Leo XIV To Schneider: "Young People Told Me They Converted Thanks to the Traditional Latin Mass"

Bishop Athanasius Schneider told Robert Moynihan on February 16 about the 30 minutes private audience with Pope Leo XIV on December 18.

He described the tone as open and cordial: “The Pope was very kind, attentively listening to me, very, very fraternal and simple.”

Two drafts for Leo XIV

Bishop Schneider handed Pope Leo XIV two drafts during the audience.

1) A solemn Profession of Faith

He proposed a solemn Profession of Faith, modeled on Paul VI’s 1968 Credo of the People of God. Schneider emphasized that such a text would need concrete implementation, not merely publication.

2) A universal legal settlement for the Roman Rite

Monsignor Schneider urged Leo XIV to grant equal standing to the Roman Rite and to the Novus Ordo: “I came to ask you for the liturgical peace in the Church… to grant the same rights, the same dignity to the traditional form of the Roman Rite and the Novus Ordo, and to let them peacefully coexist.”

Monsignor Schneider advised against another motu proprio “ping-pong.” Instead, he suggested a more solemn juridical act - such as an Apostolic Constitution - as a stable settlement.

He also mentioned that the “one rite = unity” rationale associated with Traditionis custodes is historically false and even contradicted by current approved diversity within the Roman Rite. As examples, he referenced the Anglican Ordinariate and the Zaire rite.

“Pax Liturgica Leonina”

Bishop Schneider told Leo XIV that establishing liturgical peace could define his legacy: “When you will do this, then it will go down in history as a so-called Pax Liturgica Leonina.”

Monsignor Schneider mentioned that Leo XIV was "smiling when I said this".

The Bishop added: “He himself said that he had met young people — and I was surprised to hear this from his own lips — who told him that their conversion to God had come through the Traditional Latin Mass.”

The “Five Wounds”

Bishop Schneider also offered Leo XIV a diagnosis of the present crisis by listing five “wounds” of the Church:

1. - Doctrinal confusion (with the Profession of Faith as remedy).

2. - Liturgical anarchy and a “war” against the Mass in the Roman rite (peaceful coexistence as remedy).

3. - Unworthy, worldly bishops and cardinals aligned with secular agendas.

4. - Deficient priestly formation in seminaries (doctrine, morals, liturgy).

5. - Harm to cloistered contemplative life, referencing Cor Orans.

Modernist Prelates Promoted to Strategic Dioceses

On episcopal appointments, Schneider told the Pope: “Holy Father, the third wound in the Church is the wound of unworthy, worldly bishops and cardinals who are the new Sadducees of today, who collaborate with the agenda of the political elites, of the ideological elites of this world.”

Elsewhere in the conversation, he also described appointments as a “great wound” of the Church, criticizing the promotion of prelates known for modernist or liberal tendencies to “strategic” offices in Rome and dioceses.

Bishop Schneider also spoke about the Vatican dialogue with the Priestly Fraternity of St Pius X. This video sequence is here