Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Ad Orientem Sacrifice Over Versus Populum Banquet: Bishop Schneider on the Urgent Need to Reorient Worship

OnePeterFive is pleased to present the following excerpt from Bishop Schneider’s important book-length interview, The Springtime That Never Came (regular price $21.95, on sale at this moment at Sophia for $10!), which our contributing editor Dr. Peter Kwasniewski praised as a “worthy successor to Christus Vincit.” Here, His Excellency shows his detailed and profound grasp of the issues connected with the tectonic implications of the direction in which Christians offer their Eucharistic worship. The interviewer (questions in bold) is the famous Polish journalist Paweł Lisicki. —TSF

In one of his addresses in July 2016, Cardinal Robert Sarah said, “It is very important that we return as soon as possible to a common orientation, of priests and the faithful turned together in the same direction—eastwards or at least toward the apse—to the Lord who comes.  I think it is a very important step in ensuring that in our celebrations the Lord is truly at the center.” This is a constant thread in his speeches, interviews and books. As the famous liturgist Klaus Gamber and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger have shown in detail, the current way of celebrating Mass facing the people has no roots in the transmitted, immutable Tradition. The versus populum orientation is something entirely new, unfamiliar to earlier generations of Catholics, and in that sense it repre-sents a clear break with the Church’s liturgical tradition. Therefore, Cardinal Sarah has been calling for some time now for a return to this ancient, authentic practice. Why has this general return to the old practice still not been successful?

The proponents of the liturgical reform, who, unfortunately, were vic-torious, wanted a liturgy more suited to the mentality and customs of the world. Cunningly, they made appeals to history. They would say, we must return to the ancient Church, to the Church of the first centuries, we must restore the original practice of the first Christians. …

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