Catholic Info
Traditional Catholic Faith => Crisis in the Church => Topic started by: Ladislaus on December 18, 2025, 01:01:34 PM
-
I do find Bishop(?) Athanasius Schneider to be very likable as a person, and respected him for his stand during COVID, where he would send out signed objections of conscience to any Catholic who asked (unlike SSPX, who refused).
Nevertheless, it's sad to say that I think we have no choice but to conclude that Athanasius Schneider is a Gatekeeper and Controlled (Non-)Opposition.
Here's another clue. Today, 12/18/2025, Athanaius Schneider is at the very top of the list of those having an audience with Bob Prevost.
https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2025/12/18/251218b.html
Now, why would an obscure Auxliary Bishop from Kazakhstan, a Diocese boasting of an estimated whopping 53,000 Catholics, have become de facto the veritable "face" of Traditional-minded Catholics in the Conciliar Church?. Does Astana even need an Auxiliary? By contrast, only 30 of the 193 Diocese in the United States have fewer Catholics, 163 of them being larger, with the top 12 having over a million, and the top handful with 2, 2.5, 4.5 million Catholics. But Schneider flies around the world, and seems to be the one they trot out on the Trad Inc interview circuit every time Vigano makes a move, or there's some impending movement regarding SSPX.
Schneider had regularly criticized Bergoglio, calling him out for error, even close to heresy, has criticized the New Mass and Vatican II. So why wasn't Schneider punished like others were, others who said much less, such as Strickland?
But the final tipping point was when after +Vigano had declared Bergoglio to be an Anti-Pope, they trotted out Schneider to refute this assertion, and in those interviews he stated that the only Catholic opinion regarding the question of a heretic pope is that a pope can never lose office in any way, shape, or form ... not ipso facto (Bellarmine), nor by ministerial deposition (Cajetan). Since I can't believe that Schneider is so ignorant and uninformed as to be unaware that of the 5 Opinions mentioned by Bellarmine, this was the Opinion that has been adopted by the fewest theologians ever. I had not found a single one after Bellarmine's refutation ... until some obscure Frenchman I had never heard of before was cited. So, to claim that by far the least popular opinion is the only Catholic one ... we have no choice but to conclude that it was just a flat-out bald-faced LIE. There's no other explanation for this.
Then it makes sense why this obscure Auxliary is trotting around the world acting like the face of Conciliar Traditionalist sentiment, criticizing Bergoglio and Vatican II and the New Mass with complete impunity, where at the very least you'd have expected him to be silenced, told to stay put in Astana and help with Confirmations once or twice per year. Strickland was stripped of his office for saying MUCH LESS than Schneider ever did, and one of the charges was that he left his diocese to participate in a protest in another bishop's diocese. But Schneider is a veritable globe-trotter.
Putting that together with his lies about the heretical pope issue, his appearance at the top of Prevost's itinerary suggests that they are plotting their next moves regarding how to re-absorb SSPX or perhaps even Traditionalists in general into the Conciliar collective. Prevost has been under some pressure from Trad-ish groups to free up the Tridentine Mass.
I can't see any other reason that Schneider would be in audience with Prevost, since I doubt the pressing matters of Astana are at the top of his agenda.
Not sure if it's coincidence that Astana has this bizarre Illuminati Temple in it.
(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Ce35viXOt2c/maxresdefault.jpg)
-
Mario Derksen made the same point earlier this year (https://novusordowatch.org/2025/01/bp-athanasius-schneider-audience-with-francis/).
What do these photos of the Schneider-Francis encounter suggest? Granted, we do not know what was said or done during their actual conversation. We only have the bishop’s own sparse comments and the photos made available by the Vatican (here are a few more (https://photo.vaticanmedia.va/en/11415-20-01-2025SEMonsAthanasiusSchneider.html)).
But the question imposes itself: Why is ‘Bp.’ Schneider so chummy with the man [Bergoglio] who he believes habitually does untold damage to countless souls, and has done so for many years?
Francis doesn’t look too displeased either to be meeting with his fiercest critic. If we look at how Bergoglio has dealt with other harsh opponents of his, such as the Most Rev. Joseph Strickland of Tyler, United States (https://novusordowatch.org/2023/11/pope-francis-fires-strickland-tyler-bishop/), that is at least suspicious.
In fact, to our knowledge, Francis has never so much as criticized Schneider. The only mildly ‘disciplinary’ move Francis has ever taken against the globe-trotting Schneider is gently remind him to please heed the canonical requirement (https://novusordowatch.org/2018/11/francis-cracks-down-on-bishop-schneider/) of not spending more than one month’s time per year outside of his diocese. That’s it.
The fact that Francis consistently puts up with Schneider’s behavior without even so much as raising a single objection and then receives him cordially for what looks like a pretty jolly encounter, could indicate that he is quite content with how the Astana auxiliary exercises his ministry.
To be clear: We are not accusing Schneider of definitely being controlled opposition, since we don’t know that. However, it would be very imprudent not to consider it a realistic possibility, keeping in mind that the good manners and external piety displayed by Schneider are no guarantee of either orthodoxy or personal holiness. Indeed, in order to deceive the good, even “Satan himself transformeth himself into an angel of light” (2 Cor 11:14). The devil knows he must deceive those who sincerely mean to be good and holy, not those who are content to be evil — those are already his. (See also Fr. Frederick Faber’s warning concerning the deceitfulness of the Antichrist (https://novusordowatch.org/2019/11/what-will-make-antichrist-so-deceptive/).)
-
There was a video on utoob that covered all the symbolism in Astana and the narrator also commented how it was fitting for a place that might as well be called Satana.
-
Mario Derksen made the same point earlier this year (https://novusordowatch.org/2025/01/bp-athanasius-schneider-audience-with-francis/).
Yes, so he made a couple of the same points ...
1) non-punishment (not even silencing) despite
2) being far more critical of Bergoglio publicly than many others who were punished
Derksen also adds pictures of a meeting where the two looked like best buds ... and one where they appeared to be just a tad too physical (as in suggesting that both might be card-carrying members of the Lavender Mafia)
But apart from this I started to notice that Schneider was always the one Trad Inc trotted out to refute +Vigano.
So, all of this might have been suspicious, but the kicker was where he claimed that the only Catholic opinion about a heretic pope is that he can never lose office. One could make some excuses for the stuff above here, but since Schneider is not ignorant regarding the SV controversies, it's certain beyond a reasonable doubt that he's deliberately lying here about that heretic pope quesiton. Conclusion at that time becamse unavoidable.
Now, continuing that trend, an obscure Auxliary from a tiny Diocese is at the top of the list to meet with Prevost. Why? It clearly has to do with Schneider posing as a Traditionalist, since there's absolutely nothing about a 53,000-Catholic Diocese that would get you an audience within the first 20 years of a 30-year pontificate.
It'll be interesting to see if they make any moves soon, and what role Schneider has to play in it.
... keep a Schneider Watch, as it were.
Of course, we had the same suspicions about Huonder. Bergoglio thoroughly hates the Tridentine Mass. So why would he give Huonder his "blessing" to go spend his retirement with SSPX? There's no natural reason he would do that, and then Huonder made statements criticizing him also. Bergoglio was not the type to tolerate such criticisms, arguably having a more fragile ego than even a Donald Trujmp. Hunonder had to be at least a spy, possibly a handler (of someone they had under their control), and likely an infiltrator on a misssion, the first step having been to consecrate those "holy" oils, to get people used to considering NO "Sacraments" to be valid. I do believe that the next step would have been for Huonder to ordain some priests that Summer at Econe, after again consecrating oils for a second year ... except that God had mercy on some of the Traditional Catholics in Europe that may have been subjected to bogus priests and took him from this life.
I wanted to like Schneider ... but at this point I must reluctantly, and yet confidently, arrive at the conclusion that he is in fact a Gatekeeper and Controlled (Non-)Opposition.
-
There was a video on utoob that covered all the symbolism in Astana and the narrator also commented how it was fitting for a place that might as well be called Satana.
I think I watched that myself some years ago but can't recall the details. But it's strange that such a backwater would have a gigantic Illuminati facility like that. I wouldn't be surprised if they have some plans for it.