[Editor’s note: The following address was delivered at the Rome lauch of the first book-length interview with Bishop Athanasius Schneider, titled ‘Christus Vincit: Christ’s Triumph Over the Darkness of the Age,’ held at the Palazzo Cardinal Cesi on Monday, October 14. The book, published by Angelico Press, is now available on Amazon.]
Christus Vincit: Christ’s Triumph Over the Darkness of the Age
14 October 2019 – Palazzo Cardinal Cesi, Rome
Prof. Roberto de Mattei
It is a great honor for me to participate alongside Cardinal Burke and Bishop Schneider, in the presentation of Diane Montagna’s book-interview with the same Msgr. Athanasius Schneider, entitled: Christus Vincit: Christ’s Triumph Over the Darkness of the Age.[1]
The interview with Bishop Schneider is very beautiful and I congratulate not only the bishop, but also the journalist, who in her questions touched on every aspect of the contemporary religious debate. But I do not want to deprive you of the pleasure of reading the book by telling you what it says. I believe that the best way to present it is to insert it into historical horizon in which it was written and published, as a Synod is now underway that can rightly be described as one of the most dramatic events for the Church in recent centuries.
Cardinal Burke and Bishop Schneider have launched an appeal to pray and fast so that the Synod on the Amazon does not approve the errors and heresies contained in the Instrumentum laboris. And for that we thank them. They were among the few Pastors of the Church who broke the silence in which the worldwide episcopate is immersed amid the current crisis. By doing so they have fulfilled their mandate as successors of the Apostles. Saint Augustine says that those who do not publicly profess what they believe are only half faithful: “Non enim perfecte credunt, qui quod credunt loqui nolunt.”[2]Not only those who abandon truth to embrace error, but also those who do not confess it publicly when necessary. For silent Pastors in times of darkness, such as the one in which we live, we recall the words of the prophet Isaiah: “Woe to me, for I have kept silent” (cf. Isaiah VI, 5). ….
Allegory of Prudence by Titian, c. 1570 [National Gallery, London]. A barely visible inscription reads: EX PRAETERITO/PRAESENS PRUDENTER AGIT/NE FUTURA ACTIONẼ DETURPET (“From the experience of the past, the present acts prudently, lest it spoil future actions”).
