A Shepherd Solicitous for the Whole Church

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The title of this book alludes to Lumen Gentium no. 23: “Each [individual 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, though it is not exercised by an act of jurisdiction, contributes greatly to the advantage of the universal Church.” No more perfect words can be found to describe the life and work of Bishop Athanasius Schneider, whose mind is held captive by Christ and whose heart goes out to “all the churches” (cf. 2 Cor 10:5, 11:28).

Over the years, Bishop Schneider has granted many illuminating interviews that serve as beacons for the storm-tossed faithful. This present volume collects seven of them: the substantial interview conducted with His Excellency by the Hungarian theologian Dániel Fülep in Kazakhstan in July 2018, plus six others dating from between 2015 and 2023. In wide-ranging exchanges, we hear Bishop Schneider reflecting on versus populum, the validity of the new sacramental rites, celibacy, patriarchy, women’s ordination, papal elections, papolatry, Amoris Laetitia, La Salette, the conversion of Russia, the European Union, migration, Islam, the conversion of the Jews, Freemasonry, modernism, aggiornamento, the SSPX, the Neocatechumenal Way, praying the Rosary during Mass, Pius X’s reform of the breviary, episcopal conferences, and much else besides. We stumble across delightful revelations: how the bishop’s little book Dominus Est changed the Vatican’s liturgical policy; how, after a lapse of 27 years, he was able to visit the priest, then 86 years old, who had given him his First Communion—and who then humbly served his Mass like an altar boy; the Soviet propaganda songs he had to learn as a child; why he chose “Kyrie eleison” as his episcopal motto.

In these edifying pages we hear, again and again, the voice of a good shepherd who is truly and ardently solicitous for the whole Church.