Bishop Schneider : "Pope Pius X was not always vigilant enough in the selection of the candidates to the cardinalate."
LifeSite: What was the motive for publishing Flee from Heresy?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider (AS): In our day we are going through a crisis in the Church, in which any intellectually honest person can observe that there is an almost total doctrinal, moral and liturgical anarchy, a situation describable as a reservoir of heresies, contradictions, sophisms and mental acrobatics. When someone in our day stands up in the Church for a traditional truth of faith and its enduring validity, he is told: “You are right!” And then when someone else in the Church denies the same truth or relativizes it, he is told: “You too are right!” And when a third person then makes the logically correct remark: “I don’t understand that: how can it be that the Church confesses the truth and at the same time allows people to deny this truth with impunity?” This person then receives this cynical answer: “You too are right!” There reigns a ruthless relativism.
Philosophical and theological modernism, which Pope Pius X condemned more than a hundred years ago, has been realized in all its devastating consequences in the life of the Church of our day. What’s more, even high-ranking ecclesiastical authorities in our day are promoting this modernism by various statements and official acts. A prime example of this is the document Fiducia supplicans, which authorizes the blessing of adulterous and sodomitic couples who cohabitate in a public and objectively sinful union. And, in all this, responsible persons of the Holy See try to make people believe that, despite the expression “blessing of a couple,” one is not blessing a relationship but the two persons who constitute this couple, thereby defying logic, outraging reason, and fooling the entire Church and the world.
The following words with which Pope Pius X characterized modernism are extremely timely: “We should define it as the synthesis of all heresies. Were one to attempt the task of collecting all the errors that have been broached against the faith and to concentrate the sap and substance of them all into one, one could not better succeed than the Modernists have done. Nay, they have done more than this, for, as we have already intimated, their system means the destruction not of the Catholic religion alone but of all religion. With good reason do the rationalists applaud them, for the sincerest and the frankest among the rationalists warmly welcome the modernists as their most valuable allies” (Encyclical Pascendi from September 8, 1907).
LSN: Why does God at times allow heresy to flourish in the Church?
AS: St. Paul wrote these enigmatic words: “There must be also heresies: that they also, who are approved, may be made manifest among you” (1 Cor 11:19). St. Augustine says that God is so good that He would not permit evil in any way unless He were powerful enough that from each evil He could draw some good (see Enchiridion, 11). Through heresies those who are good and firm Christians are also made manifest, and their faith stands out all the more. St. Thomas Aquinas says that “the heretic is one who scorns the discipline of the faith handed down by God and obstinately follows his own error. The obstinacy with which someone spurns the judgment of the Church in matters pertaining to the faith directly or indirectly makes a man a heretic. Such obstinacy proceeds from pride, whereby a person prefers his own feelings to the entire Church” (Commentary 1 Cor., n. 627). And St. Augustine further explained: “While the hot restlessness of heretics stirs questions about many articles of the Catholic faith, the necessity of defending them forces us both to investigate them more accurately, to understand them more clearly, and to proclaim them more earnestly; and the question mooted by an adversary becomes the occasion of instruction” (The City of God, 16:2). The evil ones exist in the Church, says St. Augustine, either so that the faithful may exercise themselves in patience or advance in wisdom (see ibid.).
LSN: What are the major heresies today within the Catholic Church? Can you point to the root heresy of our time?
AS: The root heresy of our time is relativism in its Hegelian characteristics. That means that [it holds that] there cannot be a truth which is objectively always and everywhere in itself true. Truth is ultimately made by man and through historical development. Truth is continuously evolving, and there can consequently be a coexistence of truth and its opposite, and the contradiction eventually becomes a new synthesis. In the final analysis, such a mental attitude is a revolt against reality and God the Creator, who is the Truth.
LSN: What are the practical consequences of heresy in the Church?
AS: Heresy is like an anesthetic poison which in small doses obfuscates the supernatural light of the faith, weakens considerably the moral strength in resisting sin and vices, [and] increases self-centeredness and spiritual hubris, i.e. destroys true humility and holiness.
LSN: Is an intellectual corruption harder to heal in a man’s soul than a moral corruption? Or can it often be the case that at the root of a heresy, there is an initial moral corruption/sin (such as perhaps in King Henry VIII)?
AS: Intellectual corruption originates ultimately in pride, which mostly blinds man’s intellect and hardens his will in obstinacy and rebellion. The intellect advises and moves the will to operate a concrete act. Therefore, intellectual and moral corruption are related and ordered to one another. Heresy is more directly linked with pride, whereas immorality stems often from the weakness of the will and the illusion of apparent goods.
King Henry VIII was a famous historical example of the predominance of vices above truth. Though he persecuted Protestant heresy, yet his moral corruption led him to deny in practice the divine truth of papal primacy. The Protestant revolution in Europe in the 16th century was almost entirely carried out by morally corrupt clergymen. In most of the cases moral corruption, i.e. a hidden or public unchaste life, was the cause which led these clergymen to intellectual corruption, since they saw in the new heretical theories a justification of their infidelity towards their promise of celibacy (as priests) or of the solemn vow of chastity (as religious).
In the Ancient Church, heresy was seen as a violation of the virginity of the Church. St. Hegesippus, a Christian author of the 2nd century, said that until the advent of heresy, the Church remained a pure and intact virgin. And St. Vincent of Lerins (5th century) stated that once the intellectual corruption of heresy is admitted “where formerly there was a sanctuary of chaste and undefiled truth, thenceforward there will be a brothel of impious and base errors” (Commonitorium, chap. 23). How enlightening and timely are these words!
LSN: How does one most effectively combat heresy?
AS: One can combat heresy implicitly and indirectly, by showing the beauty of the truth since beauty is appealing in and of itself. However, because of the woundedness of human nature, which is inclined to evil, and the unceasing influence of the devil, the liar and the father of lies, as well as his human allies, one must also combat heresy explicitly and directly. One of the main tasks of the Church consists, therefore, in protecting men from the poison of heresy, since heresy has a devastating effect, like that of an epidemic. To fight against heresy is a truly noble and selfless act, an expression of an authentic love for one’s neighbor. When popes and bishops are negligent and indifferent in the fight against heresies, they resemble an incurious and inactive physician in the face of a rampant epidemic.
LSN: What went wrong when Pope Pius X tried to combat the heresy of Modernism? Did he not live long enough to extirpate it entirely, or, as some critics say, did he go about it in the wrong way?
AS: Pope Pius X bequeathed to the Church one of the most important documents in Church history, i.e. the Encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis, which contains a masterly exposition and refutation of modernism, the reservoir and synthesis of all heresies. During the pontificate of Pius X, the Modernists remained hidden in their holes, and afterwards, they started slowly to come out by means of ecclesiastical personal politics.
There are some indications that Pope Pius X was not always vigilant enough in the selection of the candidates to the cardinalate. The nomination of Archbishop Giacomo della Chiesa just three months before Pius X’s death proved to be fateful, since, being a pupil of the known liberal Cardinal Rampolla, he became, as Pope Benedict XV, Pius X’s successor. It was not a secret that Archbishop Giacomo della Chiesa disagreed with the uncompromising policy of Pius X. Under Benedict XV’s pontificate the necessary care and vigilance in the selection of candidates for the episcopate and the cardinalate started to decrease, and, during the subsequent pontificates, slowly paved the way for the situation at the beginning of the Second Vatican Council, where the vast majority of the episcopate was already infected with uncritical sympathies for theological liberalism.
LSN: Could you tell us about some exemplary figures in Church history who successfully fought against heresy?
AS: The first uncompromising fighter against heresy was Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, who said: “He that shall break one of these least commandments, and shall so teach men, shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 5:19). St. Paul was an exemplary figure in the fight against heresy, e.g.: “A man that is a heretic, after the first and second admonition, avoid: Knowing that he, that is such a one, is subverted, and sins, being condemned by his own judgment” (Tit 3:10-11), and: “Rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith” (Tit 1:13). The Apostle St. John, the beloved disciple, was implacable against heresy, e.g.: “If any man come to you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into the house nor give him any greeting. For whoever greets him, communicates with his wicked works” (2 John 10-11).
The disciples of the Apostle John, St. Polycarp of Smyrna and St. Irenaeus of Lyons, inherited from him the bold resistance against heresy and heretics. St. Polycarp had absolutely no tolerance for heretics. Once he met the heretic Marcion in Rome, who asked Polycarp if he knew who he was. St. Polycarp answered, “Yes, I know you to be the firstborn of Satan” (see Eus. H.e. 4:14). With his immortal masterpiece “Against all heresies” (Adversus haereses) St. Irenaeus of Lyons rendered great service to the Church in sounding the alarm regarding the infiltration of the heretics in the life of the Church in the 2nd century. St. Ignatius of Antioch, a disciple of the Apostle, who was a bishop in the 1st century, often warned the faithful with these words: “Flee from these ungodly heresies; for they are the inventions of the devil” (Ad Trall., 10). I took these words as the title of my book.
Great saints were all resolute fighters against heresies. One of the most famous and meritorious of them was St. Athanasius, about whom it is said that, when informed that the whole world was against him regarding his view of Christ’s full divinity, he replied, “Then I am against the world.” It was from this that the expression “Athanasius contra mundum” originated. St. Augustine’s entire priestly and episcopal life was filled with a relentless fight against schism (Donatism) and heresy (Manichaeism, Pelagianism). St. Francis of Sales, who is known as the saint of meekness, the “Gentleman Saint,” was a distinguished fighter against heresies. Pope Pius XI wrote of St. Francis: “He seemed to have been sent especially by God to contend against the heresies begotten by the Reformation. It is in these heresies that we discover the beginnings of that apostasy of mankind from the Church, the sad and disastrous effects of which are deplored, even to the present hour, by every fair mind” (Encyclical, Rerum omnium perturbationem, January 26, 1923).
Bishop Schneider: Modernism condemned by Pius X 'has been realized in all its devastating consequences' - LifeSite
Bishop Athanasius Schneider (AS): In our day we are going through a crisis in the Church, in which any intellectually honest person can observe that there is an almost total doctrinal, moral and liturgical anarchy, a situation describable as a reservoir of heresies, contradictions, sophisms and mental acrobatics. When someone in our day stands up in the Church for a traditional truth of faith and its enduring validity, he is told: “You are right!” And then when someone else in the Church denies the same truth or relativizes it, he is told: “You too are right!” And when a third person then makes the logically correct remark: “I don’t understand that: how can it be that the Church confesses the truth and at the same time allows people to deny this truth with impunity?” This person then receives this cynical answer: “You too are right!” There reigns a ruthless relativism.
Philosophical and theological modernism, which Pope Pius X condemned more than a hundred years ago, has been realized in all its devastating consequences in the life of the Church of our day. What’s more, even high-ranking ecclesiastical authorities in our day are promoting this modernism by various statements and official acts. A prime example of this is the document Fiducia supplicans, which authorizes the blessing of adulterous and sodomitic couples who cohabitate in a public and objectively sinful union. And, in all this, responsible persons of the Holy See try to make people believe that, despite the expression “blessing of a couple,” one is not blessing a relationship but the two persons who constitute this couple, thereby defying logic, outraging reason, and fooling the entire Church and the world.
The following words with which Pope Pius X characterized modernism are extremely timely: “We should define it as the synthesis of all heresies. Were one to attempt the task of collecting all the errors that have been broached against the faith and to concentrate the sap and substance of them all into one, one could not better succeed than the Modernists have done. Nay, they have done more than this, for, as we have already intimated, their system means the destruction not of the Catholic religion alone but of all religion. With good reason do the rationalists applaud them, for the sincerest and the frankest among the rationalists warmly welcome the modernists as their most valuable allies” (Encyclical Pascendi from September 8, 1907).
LSN: Why does God at times allow heresy to flourish in the Church?
AS: St. Paul wrote these enigmatic words: “There must be also heresies: that they also, who are approved, may be made manifest among you” (1 Cor 11:19). St. Augustine says that God is so good that He would not permit evil in any way unless He were powerful enough that from each evil He could draw some good (see Enchiridion, 11). Through heresies those who are good and firm Christians are also made manifest, and their faith stands out all the more. St. Thomas Aquinas says that “the heretic is one who scorns the discipline of the faith handed down by God and obstinately follows his own error. The obstinacy with which someone spurns the judgment of the Church in matters pertaining to the faith directly or indirectly makes a man a heretic. Such obstinacy proceeds from pride, whereby a person prefers his own feelings to the entire Church” (Commentary 1 Cor., n. 627). And St. Augustine further explained: “While the hot restlessness of heretics stirs questions about many articles of the Catholic faith, the necessity of defending them forces us both to investigate them more accurately, to understand them more clearly, and to proclaim them more earnestly; and the question mooted by an adversary becomes the occasion of instruction” (The City of God, 16:2). The evil ones exist in the Church, says St. Augustine, either so that the faithful may exercise themselves in patience or advance in wisdom (see ibid.).
LSN: What are the major heresies today within the Catholic Church? Can you point to the root heresy of our time?
AS: The root heresy of our time is relativism in its Hegelian characteristics. That means that [it holds that] there cannot be a truth which is objectively always and everywhere in itself true. Truth is ultimately made by man and through historical development. Truth is continuously evolving, and there can consequently be a coexistence of truth and its opposite, and the contradiction eventually becomes a new synthesis. In the final analysis, such a mental attitude is a revolt against reality and God the Creator, who is the Truth.
LSN: What are the practical consequences of heresy in the Church?
AS: Heresy is like an anesthetic poison which in small doses obfuscates the supernatural light of the faith, weakens considerably the moral strength in resisting sin and vices, [and] increases self-centeredness and spiritual hubris, i.e. destroys true humility and holiness.
LSN: Is an intellectual corruption harder to heal in a man’s soul than a moral corruption? Or can it often be the case that at the root of a heresy, there is an initial moral corruption/sin (such as perhaps in King Henry VIII)?
AS: Intellectual corruption originates ultimately in pride, which mostly blinds man’s intellect and hardens his will in obstinacy and rebellion. The intellect advises and moves the will to operate a concrete act. Therefore, intellectual and moral corruption are related and ordered to one another. Heresy is more directly linked with pride, whereas immorality stems often from the weakness of the will and the illusion of apparent goods.
King Henry VIII was a famous historical example of the predominance of vices above truth. Though he persecuted Protestant heresy, yet his moral corruption led him to deny in practice the divine truth of papal primacy. The Protestant revolution in Europe in the 16th century was almost entirely carried out by morally corrupt clergymen. In most of the cases moral corruption, i.e. a hidden or public unchaste life, was the cause which led these clergymen to intellectual corruption, since they saw in the new heretical theories a justification of their infidelity towards their promise of celibacy (as priests) or of the solemn vow of chastity (as religious).
In the Ancient Church, heresy was seen as a violation of the virginity of the Church. St. Hegesippus, a Christian author of the 2nd century, said that until the advent of heresy, the Church remained a pure and intact virgin. And St. Vincent of Lerins (5th century) stated that once the intellectual corruption of heresy is admitted “where formerly there was a sanctuary of chaste and undefiled truth, thenceforward there will be a brothel of impious and base errors” (Commonitorium, chap. 23). How enlightening and timely are these words!
LSN: How does one most effectively combat heresy?
AS: One can combat heresy implicitly and indirectly, by showing the beauty of the truth since beauty is appealing in and of itself. However, because of the woundedness of human nature, which is inclined to evil, and the unceasing influence of the devil, the liar and the father of lies, as well as his human allies, one must also combat heresy explicitly and directly. One of the main tasks of the Church consists, therefore, in protecting men from the poison of heresy, since heresy has a devastating effect, like that of an epidemic. To fight against heresy is a truly noble and selfless act, an expression of an authentic love for one’s neighbor. When popes and bishops are negligent and indifferent in the fight against heresies, they resemble an incurious and inactive physician in the face of a rampant epidemic.
LSN: What went wrong when Pope Pius X tried to combat the heresy of Modernism? Did he not live long enough to extirpate it entirely, or, as some critics say, did he go about it in the wrong way?
AS: Pope Pius X bequeathed to the Church one of the most important documents in Church history, i.e. the Encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis, which contains a masterly exposition and refutation of modernism, the reservoir and synthesis of all heresies. During the pontificate of Pius X, the Modernists remained hidden in their holes, and afterwards, they started slowly to come out by means of ecclesiastical personal politics.
There are some indications that Pope Pius X was not always vigilant enough in the selection of the candidates to the cardinalate. The nomination of Archbishop Giacomo della Chiesa just three months before Pius X’s death proved to be fateful, since, being a pupil of the known liberal Cardinal Rampolla, he became, as Pope Benedict XV, Pius X’s successor. It was not a secret that Archbishop Giacomo della Chiesa disagreed with the uncompromising policy of Pius X. Under Benedict XV’s pontificate the necessary care and vigilance in the selection of candidates for the episcopate and the cardinalate started to decrease, and, during the subsequent pontificates, slowly paved the way for the situation at the beginning of the Second Vatican Council, where the vast majority of the episcopate was already infected with uncritical sympathies for theological liberalism.
LSN: Could you tell us about some exemplary figures in Church history who successfully fought against heresy?
AS: The first uncompromising fighter against heresy was Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, who said: “He that shall break one of these least commandments, and shall so teach men, shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 5:19). St. Paul was an exemplary figure in the fight against heresy, e.g.: “A man that is a heretic, after the first and second admonition, avoid: Knowing that he, that is such a one, is subverted, and sins, being condemned by his own judgment” (Tit 3:10-11), and: “Rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith” (Tit 1:13). The Apostle St. John, the beloved disciple, was implacable against heresy, e.g.: “If any man come to you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into the house nor give him any greeting. For whoever greets him, communicates with his wicked works” (2 John 10-11).
The disciples of the Apostle John, St. Polycarp of Smyrna and St. Irenaeus of Lyons, inherited from him the bold resistance against heresy and heretics. St. Polycarp had absolutely no tolerance for heretics. Once he met the heretic Marcion in Rome, who asked Polycarp if he knew who he was. St. Polycarp answered, “Yes, I know you to be the firstborn of Satan” (see Eus. H.e. 4:14). With his immortal masterpiece “Against all heresies” (Adversus haereses) St. Irenaeus of Lyons rendered great service to the Church in sounding the alarm regarding the infiltration of the heretics in the life of the Church in the 2nd century. St. Ignatius of Antioch, a disciple of the Apostle, who was a bishop in the 1st century, often warned the faithful with these words: “Flee from these ungodly heresies; for they are the inventions of the devil” (Ad Trall., 10). I took these words as the title of my book.
Great saints were all resolute fighters against heresies. One of the most famous and meritorious of them was St. Athanasius, about whom it is said that, when informed that the whole world was against him regarding his view of Christ’s full divinity, he replied, “Then I am against the world.” It was from this that the expression “Athanasius contra mundum” originated. St. Augustine’s entire priestly and episcopal life was filled with a relentless fight against schism (Donatism) and heresy (Manichaeism, Pelagianism). St. Francis of Sales, who is known as the saint of meekness, the “Gentleman Saint,” was a distinguished fighter against heresies. Pope Pius XI wrote of St. Francis: “He seemed to have been sent especially by God to contend against the heresies begotten by the Reformation. It is in these heresies that we discover the beginnings of that apostasy of mankind from the Church, the sad and disastrous effects of which are deplored, even to the present hour, by every fair mind” (Encyclical, Rerum omnium perturbationem, January 26, 1923).
Bishop Schneider: Modernism condemned by Pius X 'has been realized in all its devastating consequences' - LifeSite