Bishop Slams Liturgical Abuse, Stands Up for Traditional Catholics
Bishop Slams Liturgical Abuse, Stands Up for Traditional Catholics News: by Ryan Fitzgerald • ChurchMilitant.com • August 11, 2015 81 Comments
Bishop Athanasius Schneider is defending tradition and analyzing the crisis in the Church Bishop Athanasius Schneider of Kazakhstan, an outspoken champion of the Traditional Latin Mass, is condemning modern liturgical abuses and speaking out in defense of tradition.
In a recent interview with Adelante la Fe, he blasts Communion in the hand and use of female lectors, as well as other ritual abuses.
"It is now a proven fact that a considerable part of those who receive the Holy Communion habitually in hand, especially the younger generation which had not known the manner of receiving Communion kneeling and on the tongue, [no longer has] the full Catholic faith in the Real Presence," he says, "because they treat the consecrated Host almost in the same exterior manner as they take ordinary food." "The exterior minimalistic gesture has a causal connection to the weakening or even loss of the faith in the Real Presence," he explains.
Bishop Schneider then discusses a lecture he once gave on "the five wounds in Christ's liturgical mystical body." These are, as the interviewer points out, "the priest turned towards the congregation, Holy Communion taken in the hand, the new Offertory prayers, the disappearance of Latin in liturgical celebrations and the performing of some ministries, such as those of lector and acolyte, by women."
