Bishop Schneider Urges Pope Leo XIV to Approve SSPX Consecrations
By: Michael Haynes
Bishop Athanasius Schneider has urged Pope Leo XIV to give permission to the Society of Saint Pius X’s episcopal consecrations, writing that to do so would be to prevent a “truly unnecessary and painful further division within the Church.”
In a lengthy intervention issued on February 24, Bishop Schneider has come somewhat to the defense of the SSPX’s proposed consecration of new bishops: not directly defending their plan to do so without papal approval, but rather petitioning Pope Leo XIV to approve the Society’s request to consecrate new bishops.
Referencing the multitude of reactions to the SSPX’s decision, Schneider lamented how the varied voices range “from understanding, benevolence, neutral observation, and common sense to irrational rejection, peremptory condemnation, and even open hatred.”
Such negative reactions, “though often well-intentioned,” he wrote, “reveal that the heart of the problem has not yet been grasped with sufficient honesty and clarity.” This points to “a tendency to remain at the surface,” where “priorities within the life of the Church are reversed, elevating the canonical and legal dimension—that is, a certain juridical positivism—to the supreme criterion.”
Schneider – the prominent auxiliary of the Diocese of Astana – also warned how there is a “lack” of the historical context behind the consecration of bishops and the process by which one might enter into schism.
“Disobedience is thus too readily equated with schism,” he wrote. “The criteria for episcopal communion with the Pope, and consequently the understanding of what truly constitutes schism, are viewed in an overly one-sided manner when compared with the practice and self-understanding of the Church in the Patristic era, the age of the Church Fathers.”
Indeed, concluding his arguments, Schneider opined that should the SSPX be “completely cut off” then the fault would lie chiefly with the Holy See rather than the Society:
It would be a tragedy if the SSPX were completely cut off, and the responsibility for such a division would rest primarily with the Holy See. The Holy See should bring the SSPX in, offering at least a minimum degree of Church integration, and then continue the doctrinal dialogue. The Holy See has shown remarkable generosity toward the Communist Party of China, allowing them to select candidates for bishops—yet her own children, the thousands upon thousands of faithful of the SSPX, are treated as second-class citizens.
Closing his intervention with a direct plea to the Pope, Schneider wrote that Leo had the opportunity to be a true bridge builder and thus deliver on the promise that he and many others made about him upon the papal conclave of May 2025.
