Bishop Athanasius Schneider’s recent catechism Credo: Compendium of the Catholic Faith, published in late 2023 by Sophia Institute Press, has been hailed by high prelates and famous theologians as a much-needed clarification of Catholic teaching in the face of modern doctrinal errors. Bishop Schneider has made a name for himself as a forceful dissenter against the hail of confusing formulations raining from Rome in recent years, and Catholic readers in general have received Credo as a welcome corrective by a courageous bishop.
Dr. Scott Hahn congratulates Schnieder for “filling [Credo] with pure doctrine,” and Cardinal Robert Sarah calls Credo, a “faithful, succinct, profound, and truly up-to-date exposition of the teaching of the Catholic Church.” Fr. Michael Fiedrowicz, Chair of Ancient Church History and Patrology, Theological Faculty of Trier, Germany, says that with his new catechism, Schneider “unswervingly defends and proclaims the depositum fidei entrusted to him.” The work has received the imprimatur of the Bishop of Manchester, New Hampshire, Peter Libasci, and enjoys an average 4.5 star rating from readers on Goodreads and a 4.8 rating on Amazon.
In his endorsement of Credo, Cardinal Sarah laments that “So much is said by so many about the Catholic Faith today — some of it is confusing, some is downright erroneous,” an affirmation that is lamentably true. Sadly, however, it must be said that the same description could be made of Credo itself, a work that contains numerous salutary affirmations of long-forgotten truths, but unfortunately is also marred by ambiguities and serious errors that counteract its purpose as a reliable corrective.
It first must be acknowledged that Credo abounds with important points of doctrine that have been mostly lost in many modern catechetical works. For example, Schneider clearly reaffirms the politically-incorrect but vital doctrine of the authority of husbands over wives, a teaching stated at least five times in the New Testament but virtually missing from modern catechisms. He also restates the Catholic doctrine, so well-established in the Papal Magisterium, on the duties of the state to God and the Church, and includes important notes on ecumenism and the danger of errors in other religions that have been deemphasized or ignored in recent years. Credo offers countless other examples of this kind, and for these, of course, I am grateful.
However, Credo also contains a disturbing number of affirmations that must be said to be misleading or even clearly erroneous regarding important truths of the Catholic Faith, and this can only undermine Bishop Schnieder’s noble purpose. It seems that the good bishop, in his eagerness to counteract false interpretations of the faith, has allowed himself to go to opposite extremes that may also lead to error. His work in this sense often appears to be oversimplistic, hasty, and reactive, and sometimes reads more like a polemic than a catechism. In this sense, Credo is sadly characteristic of the often deficient response that Catholic traditionalists—of whom I have counted myself one for decades—have offered to the neo-modernist tendencies in the Church in the last sixty years.
Given that Schneider seeks to correct what he sees as errors and ambiguities in the more recent magisterium of the Church, I will show in my critique below that in fact his response is sometimes far from “traditional”, and that in these unfortunate cases he appears to be contradicting not only recent statements by Church authorities, but also teaching contained in Scripture, the Church Fathers, Aquinas, ecumenical councils, traditional catechisms, and older pre-Vatican II papal magisterial documents. My purpose is not to accuse Bishop Schneider of bad faith or question his orthodoxy, but merely to call attention to the need for care and rigor in projects such as these, lest the very cause for which they were undertaken be harmed rather than helped.
Created in God’s image and likeness
Among the greatest defects in Schneider’s catechism is his misleading statements about the nature of man created in the image and likeness of God, a question that is also closely related to the understanding of God as Father of all of mankind, as well as the innate dignity and fraternity of all human beings. In fact, it appears that it is his enthusiasm for denying an innate dignity in all human beings that drives Schneider to attack the claim that all of mankind bears God’s image. It is clear that the bishop is seeking to counteract naturalistic tendencies in recent Catholic theology stemming from the Enlightenment, but by overreacting he does violence to traditional Catholic doctrine regarding the goodness of man’s created nature.
In Part I, paragraph 224, Schneider asks, “Is the dignity of the human person rooted in his creation in God’s image and likeness?” and answers that “This was true for Adam, but with the Original Sin the human person lost this resemblance and dignity in the eyes of God,” adding “he recovers this dignity through baptism.” However, this has never been the Church’s understanding; rather, the notion of man as bearing the image of God has always been rooted in his nature as a rational and spiritual creature, who is capable of knowing and loving God. In this most fundamental sense, human nature is not lost through original sin, but is corrupted only in secondary senses.
St. Thomas Aquinas in the Summa Theologiae (I, 93.4) states this explicitly, noting that the “principal signification” of man being made in the image and likeness of God lies in our “intellectual nature,” which is shared by all humanity. He notes that because of his rational intellect, “man possesses a natural aptitude for understanding and loving God; and this aptitude consists in the very nature of the mind, which is common to all men” and therefore the image of God “is found in all men” according to the natural sense. He recognizes that there are two supernatural senses in which man may also be in the image and likeness of God: first, insofar as man is just, and second, insofar as he is among the blessed in heaven. But they are both predicated on the first, which is man’s spiritual nature and rational faculty.
This understanding of the meaning of man bearing the “image and likeness of God” is found as well in the writings of the Fathers such as Augustine (De Trinitate, VII) who notes that “man was made after the image of Him that created him…according to the rational mind”. It is also found in the Catechism of Pope St. Pius X (“God the Father”, q. 33), which tells us that we bear God’s image “because the human soul is spiritual and rational, free in its operations, capable of knowing and loving God and of enjoying Him forever.” The Catechism of the Catholic Church makes virtually the same statement in paragraph 1705, stating that man is in God’s image “by virtue of his soul and his spiritual powers of intellect and will.”
But wasn’t our nature corrupted by the sin of Adam and Eve? In an important sense, yes, but Aquinas makes it clear that in the primary and most fundamental sense, the same that constitutes the image of God, the good of our nature remains intact. In the Summa Theologiae (I-II, 85, 1), Aquinas notes that the good of nature is not diminished by sin in “the principles of which nature is constituted, and the properties that flow from them, such as the powers of the soul, and so forth” but only in the secondary sense that our “natural inclination to virtue” is diminished, and the original justice from sanctifying grace is also lost. This is an important distinction to note, lest we fall into the “total depravity” doctrine of Luther condemned by the Council of Trent.
Inequality of dignity?
In furtherance of his dispute against natural human dignity, Schneider goes on (in part 1, par. 225) to answer the question, “Then human dignity is not the same in all persons?” “No,” he responds. “The human person loses his dignity in proportion to his free choice of error or evil.”
It should be noted that our innate human dignity flows from the same principles in man’s nature that make him in the image and likeness of God (his rational intellect and freedom of will, which enable him to choose God). As Aquinas tells us (Sum. The. III 4.1), this great “dignity,” which made man a fitting subject for the Incarnation, exists in man because “human nature, as being rational and intellectual, was made for attaining to the Word to some extent by its operation, viz. by knowing and loving Him.” Given that this dignity is derived from man’s created nature, how can it not be fundamentally the same in all human beings who share that nature? Aquinas affirms that it is, noting that “By nature all men are equal” (Sum. The. II-II 104.5).
With regard to the fundamental natural dignity of every human person, the Catechism of the Catholic Church quotes St. Catherine of Sienna affirming that our dignity arises from the same natural principles that make us an image of God, which would imply a fundamental equality of dignity at the natural level of our being. Catherine is quoted as asking God, “What made you establish man in so great a dignity? Certainly the incalculable love by which you have looked on your creature in yourself! You are taken with love for her; for by love indeed you created her, by love you have given her a being capable of tasting your eternal Good” (par. 356).
Schneider’s point would be an important and useful one to make if it were clearly in reference to the sense of the supernatural dignity attaching to sanctifying grace and original justice that was lost after the fall. Moreover, as Aquinas observes, individuals may also differ in dignity for a variety of reasons attaching to their social circumstances (for example, parents have a higher dignity in the hierarchy of the family than their children), a notion Aquinas calls “personal dignity” (Sum. The. II-II 63.1). Schneider could have made such distinctions here, but his careless language, rather than clarifying this point, muddies it further.
Such careful distinctions are crucial for Christian ethics, which must guide our conduct not only with regard to other Christians, but all of humanity, who bear God’s image whether or not they are baptized or in the state of grace. It is clear that Christians are morally bound always to recognize the natural and innate dignity of every human being, born and unborn, whether or not they have received the grace of baptism or have the virtue of faith. Those who forget this truth, even if out of some misguided zeal for moral purity, may legitimize injustices and atrocities against non-Christians, whose natural rights they are bound to respect. It was for this very reason that the eminent theologians of the School of Salamanca established the foundations of human rights law, seeking to correct injustices against the non-Christian inhabitants of the New World.
Children of God
Having denied that all human beings bear the likeness of God, Schneider continues with the same poor reasoning in part 1, paragraph 226, where he quotes the Catechism of the Catholic Church (par. 2212), asking, “Isn’t every human person ‘a son or daughter of the one who wants to be called “our Father”?’” “No,” he answers flatly. “One becomes a child of God only through explicit faith in Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word and Son of God, being reborn of God…through the sacrament of baptism”. In a footnote he calls the statement “a regrettable affirmation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church,” but in fact it is Schneider’s deficient catechesis that is regrettable here.
In reality, the Church has always used the concept of divine filiation or sonship with regard to human persons in two senses: their relation to God as creature to creator (that is, by their nature created in God’s image) and adoption by supernatural grace, each corresponding to the senses in which man bears the image of God. This is distinguished from the natural filiation of God the Son by way of procession from the Father.
The Angelic Doctor, in his work on the Lord’s Prayer (“Expositio in orationem dominicam”), teaches this in no uncertain terms, stating expressly that all men are sons of God and brothers because of their creation by God in his image and likeness, and distinguishing this sense of sonship from supernatural adoption. He cites numerous passages of Scripture in support of both senses.
Commenting on the phrase “our Father” in the Lord’s Prayer, Aquinas notes that “God is called ‘Father’ by reason of our special creation, in that He created us in His image and likeness, which he did not impress upon other inferior creatures: ‘Is not He thy Father, that made thee, and created thee’ (Deut., 32: 6)?” Aquinas then distinguishes this sense from the sense of “sonship” as adoption by supernatural grace: “[God is our Father] also by reason of adoption, because to other creatures He has given but a small gift, but to us an inheritance, and this because we are sons, and ‘if sons, heirs also’ (Rom., 8:17).”
Aquinas expounds on this point further in the same work, noting that “this shows that we owe two things to our neighbors. First we owe them love, because they are our brothers, for all are sons of God: ‘For he that loveth not his brother whom he seeth, how can he love God whom he seeth not (1 John 4: 20)?’ We also owe them reverence because they are children (“filii” or “sons”) of God: ‘Have we not all one Father? Hath not one God created us? Why then does everyone of us despise his brother?’ (Mal., 2: 10).” To these Scripture passages one could easily add the example of St. Paul’s statement to the pagan Athenians that “we are his (God’s) offspring” (Acts 17: 28-29) and the genealogy of Christ in the Gospel of Luke (3: 23-38), which speaks of Adam as though he were God’s son.
The distinction is further made by early Church Father St. Iranaeus of Lyons (Against Heresies, book 4, chap. 41) who states, “According to nature, then — that is, according to creation, so to speak — we are all sons of God, because we have all been created by God. But with respect to obedience and doctrine we are not all the sons of God: those only are so who believe in Him and do His will.” It is also mentioned in the Catechism of Pope St. Pius X (“Second Article of the Creed,”, q. 3) acknowledges the same two senses of divine sonship applicable to human beings: created human nature and supernatural adoption: “Jesus Christ is called the only Son of God the Father, because He alone is His Son by nature, whereas we are His sons by creation and adoption.”
To support his denial of the common sonship of man in relation to God as Creator, Schneider uses a quote from Romans 9:8 out of context: “It is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as descendants.” He fails to mention that this passage is directed against those who count themselves as God’s covenantal children by way of physical descent from Abraham, rather than by participation in the Abrahamic covenant by way of faith, which is evident from the preceding sentence (verses 6-7): “…For all are not Israelites that are of Israel. Neither are all they that are the seed of Abraham, children: but in Isaac shall thy seed be called.” The passage clearly refers to supernatural sonship by covenantal grace, not the sense of sonship through creation by God.
Are all men brothers? Schneider on “basic human fraternity”
Schneider asks the question (part 1, par. 228), “Does Christian humanism radically affirm the dignity of every person as a child of God, thereby establishing a basic fraternity?” In a footnote to the quote, Schneider calls this statement “a confusing claim of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1676” and flatly answers, “No. It is the sacrament of baptism that establishes basic human fraternity”.
Schneider supports his rejection of a “basic fraternity” among human beings by quoting a passage from the First Vatican Council’s Dei Filius, chapter 3, out of context. He translates the passage as stating, “There is no parity between the condition of those who have adhered to the Catholic truth by the heavenly gift of faith, and the condition of those who, led by human opinions, follow a false religion.” The original Latin would be more clearly translated as “the condition of those who have adhered to Catholic truth by the heavenly gift of faith, and of those who, led by human opinion, follow a false religion, is not at all the same (or “not at all equal”) (“minime par est conditio eorum, qui per caeleste fidei donum catholicae veritati adhaeserunt, atque eorum, qui ducti opinionibus humanis, falsam religionem sectantur”). He quotes a similar passage from the corresponding dogmatic canon in Dei Filius.
The quotation, taken alone, does little to support Schneider’s rejection of a “basic human fraternity” among men, and even less when seen in full context. The purpose of this statement from Dei Filius is clearly given in the surrounding text and in the dogmatic canon. The explanatory text states: “For those who have received the faith under the magisterium of the Church can never have any just cause for changing or revoking the same out of doubt” (“illi enim, qui fidem sub Ecclesiae magisterio susceperunt, nullam umquam habere possunt iustam causam mutandi, aut in dubium idem eandem revocandi”).
In other words, the difference in “condition” is that a non-Catholic who is influenced by a false religion may have just cause for questioning and doubting the truths of that religion, but a properly-instructed and baptized Catholic does not have the same just cause for casting into doubt the Catholic faith. The same paragraph explains that this is because God gives the believing Catholic grace to receive and persevere in the faith: “Those whom God has transferred into his admirable light, he confirms in the same light with his grace so that they may persevere, not deserting them, unless he himself is deserted” (“eos, quos de tenebris transtulit in admirabile lumen suum, in hoc eodem lumine ut perseverent, gratia sua confirmat, non deserens, nisi deseratur”).
The same is made clear in the corresponding sixth dogmantic canon on Faith from Dei Filius: “If anyone says that the condition of the faithful and of those who have not yet come to the one true faith are the same, such that Catholics might have a just reason for suspending their assent and calling the faith into doubt until they carry out a scientific demonstration of the credibility and truth of their faith, let them be anathema (italics mine)” (“Si quis dixerit, parem esse conditionem fidelium atque eorum, qui ad fidem unice veram nondum pervenerunt, ita ut catholici iustam causam habere possint, fidem, quam sub Ecclesiae magisterio iam susceperunt, assensu suspenso in dubium vocandi, donec demonstrationem scientificam credibilitatis et veritatis fidei suae absolverint; anathema sit.”)
Given that all human beings are descended from Adam, and all have God as their Father in the sense of being creatures in his image and likeness, it follows that a basic and natural fraternity exists between all human beings, even if there is not an equality of their spiritual condition. We have already seen that not only does the Catechism of the Catholic Church state this, but but also St. Thomas Aquinas quotes the prophet Malachai (2:10) to this effect. Strangely, in the very next paragraph of his Credo (part 1, par. 228), Schneider also acknowledges that a fraternity of “blood” exists between human beings that is “based on nature” and our common descent from Adam, although he again fails to recognize that this fraternity ultimately arises from the fatherhood of God as Creator.
“There are two kinds of fraternity: that of blood, in Adam and Eve, and that of grace in Jesus Christ, given through his Church and sacraments,” states Schneider, adding that “perfect human dignity and fraternity for all human beings can only have one source: Jesus Christ.” In the next paragraph (229), he denies that “a merely human fraternity is sufficient for man” and warns in the following paragraph (230) that “the promotion of a purely human fraternity easily leads toward a universal religion in the Freemasonic sense.”
All of these affirmations are true and good, even if Schneider fails to acknowledge that God is our common Father as our creator, but how does this deny a “basic human fraternity” among men? In fact, if we are to accept the scholastic dictum derived from Sts. Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas, that “grace builds on nature” as its foundation, hasn’t Schneider rather proven the existence of a “basic human fraternity” by way of man’s natural fraternity?
The sacred liturgy: glorification vs sanctification?
Schneider’s excessive polemicism also extends to his critique of modern liturgical abuses. As Cardinal Josef Ratzinger and numerous other critics of the liturgical reform observed, the versus populum orientation and other aspects of modern liturgical practice may lead to the impression that the liturgy is oriented to man in his community rather than orienting the worshiper to God, a very legitimate criticism that is more relevant today than ever. In his Credo, Schneider had the opportunity to clarify this important point without doing violence to the truth that the primary purpose of the sacraments (which are the principal part of the liturgy) does in fact include and entail the sanctification of the faithful. Instead, he appears to deny this in certain passages, making the sanctification of the faithful appear “secondary” and non-essential.
In Part III, q. 755, Schneider asks, “Is the liturgy primarily for the instruction or edification of man?” He answers, “No. The liturgy is primarily for the glorification of God. In a connected but secondary way, it is also a source of instruction and sanctification for those who participate in it.”
Although Schneider has some ground to stand on here, his statement is ill-explained and potentially misleading. The whole purpose of creation is the glorification of God, as the First Vatican Council dogmatically defines (“On God the Creator”, can. 5), and of course this is supremely true of the worship of God by his creatures in the sacred liturgy, as St. Thomas observes in the Summa Theologiae (II-II, 93, 2) . However, as Aquinas points out in the same work (I, 65, 2), the glorification of God in our created world is accomplished through the perfection of creation (his intrinsic glory is absolute and infinite and cannot be altered).
Given that man is God’s greatest creation among physical creatures, and is perfected through his sanctification, how can the glorification of God and the sanctification of man be separated from one another? They are clearly two ways of expressing the same relation, one in reference to the cause, and the other in relation to the effect, as Aquinas also instructs us (Sum. The. III, 60, 5). In other words, God sanctifies us through our glorification of him, and we glorify him through the sanctity he has given us, as he is “glorified in his saints” (2 Thess. 1:10).
This equation of the glorification of God and the sanctification of man in the sacrificial economy of the Church is made very clearly by Pope Pius XII in his encyclical on the liturgy, Mediator Dei (1947). Pius states that Christ’s sacrifice on the cross enables each person to “set about the personal task of achieving his own sanctification, so rendering to God the glory due to Him.” He also states that, in Christ’s sacrifice, the glorification of the Father and his act of sanctifying man are one “single aim”: “At the Last Supper He celebrates a new Pasch with solemn rite and ceremonial, and provides for its continuance through the divine institution of the Eucharist. On the morrow, lifted up between heaven and earth, He offers the saving sacrifice of His life, and pours forth, as it were, from His pierced Heart the sacraments destined to impart the treasures of redemption to the souls of men. All this He does with but a single aim: the glory of His Father and man’s ever greater sanctification.”
As his only source for his claim, Schneider refers us to session 22 of the Council of Trent (the Decree on the Sacrifice of the Mass), chapter one. However, the text not only fails to support him, but rather undermines his claim, stating clearly that the reason for Christ’s priesthood and the Mass is our perfection through sanctification.
The text of chapter one begins, “Whereas, under the former Testament, according to the testimony of the Apostle Paul, there was no perfection due to the weakness of the Levitical priesthood, it was proper for God, the Father of mercies, to ordain that another priest should rise according to the order of Melchizedek, our Lord Jesus Christ, who might consummate, and lead to perfection, as many of those who were to be sanctified” (translation mine).
The chapter continues with the same theme, informing us that Christ offered himself on the cross “to operate an eternal redemption;” and established the Mass to represent and perpetuate the memory of this sacrifice, which is to be “applied to the remission of those sins which we daily commit”. In other words, to sanctify us. No explicit mention is made of the glorification of God, although of course this is entailed in our sanctification.
It is notable that that Trent only mentions glorification once in session 22, in its “Decree on what is to be observed and avoided in the celebration of the Mass,” and that is to order its reforms so that “due honor and cult may, for the glory of God and the edification of the faithful people, be restored,” therefore joining together the glory of God and the edification of the faithful.
It’s understandable that Schneider might wish to counteract the tendency in modern liturgical practice to understand the Mass as “the community celebrating itself,” as Cardinal Josef Ratzinger rightly decried in his memoir La mia vita (2005), removing its orientation to God as primary. The versus populum orientation and the tendency of priests to innovate the Roman rite in other ways clearly contribute to this tendency. However, Schneider’s incautious language seems to imply that the sanctification of man is only a secondary byproduct of the Mass and the liturgy in general, when in fact it is intrinsic to it and inseparable from it.
Although “liturgy” includes all of the official, public rites of the Church, its supreme expression is found in the sacraments, and above all, in the Eucharistic Sacrifice. In the eastern rites, the word “liturgy” is mainly used in reference to the Eucharist, which is called the Divine Liturgy. The Roman Catechism, issued by the Holy See to implement the reforms of the Council of Trent, repeatedly tells us that sacraments in general are to be defined as “a visible sign of an invisible grace, instituted for our justification” (De sacramentis, I, V), an understanding derived from the writings of St. Augustine (De catechizandis rudibus, XXVI). In other words, they exist to restore or preserve the original justice given to us by sanctifying grace.
To be fair to Schenider, post-Tridentine theologians of the last two hundred years have placed a strong emphasis on the purpose of the Mass as the honor of God, normally listing it first among its purposes, which is appropriate because it most explicitly makes God the end of the liturgy. The Catechism of Pope St. Pius X (“The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass”, q. 9) lists as first of the ends of the Mass as “to honor him (God) properly” and the Baltimore Catechism #3 (q. 922) lists the first end for which the sacrifice of the cross was offered as “to honor and glorify God”. Both place the obtainment of grace as fourth in the list, which could easily be read as corresponding to sanctification, although it doesn’t have to be understood that way. In fact, the word “sanctification” doesn’t appear in the list of purposes in those catechisms.
Nineteenth and early twentieth century theological manuals sometimes had similar content, for example, the famous Sacrae Theologiae Summa (book 4, tract. 3, par. 213), states with regard to the Mass that “Latria (adoration) is the essential and primary purpose of any sacrifice, and it is therefore the first effect that follows from it.” Pope Pius XII, again in Mediator Dei, listed the purposes of the Mass as “adoration”, “thanksgiving,” “expiation,” and “petition” or “impetration”, and a similar list is given in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. However, it would seem wrong to read these purposes as if they exclude sanctification, which, again, is not named as a distinct purpose among the others.
Glorification vs. communion?
In a similar vein, in part 3, q. 448, Schneider asks, “To assist well at Mass, must we receive Holy Communion?” He answers, “No. As Mass exists first to glorify God, our assistance is primarily one of adoration, to which Holy Communion may be added if we are properly disposed. This is why we are bound to attend Mass at least once per week (on Sundays), but are bound to receive communion only once per year.”
Of course it is true that the faithful in general are not strictly obligated to receive the consecrated species at each Mass, and this is a point made by Pope Pius XII in Mediator Dei and enshrined in canon law for centuries. As Schneider states, on can participate well in the Mass by uniting one’s self spiritually with the action of sacrifice and in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. However, Mediator Dei also observes that the reception of Holy Communion is not at all an optional part of the Mass itself; the sacred minister who celebrates the Mass is absolutely required to communicate under both species, every time. Moreover, the faithful in general are exhorted by the Church to receive as frequently as possible, preferably every time they participate in the Mass, assuming they have the proper dispositions and are free from mortal sin.
This is not a novelty established in recent decades, but an ancient teaching of the Church found in the very words of the Lord’s Prayer as they appear in the original Greek and St. Jerome’s translation of the Gospel of Matthew “Give us this day our supersubstantial bread” (6:11) – a clear reference to the Eucharist. This is why the Council of Trent (sess. 22, ch. 6) declared that “The holy council wishes indeed that at each mass the faithful who are present should communicate, not only in spiritual desire but also by the sacramental partaking of the Eucharist, that thereby they may derive from this most holy sacrifice a more abundant fruit”.
The Roman Catechism, citing St. Augustine, instructs pastors to urge the faithful to receive Holy Communion as often as possible, preferably every day: “Let not the faithful imagine that it is enough to receive the body of the Lord once a year only, in obedience to the decree of the Church. They should approach oftener; but whether monthly, weekly, or daily, cannot be decided by any fixed universal rule. St. Augustine, however, lays down a most certain norm: Live in such a manner as to be able to receive every day. It will therefore be the duty of the pastor frequently to admonish the faithful that, as they deem it necessary to afford daily nutriment to the body, they should also feel solicitous to feed and nourish the soul every day with this heavenly food”.
Pope Pius X blamed infrequent communion on the Jansenist heresy and sought to encourage frequent and daily communion, in his Decree on Frequent and Daily Reception of Holy Communion, issued in 1905. Even Schneider himself (part 3, q. 400) mentions “frequent communion” as one of several means to “prove our love and devotion to Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament”.
This matter might have supplied the opportunity to Schneider to mention the fundamental relationship between a sacrifice and meal in the sacramental economies of the Old and New Testaments. Most sacrifices of the Old Testament, including the daily sacrifices of the Temple and particularly the Passover supper, involved eating part or all of the sacrificial victim. The Last Supper is seen by Scripture scholars as the first part of Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross, in which the sacrificial lamb is Jesus himself. This is why the crucifixion took place on the Passover, and it is why the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass can never be separated from the reception of Holy Communion by the celebrant. “For Christ our pasch is sacrificed. Therefore let us feast…” (1 Cor. 5:7-8).
Careless language about the Incarnation
In his apparent eagerness to reject naturalistic systems of thought that deny the reality or the importance of the Incarnation of Christ, Schneider makes vague and ambiguous statements that could easily be misread and do little to shed light on Catholic doctrine.
One of these is the strange assertion that “all life and existence hinges on the Incarnation of the Son of God.” The statement appears rather suddenly in part 1, par. 294, and is accompanied by no clear explanation. Schneider adds that those who deny the Incarnation “will have suffering in this life and be eternally lost in the next,” a statement that is obviously true given the proper caveats regarding non-culpable ignorance, but whose relation to the topic at hand is not clear.
It is hard to imagine what possible meaning this first phrase could have. In light of the statement that follows, does Schneider mean “salvation” when he refers to “all life and existence”? If so, why does he use the latter phrase, which has vastly different implications? Is he is thinking of Scripture passages appropriating to the Son the act of creating and sustaining the existence of the world, such as “All things were made by him”, “All things were created through him and for him”, “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together,” etc.? Indeed, the whole Trinity, including the Son, created the world and all it contains. However, this doesn’t mean that creation depends on the Incarnation for its existence; after all, the Incarnation is itself a created and contingent reality (as Aquinas observes in the Summa Theologiae III, 2), and didn’t exist at the creation of the world.
One might dismiss the above quotation as simply ambiguous language rather than an exaggeration of the doctrine of the Incarnation. However, the paragraph immediately prior to it partakes of the same tendency, appearing to elevate the Incarnation to the principal dogma of the faith, upon which all others depend. Schneider states (part 1, par. 293) that “Every departure from Catholic doctrine is essentially an error about the Incarnation.” Again, he gives no explanation for this vast claim, and one must ask how this could possibly be, particularly given that the greatest and most sublime of all of doctrines is clearly the Blessed Trinity, which is the “central mystery of the Christian faith and life” and “the source of all the other mysteries of faith” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, par. 234).
It is true that all of the Church’s doctrines are directly or indirectly interrelated, so we could argue that denying any one undermines the others, but then this statement would be applicable to all doctrines, and not just the doctrine of the Incarnation. Given that the Incarnation is not a necessary and absolute reality, as is the divine Trinitarian nature but a created and contingent one, how is it that all other doctrines depend on it? For example, do Trinitarian heresies, like the denial of the double procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son, somehow entail a denial of the Incarnation? If so, how?
Fudging the definition of schism
In Part I, par. 564, Schneider sets a trap for himself by falsely defining schism, which undermines his legitimate efforts to clarify the limits of obedience to ecclesiastical authority. The traditional definition found in the 1917 Code of Canon Law is the act of “refusing to submit to the Supreme Pontiff or to maintain communion with members of the Church who are subject to him”. The current CIC has virtually the same definition. However, Schneider tells us (Part I, par. 254) that schism is to be defined simply as “refusing to recognize the Supreme Pontiff,” an insufficient and ambiguous phrase that opens him to the charge of redefining the term for his own convenience, given that his catechism contains other statements about the limitation of obedience owed to prelates.
This is particularly awkward for Schneider, who has recently made common cause with the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X, an organization of dubious canonical status that for years was led by excommunicated bishops and whose priests were regarded as automatically suspended a divinis. Moreoever, Schneider’s own position as a dissident of the Francis papacy also makes him an easy target of accusations of schismatic disobedience, however unfair such accusations might be. Why raise the issue by this clearly watered-down definition of schism?
History of the canon of Scripture rewritten
In his eagerness to defend the faith, Schneider falls into at least one major historical error as well. It appears in paragraph 29 of the Introduction, in which Schneider makes the strange claim that the canon of Scripture was “uncontested” from the fifth century until Luther denied the Greek and Aramaic Old Testament scriptures (often called the “deuterocanonicals”) as a way of rejecting proof-texts for Catholic doctrine.
It is true that Luther wrongly took this position in order to attack Catholic doctrine, and it is also true that the canonicity of various deuterocanonical books were repeatedly affirmed by popes and councils over many centuries. Such facts should be clearly stated in addressing this issue. However, it is simply false to claim that the canon of Scripture was uncontested in the Church before Luther. No dogmatic declaration was made regarding the canon until the Council of Trent in 1546, and in the preceding centuries that numerous authorities freely denied the canonicity of various Old Testament deuterocanonical books.
Jerome’s prefaces to his Vulgate translation openly denied the canonicity of the deuterocanonicals, and although Jerome himself appears to have at least partially retracted his view later, these prefaces were widely republished throughout the Middle Ages in many editions of the Vulgate as well as the famous Scripture commentaries of the Glossa Ordinaria, with no caveats. Among the many Medieval theologians who rejected some or all deuterocanonicals was Gregory the Great (later Pope), who explicitly denied the canonicity of the first book of Maccabees in his famous sixth century commentaries on the Book of Job (book 19, chapter 34), and Thomas Cajetan, a cardinal and the most eminent theologian of the early 16th century, who flatly denied the canonicity of all the deuterocanonicals, claiming Jerome’s authority exceeded even councils and doctors of the Church (In omnes authenticos veteris testamenti historiales libros commentarii, 481b-482a.)
God is not the cause of physical evil?
In part 1, paragraphs 56-57 Schneider strangely claims that physical evils (which he calls “imperfections of creation”) are merely “permitted” by God to exist, stating that God “can only cause good.” Even more strangely, this assertion is immediately undermined by a quotation he makes of Ephriam the Syrian, who notes that God “smites” his creatures for their sins, a transitive term in the active voice, which certainly implies more than a passive permission for physical evils. Similar language appears countless times in both Old and New Testaments in reference to God’s punishments.
Aquinas (Sum. The. I 49.2) on this point is clear: God is indeed the author of the evil of punishment, but not the evil of fault (which caused by our own moral deficiencies). In the same article, Aquinas notes that God also causes evil in nature for the purpose of perfecting the general order of creation, and further cites divine punishments for sin as an example of physical evils caused by God. Aquinas makes a similar distinction (Sum. The. I-II 79.2) between sin and its accompanying act, noting that God is not the cause of the former but is in fact the cause of the latter.
Adam and Eve “perfectly fulfilled” in the Garden of Eden?
In Part I, paragraph 165, Schneider makes the unfortunate statement that Adam and Eve were “perfectly fulfilled” in the Garden of Eden. However, this is at best bad theology. As Aquinas observes (Sum. The. I 94.), Adam and Eve enjoyed the preternatural gifts and had sanctifying grace but did not enjoy the beatific vision of God, which is necessary for the perfect happiness of man (Sum. The. I-II 3.8).
Is Schneider making the novel claim that Adam and Eve enjoyed the Beatific Vision in the Garden of Eden? Presumably not, but given that that is man’s perfect fulfillment, he would certainly seem to be implying it. Whether it’s sloppy and hasty writing or bad theology, it’s misleading.
Redemption for Credo?
Although Credo, in my estimation, must be said to fail in its purpose, its successful publication and its eager reception by Catholic clergy and laity are a reminder of the deep need in the Church for a reaffirmation of so many truths of the faith that have been obscured in recent decades. The project of producing a comprehensive and careful response to modern confusion is a worthy one that would seem to exceed the limits of a mere question-and-answer catechism, and would require careful preparation and critical review by theologians who are thoroughly acquainted with the Church’s organic, bimilennial tradition in all of its principal elements.
What is certain is that such a project must avoid being merely reactive to the Second Vatican Council and the more recent magisterium’s tendency to novel formulations that appear to be theologically deficient or otherwise problematical. A sound response is one that answers ambiguity with clarity, and the statement of partial truths or the overemphasis on certain truths with a complete and proportional presentation of the matter in question.
Those of us who count ourselves as “traditionalists” often fall into the trap of knee-jerk reaction that falls into the other side of a false either-or proposition, when a “both-and” response is what is truly necessary, filling in the gaps and providing the context that is lost in the ambiguous statements of modernist theologians. We should strive to present Catholic doctrine in a fundamentally positive way, not as a refutation of some other system of thought, as if it is merely the answer to some error but, rather, as the supreme expression of reality as it really is, prepared to stand on its own and provide a better alternative to deficient and incomplete expressions of the truth. It is the task of the traditional theologian to offer something better, deeper, and more comprehensive, rather than simply reacting to error and denying what is wrong. That challenge is still awaiting faithful Catholic theologians with the patience and determination to carry it out.
Credo: Compendium of the Catholic Faith
By Bishop Athanasius Schneider
Sophia Institute Press, 2023
Hardcover, 402 pages
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