Bishop Schneider says Cdl. Fernández is ‘completely wrong’ that Vatican II texts cannot be changed

(LifeSiteNews) — Bishop Athanasius Schneider declared that Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández’s claim that Vatican II’s texts cannot be modified is “completely wrong.”

Schneider, the Auxiliary Bishop of Astana, Kazakhstan, addressed Fernández’s recent claim — which has now proved to be pivotal in the Society of St. Pius X’s (SSPX) decision to move forward with episcopal consecrations — in an interview with Dr. Robert Moynihan, founder and editor of Inside the Vatican magazine. 

Father Davide Pagliarani, the Superior General of the SSPX, announced today that the SSPX will move forward with episcopal consecrations on July 1, noting that a doctrinal understanding between the SSPX and the Vatican is currently “impossible” especially since Fernández claimed “the texts of the Council cannot be corrected, nor can the legitimacy of the liturgical reform be challenged.”

During an Monday interview with Moynihan, Bishop Schneider defied Fernández’s claim that Vatican II texts cannot be “corrected,” clarifying that the only texts that cannot be changed are the “Word of God,” the Bible, and “proclaimed dogmas,” although a dogma may be clarified by a pope or a council.

Moynihan pointed out that Vatican II was declared a “pastoral council,” and Schneider affirmed that Pope John XXIII himself clarified this.

Indeed, in Pope John XXIII’s Opening Address of the Second Vatican Council given on October 11, 1962, he declared that the main point of the council was not to be a discussion of the “fundamental doctrine of the Church” but rather that it was to be “predominantly pastoral in character.”

Bishop Schneider also pointed out that Pope Paul VI repeated that Vatican II did not intend to “proclaim a dogma” but was instead “pastoral” in nature. In fact, the pope went further and said that the council avoided pronouncing infallible dogmas. In a General Audience in January 1966, Pope Paul VI said that “given the pastoral character of the Council, it avoided pronouncing in an extraordinary way dogmas endowed with the note of infallibility.”

If the Second Vatican Council had quoted dogmas from previous councils, those would be “unchangeable,” Bishop Schneider noted. However, passages that are merely pastoral in character can be corrected, he added.

Moynihan elaborated on Schneider’s points, restating the SSPX’s point of view. “They say certain passages of the Second Vatican Council have been developed into a kind of conciliar church teaching that is a ‘new church’ different from all prior centuries,” he noted. He cited the idea that “all religions are equa(l) pathways to God” as an example of a novelty introduced by Vatican II.

“The SSPX is right to say on five or six points you’ve extrapolated passages from a pastoral council into a new paradigm of the Church which needs to be corrected. They’re not wrong,” Moynihan said.

“Exactly,” Bishop Schneider affirmed. He highlighted the ideas of religious freedom and collegiality formulated in Vatican II as being impossible to “reconcile” with previous Church teaching. “It is an evident contradiction, or at least to such an extent ambiguous that it is dangerous and … must be corrected by the magisterium,” he said.

“Everyone who has studied the council knows it was intentional that they would weave a passage or a phrase in that they could use later,” Moynihan pointed out. He recalled how it was brought to the attention of Pope Paul VI that progressives were already anticipating how certain passages in Vatican II could be exploited to further their heterodox agenda. 

Bishop Schneider expressed hope that the current SSPX situation would be an opportunity for clarification of the “ambiguity” of Vatican II, and that the Vatican would give them a “minimum” of “integration” into the Church before proceeding with dialogue.

Now that the SSPX has announced it will proceed with episcopal consecrations after Fernández demanded their full, unqualified acceptance of Vatican II, it appears their formally recognized “integration” into the Church will not happen.

Bishop Schneider believes Fernández’s “entourage” in the Vatican fears the SSPX’s influence within the Church through their promotion of “the true, whole doctrinal tradition of the church and liturgy.”

This is why they are presenting “such high obstacles” for the regularization of the SSPX, he said, at “the same time the Holy See is most generous” to the Communist Party of China, to the point of allowing the communist party to choose bishop candidates and “perform the so-called ordinations.”

The SSPX, “their own children,” by contrast, are treated as “second class,” Schneider said. 

If the SSPX priests and lay faithful associated with the SSPX are excommunicated by the Vatican, “the guilt will be mainly by the Vatican, not by them,” the bishop said.