very aim the eternal beatitude:

“Believe these things [in the catechism], therefore, and be on your guard against temptations…; so that not only may the devil fail to seduce you by the help of those who are without the Church, whether they be pagans, or Jews, or heretics; but you yourself also may decline to follow the example of those within the Catholic Church itself whom you see leading an evil life, either indulging in excess in the pleasures of the belly and the throat, or unchastity, … or be living in the pomp and inflated arrogance and pride, or be pursuing any sort of life which the law of God condemns and punishes. But rather connect yourself with the good, whom you will easily find out, if you yourself were once become of that character; so that you may unite with each other in worshipping and loving God for His own sake; for He himself will be our complete reward to the intent that we may enjoy His goodness and beauty in that life. … But as regards the perverse, even if they find their way within the walls of the Church, think not that they will find their way into the kingdom of heaven; for in their own time they will be set apart, if they have not altered to the better. Consequently, follow the example of good men, bear with the wicked, love all; forasmuch as you know not what he will be tomorrow who today is evil. Howbeit, love not the unrighteousness of such; but love the persons themselves with the express intent that they may apprehend righteousness. … On God every hope ought to be placed.” (De catechizandis rudibus, 27:55)

Juan Donoso Cortes, the great Spanish Catholic apologist from the 19th century, made the following observation:

“The day when society, forgetting the doctrinal decisions of the Church, has asked the press and the tribune, news writers and assemblies, what is truth and what is error, on that day error and truth are confounded in all intellects, society enters on the regions of shadows, and falls under the empire of fictions” (Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism and Socialism, Considered in their Fundamental Principles, tr. William McDonald. Dublin: M.H. Gill & Son, 1879).

St. John Henry Newman said:

“A sound, accurate, complete knowledge of Catholic theology is the best weapon (after a good life) in controversy. Any child, well instructed in the catechism, is, without intending it, a real missioner. And why? Because the world is full of doubtings and uncertainty, and of inconsistent doctrine—a clear consistent idea of revealed truth, on the contrary, cannot be found outside of the Catholic Church. Consistency, completeness, is a persuasive argument for a system being true. Certainly, if it be inconsistent, it is not truth”. (Sermon 9. The Infidelity of the Future, Opening of St. Bernard’s Seminary, 2nd October 1873).

St. John Henry Newman said:

“We are cherishing a shallow religion, a hollow religion, which will not profit us in the day of trouble. … The age, whatever be its peculiar excellences, has this serious defect, it loves an exclusively cheerful religion. It is determined to make religion bright and sunny and joyous, whatever be the form of it which it adopts. And it will handle the Catholic doctrine in this spirit; it will skim over it; it will draw it out in mere buckets-full; it will substitute its human cistern for the well of truth; it will be afraid of the deep well, the abyss of God’s judgments and God’s mercies” (Sermon 9: Indulgence in Religious Privileges).

St. John Henry Newman thus speaks about a worldly Christianity:

“Pretending to be the Gospel, dropping one whole side of the Gospel, its austere character, and considering it enough to be benevolent, courteous, candid, correct in conduct, delicate,—though it includes no true fear of God, no fervent zeal for His honour, no deep hatred of sin, no horror at the sight of sinners, no indignation and compassion at the blasphemies of heretics, no jealous adherence to doctrinal truth, no especial sensitiveness about the particular means of gaining ends, provided the ends be good, no loyalty to the Holy Apostolic Church, of which the Creed speaks, no sense of the authority of religion as external to the mind: in a word, no seriousness,—and therefore is neither hot nor cold, but (in Scripture language) lukewarm.” (Sermon 24: The Religion of the Day)

St. John Henry Newman warned of the danger in the Church where clergy identify the Kingdom of God with purely earthly and immanent progress and who are fearful of the critics and the persecutions of the world. Cardinal Newman thus spoke:

“Do not complain of the world’s imputing to you more than is true; those who live as the world lives give countenance to those who think them of the world and seem to form but one party with them. In proportion as you put off the yoke of Christ, so does the world by a sort of instinct recognise you and think well of you accordingly. O my brethren, there is an eternal enmity between the world and the Church. The Church declares by the mouth of an Apostle, “Whoso will be a friend of the world, becomes an enemy of God” (James 4:4… Does not the world scoff at all that is glorious, all that is majestic, in our holy religion? Does it not speak against the special creations of God’s grace? Does it not disbelieve the possibility of purity and chastity? Does it not slander the profession of celibacy? Does it not deny the virginity of Mary? Does it not cast out her very name as evil? Does it not scorn her as ‘a dead woman,’ whom you know to be the Mother of all the living, and the great Intercessor of the faithful? Does it not ridicule the Saints? Does it not make light of their relics? Does it not despise the Sacraments? Does it not blaspheme the Presence which dwells upon our altars, and mock bitterly and fiercely at our believing that what it calls bread and wine is that very same Body and Blood of the Lamb, which lay in Mary’s womb and hung on the Cross? What are we, that we should be better treated than our Lord, and His Mother, and His servants, and His works? Nay, what are we, if we be better treated, but friends of those who thus treat us well, and who ill-treat Him? O my dear brethren, be children of grace, not of nature; be not seduced by this world’s sophistries and assumptions; it pretends to be the work of God, but in reality, it comes of Satan. “I know My sheep,” says our Lord, “and Mine know Me, and they follow Me.”” (Discourses Addressed to Mixed Congregations).

St. Augustine spoke about the mystery of sin and apostasy within the Church. Yet he admonishes the good Christians to keep also trust in the victory of Christ and in God’s goodness, who always grants to His Church His consolations even in midst of trials. In his book about the City of God he wrote these words:

“Whoever will live piously in Christ shall suffer persecution” (2 Tim. 3:12). Because even when those who are without do not rage, and thus there seems to be, and really is, tranquillity, which brings very much consolation, especially to the weak, yet there are not wanting, yea, there are many within who by their abandoned manners torment the hearts of those who live piously, since by them the Christian and Catholic name is blasphemed; and the dearer that name is to those who will live piously in Christ, the more do they grieve that through the wicked, who have a place within, it comes to be less loved than pious minds desire. … That grief which arises in the hearts of the pious, who are persecuted by the manners of bad or false Christians, is profitable to the sufferers, because it proceeds from the charity in which they do not wish them either to perish or to hinder the salvation of others. Finally, great consolations grow out of their chastisement, which imbue the souls of the pious with a fecundity as great as the pains with which they were troubled concerning their own perdition. Thus, in this world, in these evil days, not only from the time of the bodily presence of Christ and His apostles, but even from that of Abel, whom first his wicked brother slew because he was righteous, (see 1 John 3:12) and thenceforth even to the end of this world, the Church has gone forward on pilgrimage amid the persecutions of the world and the consolations of God” (Civ., 18, 51).

The Catholic Faith cannot admit a change or a rupture, or a reinterpretation into another meaning than it had been constantly believed and taught for two thousand years. Nowadays, we see the introduction of some changes and ruptures in the presentation of the truth regarding doctrine and morals. To hide and mask such changes, seductive expressions are used such as “paradigm shift” or “hermeneutic of continuity” even when it is obvious that the changes contradict the constant belief and practice of the Church. In such situations, one should say: “I know my Catholic Faith, I will not permit myself to be confused. For the sake of this Faith I am ready to die. The Church has to fulfil her primary mission of proclaiming the truth, bearing in mind that she will be always persecuted.”

St. John Henry Newman said:

“The Church of God on earth will be greatly reduced, as we may well imagine, in its apparent numbers, in the times of Antichrist, by the open desertion of the powers of the world. This desertion will begin in a professed indifference to any particular form of Christianity, under the pretence of universal toleration; which toleration will proceed from no true spirit of charity and forbearance, but from a design to undermine Christianity, by multiplying and encouraging sectaries. The pretended toleration will go far beyond a just toleration, even as it regards the different sects of Christians. For governments will pretend an indifference to all, and will give a protection in preference to none. From the toleration of the (most pestilent) heresies, they will proceed to the toleration of Mahometanism (Islam), Atheism, and at last to a positive persecution of the truth of Christianity. The merely nominal Christians will all desert the profession of the truth, when the powers of the world desert it. And this tragic event I take to be typified by the order to St. John to measure the Temple and the Altar, and leave the outer court (national, schismatic Churches, heresies) to be trodden under foot by the Gentiles. The property of the clergy will be pillaged, the public worship insulted and vilified by these deserters of the faith they once professed, who are not called apostates because they never were in earnest in their profession. Their profession was nothing more than a compliance with fashion and public authority. In principle they were always, what they now appear to be, Gentiles. When this general desertion of the faith takes place, then will commence the sackcloth ministry of the witnesses … They will have no support from governments, no honours, no emoluments, no immunities, but they will have that which no earthly power can take away, which they derived from Christ, who commissioned them to be His witnesses”.  (British Magazine, May, 1834)

Hilaire Belloc presented already in 1938 an almost prophetical analysis of the current situation which Christianity and specifically the Catholic Church has to face, affirming:

“The Modern Attack on the Catholic Church, the most universal that she has suffered since her foundation, has so far progressed that it has already produced social, intellectual, and moral forms which combined give it the savour of a religion. But reason today is everywhere decried. The ancient process of conviction by argument and proof is replaced by reiterated affirmation; and almost all the terms which were the glory of reason carry with them now an atmosphere of contempt. See what has happened for instance to the word ‘logic,’ to the word ‘controversy’; note such popular phrases as ;No one yet was ever convinced by argument,’ or again, ‘Anything may be proved,’ or ‘That may be all right in logic, but in practice it is very different.’ The speech of men is becoming saturated with expressions which everywhere connote contempt for the use of the intelligence. … When reason is dethroned, not only is Faith dethroned (the two subversions go together) but every moral and legitimate activity of the human soul is dethroned at the same time. There is no God. So the words ‘God is Truth’ which the mind of Christian Europe used as a postulate in all it did, cease to have meaning. None can analyse the rightful authority of government nor set bounds to it. In the absence of reason, political authority reposing on mere force is boundless. And reason is thus made a victim because Humanity itself is what the Modern Attack is destroying in its false religion of humanity. Reason being the crown of man and at the same time his distinguishing mark, the Anarchs march against reason as their principal enemy. … either we of the Faith shall become a small persecuted neglected island amid mankind, or we shall be able to lift at the end of the struggle the old battle-cry, ‘Christus Imperat!’ Lastly there is this very important and perhaps decisive consideration: though the social strength of Catholicism, in numbers certainly, and in most other factors as well, is declining throughout the world; the issue, as between Catholicism and the completely new pagan thing (the destruction of all tradition, the breaking with our inheritance), is now clearly marked. (The Great Heresies, Reprint San Francisco 2017, pp. 175ff.)

“Rejoice, O Virgin Mary, for thou alone have destroyed all heresies in the whole world.” These words Holy Mother Church prays since more than a millennium in the Divine Office and in the Votive Mass of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Why has the Blessed Virgin Mary destroyed all heresies? Because She believed that the Son of God will incarnate and become man. The Christian faith consists essentially in the faith in Christ, true God and true man. For one who believes in the Divinity of Christ will accept all what Christ taught. The Blessed Virgin Mary was the first who believed in the Incarnation of God and since then this faith will never perish on earth until the Last Judgement. Through the faith of Mary, the true faith was established on earth; she was the first who believed and therefore she is most powerful to destroy unbelief and heresy.

When Saint Francis Sales in the year 1602, after a long and hard work, crushed Protestantism in the region of Chablais, he wrote on the arch of the quire of the church in Thonon, the principal town of that region, the words: ‘Gaude Maria virgo, cunctas haereses sola interemisti in universo mund’ (Rejoice, O Virgin Mary, for thou alone have destroyed all heresies in the whole world). The Saintly Doctor of the Church hereby confessed in a solemn way the Blessed Virgin Mary as the guardian of the fundaments of the whole Christian life, of the true faith.

St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen left as a kind of testament the following affirmation before his martyrdom, exclaiming: “O Catholic faith, how solid, how strong you are! How deeply rooted, how firmly founded on a solid rock! Heaven and earth will pass away, but you can never pass away.”

Let us humbly ask the Lord to grant us, through the intercession of Our Lady, the grace to be able to say: “I know my Catholic Faith. I will not permit myself to be confused. For the sake of this Faith I am ready to die.“