On today’s A Catholic Take: Bishop Athanasius Schneider has broken his silence with his first public statement since Rome declared six SSPX bishops excommunicated over the July 1 consecrations at Econe. In a statement obtained by Diane Montagna, the auxiliary bishop of Astana renders no verdict on the Vatican’s action — instead he draws the parallel to A.D. 357, when Pope Liberius signed an ambiguous formula omitting “consubstantial,” ordered St. Athanasius into communion with Arian bishops, and excommunicated him when he refused. Liberius was the first pope never canonized. Athanasius was mad
e a Doctor of the Church. Schneider argues that formal schism requires rejecting papal primacy in principle, which the SSPX does not do, and that if Rome ever took the Society’s doctrinal concerns seriously it “would mark the beginning of the end for the modernist project.”
In the second segment, Dr. Anthony Stine of Return to Tradition joins Joe on two stories out of Rome. First, Monsignor Jordi Bertomeu — a Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith official and papal commissioner on abuse cases — was filmed onAugust 13 placing coca leaves in a Pachamama offering at a Church-promoted conference in Cusco, Peru, alongside two bishops, ahead of Pope Leo XIV’s planned visit. Vatican News covered the event and mentioned neither the ritual nor Bertomeu’s participation. Second, the Dicastery for Culture and Education answered Hamburg parents who begged Leo XIV to stop pro-LGBT sex-ed guidelines in fifteen Catholic schools by citing a 2019 document — and taking no action. The guidelines t
ake effect tomorrow, August 20.
