Bishop Athanasius Schneider noted that Pope Leo's remarks did not grasp the 'true reality' of how most Novus Ordo Masses are celebrated and said the Council Fathers did not intend for Mass to be totally in the vernacular.
Archbishop Bernard Hebda said he has opened a canonical process against Father Philip Conklin to 'clarify the situation and his status.'
(LifeSiteNews) — Father Philip Conklin, formerly a priest of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota, has left the diocese to join the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), Archbishop Bernard Hebda announced this week.
Archbishop Hebda explained that the priest had decided to affiliate with the SSPX following a sabbatical to discern his vocation in March, per an article in the Catholic Spirit, the official newspaper of the archdiocese.
The announcement came in a letter to the parishioners of St. Michael and St. Mary in Stillwater, where Conklin had served as a priest since his ordination in 2024 until earlier this year.
The archbishop further stressed that, because of Conklin’s affiliation with the Society and his refusal to end it, he decided to open a canonical process to “clarify the situation and his status.”
“At the same time, I have also informed Father Conklin that he is not to exercise any public priestly ministry,” Hebda wrote.
As of this writing, Conklin has not released a public statement on the matter.
The priest’s decision to affiliate with the SSPX is notable since the order has faced significant obstacles since its July consecration of four new bishops without a papal mandate and subsequent Vatican excommunication. Indeed, the order has been barred from using several prominent Catholic churches to celebrate Mass or pray as a group.
In August, Bishop Jean-Marc Micas of Tarbes and Lourdes banned the SSPX from celebrating Masses, sacraments, and public prayers within the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes.
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On August 25, Judge John Z. Lee of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled that the First Amendment protects the right of Americans to possess AI-generated child pornography. In a concurring opinion, Lee noted that “given the significant advances in computer-generated image technology, particularly in the field of artificial intelligence, we would benefit from additional guidance from the Supreme Court regarding the intersection between the First Amendment and virtual CSAM [child sexual abuse material] if an appropriate case should arise.”
The case centers around Wisconsinite Steven Anderegg, who was charged by the Justice Department in 2024 “with producing, distributing, and possessing visual depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct and transferring such material to a minor under the age of sixteen.” Anderegg had created thousands of images using Stable Diffusion, a “generative artificial intelligence software”; many images were “hyper-realistic . . . of prepubescent children engaging in sexually explicit acts.” Child pornography, but without real children.
In 2025, a Western District of Wisconsin judge dismissed Anderegg’s possession charge. (He still faces charges for producing and distributing the images.) Federal prosecutors appealed the dismissal, but Lee upheld the lower court ruling, albeit with explicit reluctance, citing the Supreme Court rulings Stanley v. Georgia(1969)—which states that “individuals have a First Amendment right to possess obscenity in the privacy of their home”—and Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition (2002).
“We now live in an age where GenAI models can render images depicting the abuse of virtual children that are virtually indistinguishable from those depicting the abuse of actual children,” he wrote. “This case illuminates how this evolving technology complicates the lines drawn by the Supreme Court. . . . Given the relentless advancement in artificial intelligence models, we have some concerns about the lines these cases draw, but we are not free to redraw them ourselves.”
Contrary to the implication of some headlines, Lee’s ruling was narrow, stating that the Justice Department cannot use possession statute 18 U.S.C. § 1466A(b)(1) against the in-home possession of obscene images that do not depict a real child. The ruling does not deny that the images are obscene, nor does it protect the creation or distribution of AI-generated child porn. But it does highlight the emerging front in the porn wars, adding child porn to the growing concern about deepfakes and “nudify apps.” As one dystopian CBS headline put it: “AI ‘nudify’ apps that can digitally undress any photo pose back-to-school risk.”
Decades of libertarian propaganda about porn have left us ill-prepared to deal with this moment. In some quarters, the specter of AI-generated CSAM has prompted the same arguments we have heard applied to pornography more generally: that porn use serves the social function of “safety valve” or “outlet” for sexually violent impulses and thus decreases the incidence of actual sexual violence. In a 2023 essay for Wired, Danielle Bernstein argued that AI-generated CSAM “could actually benefit society in the long run by providing a less harmful alternative to the already-massive market for images of child sexual abuse.”
More: https://firstthings.com/ai-child-porn-and-the-libertarian-lie/
(LifeSiteNews) – Bishop Athanasius Schneider, in an interview published Wednesday, responded to Pope Leo XIV’s remarks during a general audience last week about the faithful participating in the Mass less “consciously” before the post-conciliar liturgical reforms by noting that the Novus Ordo Missae deviates significantly from the council’s intended reforms.
During an interview with AdVaticanum published September 2 that mainly focused on the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), Bishop Schneider was asked about Pope Leo’s remarks during an August 26 general audience in which the pontiff suggested that those who attended Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) before the post-conciliar reforms participated as “strangers and silent spectators,” seemingly implying this was because the liturgy was in Latin and was marked by silent parts.
Schneider said the pontiff’s remarks did not grasp the “true reality” of how the overwhelming majority of Novus Ordo Masses are celebrated today. Citing the 1965 Roman Missal, the first missal published after the Council, the bishop emphasized that the Council Fathers had never intended for the Mass to be entirely in the vernacular, as is the case for most Masses celebrated according to the Novus Ordo Missae today.
Schneider further noted that the Council Fathers also would not have envisioned the loss of sacred silence during Mass that he stressed makes it more difficult for the faithful to enter into deep interior prayer and contemplation.
“(T)oday, more than 90 percent of Novus Ordo Masses are in the vernacular. And there are even dioceses where, when priests want to celebrate the Novus Ordo in Latin, they are punished and forbidden. This is an absurdity,” Schneider said.
More: https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/bishop-schneider-disputes-pope-leos-claim-of-less-active-participation-at-latin-mass/?utm_source=SOCIAL&fbclid=IwZnRzaAUH1PdwZG9mBWZkaWQWUNxaIZ5oOb5uBr3SemeibFkjU7_duWV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkCjY2Mjg1NjgzNzkAAR7hbji16mxZZL14Zqe3njeS4FGXioyTHLYZzKcibFzTvc-Z_QeeQAGF9XKKjA_aem_V6idnVKkncs9S0bo3tKkZw