On March 7, LifeSite News published an interview with Bishop Athanasius Schneider under a headline that read in part:
EXCLUSIVE: Bishop Schneider wins clarification on “diversity of religions” from Pope Francis
One can just imagine that some readers saw this click-worthy headline and thought to themselves, Wow, Bergoglio is going issue a correction of his own heresy; showing that he really is a ‘son of the Church’ by affirming the true faith!
Those who took the bait, clicked through and read the interview, however, quickly came to the realization that they had been had. Let’s take a closer look.
The Bishops of Kazakhstan and Central Asia, during their recent ad lumina, were given the opportunity to speak with His Hereticalness directly; after which, Bishop Schneider was asked by LifeSite News:
Can you say more about how Pope Francis responded to your concern about the Abu Dhabi statement on the diversity of religions? The controversial passage reads: “The pluralism and the diversity of religions, color, sex, race and language are willed by God in His wisdom, through which He created human beings.”
Bishop Schneider replied:
On the topic of my concern about the phrase used in the Abu Dhabi document – that God “wills” the diversity of religions – the Pope’s answer was very clear: he said that the diversity of religions is only the permissive will of God. He stressed this and told us: you can say this, too, that the diversity of religions is the permissive will of God.
I tried to go more deeply into the question, at least by quoting the sentence as it reads in the document. The sentence says that as God wills the diversity of sexes, color, race and language, so God wills the diversity of religions. There is an evident comparison between the diversity of religions and the diversity of sexes.
I mentioned this point to the Holy Father, and he acknowledged that, with this direct comparison, the sentence can be understood erroneously. I stressed in my response to him that the diversity of sexes is not the permissive will of God but is positively willed by God. And the Holy Father acknowledged this and agreed with me that the diversity of the sexes is not a matter of God’s permissive will.
But when we mention both of these phrases in the same sentence, then the diversity of religions is interpreted as positively willed by God, like the diversity of sexes. The sentence therefore leads to doubt and erroneous interpretations, and so it was my desire, and my request that the Holy Father rectify this. But he said to us bishops: you can say that the phrase in question on the diversity of religions means the permissive will of God.
OK, here’s the real deal. First, while many will be moved to applaud Bishop Schneider for addressing the issue, he has shown himself to be timid and ineffectual.
To say of the Abu Dhabi statement, “the sentence can be understood erroneously” is but a half-truth at best; more appropriately, it is a lie. The reality is that the sentence as written is heresy plain and simple. Schneider knows this, and yet, in confronting Bergoglio to his face, unlike St. Paul, he evidently feared the man more than God.
More importantly, what Bergoglio revealed of himself is not that he is correctable; on the contrary – he revealed himself to be a formal heretic. Recall Bishop Schneider’s account:
…he said that the diversity of religions is only the permissive will of God. He stressed this and told us: you can say this, too, that the diversity of religions is the permissive will of God. He stressed this and told us: you can say this, too, that the diversity of religions is the permissive will of God.
You can say this too. How very big of Bergoglio; giving a bishop permission to teach like a Catholic! The only thing this proves is that Francis couldn’t possibly care less what is taught; much less what is believed, which is why he has no problem with the diversity of religions in the first place.
What all of this adds up to is simple: Bergoglio has confirmed that he knows damned well what the Church teaches in this regard, and yet, he is sticking to his error. He is determined to allow the document and the heresy within it to stand as it is written; a document, I might remind readers, that bears the signature of the man that most of the world considers to be the Successor of St. Peter and the Vicar of Jesus Christ!
Once again, it is perfectly clear where we find ourselves at this remarkable moment in Church history: A formal, manifest, pertinacious, obstinate heretic is posing as the pope, and even the cream of the episcopal crop has not the Catholic faith to declare as much to the world for the good of souls.
