Bishop Athanasius Schneider recalls his mother weeping after encountering Communion in the hand — an experience that would later inspire Dominus Est. He also speaks about synodality, Co-Redemptrix and interreligious dialogue
[advaticanum] Bishop Athanasius Schneider is comfortable speaking with clarity on some of the most contentious matters in the Church. Last week, he addressed the SSPX, the post-conciliar liturgical reform and Pope Leo XIV’s recent General Audience on Sacrosanctum Concilium. In this week’s interview, he comments on the Marian title Co-Redemptrix, Communion in the hand and what his mother taught him about it, synodality, interreligious dialogue and what the Church is getting right in Muslim-majority Kazakhstan.
His comments are characteristically erudite and clear, but also deeply personal. They reveal his understanding of the direction of the Church while offering an insight into the formative experiences behind one of its most respected prelates.
AV: An international Marian symposium will meet at the Augustinianum on 7–8 October. On that topic, Your Excellency: after Mater Populi Fidelis, the Holy See has said the title Co-Redemptrix is “always inappropriate”, yet the saints, Doctors and the ordinary papal Magisterium used that title for centuries in a secondary and dependent sense, and they cannot have led the faithful astray. Can the faithful still invoke Our Lady as Co-Redemptrix and Mediatrix of All Graces, or has a doctrinal note of this kind now withdrawn those titles from the Church’s public language? What would a true development of Marian doctrine look like, as opposed to a quiet retirement of the titles for pastoral or ecumenical convenience?
+AS: The faithful can still use it, because there are missals approved by the popes, even with a Mass formulary, with the title of Mediatrix of All Graces. ...
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