Bishop Schneider: German bishops will go down as ‘great disgrace’ for betraying Catholic faith

(LifeSiteNews) — Bishop Athanasius Schneider has urged Europeans to form a new movement to defend Christian-based cultural values against ideological and social threats in a new interview.

In an interview published on April 5 by the German newspaper Junge Freiheit, Bishop Athanasius Schneider called for the creation of a broad cultural and political movement in Europe and beyond to reinforce what he described as Christian-derived values, arguing that these are under threat from contemporary ideological trends, mass migration, and internal developments within the Church, particularly in Germany.

“It is sad, but unfortunately the Church in Germany has become a cowardly collaborator of leftist ideology,” Schneider said, adding that such conduct would be remembered in history with shame.

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In the interview, released during the Easter period, Schneider framed his appeal within the theological significance of the feast, stating that “Easter in particular should remind us that our Europe was built upon Christianity.” Indeed, “no feast expresses the Christian faith more fully: this is what the Church is founded upon, and Europe in turn is founded upon it. And not only in a religious sense, but also in a broader sense that we are increasingly prone to forget.”

As Schneider underscored, “All European values ultimately derive from Christianity, including those we now consider secular. For example, the idea of individuality and freedom, or Western education.… The same is true of the hospital, for example, which was first created by Christianity, inspired by the spirit of the Gospel and by love for the poorest.… Or take our procedural law, for instance, which partly goes back to the notorious Inquisition, with its modern intuition that a proper trial requires evidence and a defense. These are only a few examples.”

Addressing contemporary political culture, Schneider criticized what he described as a prevailing narrative that equates the political “left” with moral goodness and the “right” with moral deficiency. He characterized this distinction as “arbitrary” and historically unfounded, while also acknowledging that political movements across the spectrum have produced injustices. According to him, European cultural values should be defended against pressures “from all directions.”

The true European values are “the true freedom of man, of reason, of humanity, of the family, of natural law, and so on. In other words, everything that today’s woke ideology attacks and seeks to dismantle in order to make people unstable and disoriented. And it labels anyone who contradicts it as an enemy to be eliminated.”

Referring to his upbringing in the Soviet Union, Schneider stated that similar mechanisms of social exclusion were employed against those who disagreed with official state doctrine.

He also warned of what he called a “subtly disguised totalitarianism,” asserting that contemporary cultural developments risk undermining freedom and Western civilization. In this context, Schneider called for coordinated resistance through a “new movement in Germany, in Europe, and perhaps even in America, one that can take hold of society and guide it to resist this destruction.”

On the issue of marriage, Schneider rejected the expression “traditional marriage,” arguing instead that “only natural marriage exists, because it is something given to us by nature, not by tradition.… It is created by God, and it is the best and most beautiful covenant into which a man and a woman – who complement and love each other – can enter together. And upon these foundations rests our entire society, on which we have built our civilization and our European culture with its humanity.”

Schneider further criticized modern institutional structures, particularly in healthcare, claiming that technological and bureaucratic systems risk reducing individuals to impersonal units, in contrast to what he described as the historically Christian emphasis on personal care and compassion.

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Turning to the internal life of the Church, Schneider expressed strong criticism of the Catholic Church in Germany, alleging that it “is already fully aligned with the spirit of the age, the mainstream, and the ideology of the governing parties – for which it has betrayed what is truly Christian and Catholic.”

“It is sad, but unfortunately the Church in Germany has become a cowardly – I emphasize: a cowardly! – collaborator of left‑wing ideology. And I am certain that this will go down in history as a great disgrace, and that one day people will read with shame the names of the bishops who, as cowardly collaborators, led all of this,” Schneider said. “I am not afraid to say that.”

On migration, Schneider argued that large-scale immigration into Europe is not a spontaneous response to economic or humanitarian factors but “clearly an orchestrated political action … with the aim of shifting Western identity – particularly Europe’s Christian identity – above all through Muslim immigrants.”

He claimed that migration contributes to the transformation of Europe’s cultural and religious identity, particularly through the growth of non-Christian populations. As an example, he referred to demographic changes observed during a recent visit to the Tyrol region of the Alps.

“This strategy is part of a plan to dissolve European identity in order to create a new woke culture and a predominantly Asian‑Muslim mixed population. It is all the more important that a movement, as I have called for, should arise to save Europe. And I am confident that sooner or later it will happen. Some fear that by then it may be too late. But as a Christian, I always have hope, because that is the message Easter teaches us,” Schneider concluded.