WAVERLY (SNR) – Bishop Athanasius Schneider led a pro-life retreat and preached at a holy hour in the Lincoln Diocese Oct. 19.
Bishop Schneider, who grew up in the “underground Church” of the Soviet Union and now serves as a bishop in the former Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan, was invited to Lincoln by OneHeartOneMind, a lay-founded initiative that meets twice monthly at Our Lady of Good Counsel Retreat House in Waverly.
Father Gary Coulter, executive director of the retreat house, also serves as spiritual advisor to OneHeartOneMind.
Each bi-weekly meeting of OneHeartOneMind begins at 7 p.m. with a holy hour and Benediction, offered in reparation for the production and use of abortion-tainted vaccines and medicines.
The holy hour is followed by a one-hour meeting for fellowship, refreshments and a discussion about pro-life, the COVID vaccines, their related mandates, job losses occasioned by a refusal to take abortion-tainted COVID vaccines, and related issues raised by Bishop Schneider, who keeps in regular contact with OneHeartOneMind.
Margaret Wall, a member of St. Peter Parish and an associate of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter apostolate at St. Francis Oratory, both in Lincoln, created OneHeartOneMind after reading an interview with Bishop Schneider.
In that interview, the bishop called for “a new pro-life movement.” He said the pro-life movement had shown itself to be “very meritorious” in providing a “united voice against abortion.”
“I think there now comes a new time,” he said, “a new phase, a new period of all pro-life movements to protest, clearly and unambiguously, against abortion-tainted medicines, against the abuse of the body parts of the unborn.” He added that, “We have to be courageous” in opposing the trafficking of aborted babies’ bodies.
Bishop Schneider’s call for protests against abortion-tainted medicines and vaccines is consistent with that of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, which asked Catholics to write letters of protest to pharmaceutical companies, requesting that they develop vaccines and medicines without the use of cell lines derived from aborted babies. Among many other activities, OneHeartOneMind provides templates and copies of such letters so that the faithful can send these protests in a convenient manner.
Bishop Schneider’s visit to Lincoln began with a day-long retreat at Our Lady of Counsel Retreat House in Waverly. The retreat quickly sold out after its initial announcement, and hundreds of people from around the world participated in it via live stream organized by the retreat house.
During the first of his two conferences, Bishop Schneider said an entire “fetal industry” has grown up around abortion-tainted vaccines and other medicines.
He commended the members of OneHeartOneMind, however, by saying “it is for me a joy to visit you and especially to strengthen you in your holy endeavor to protect the littlest ones... the unborn murdered children whose bodies are exploited and used” by the macabre fetal industry. Its ghoulish practices include removing babies’ commercially valuable tissue, without anesthetic, while the children are still alive and in the process of being killed.
But “God will give us His help,” Bishop Schneider noted, if we seek to develop medicines and vaccines that have no connection whatsoever to aborted babies and what he called the “cruel” fetal industry.
During his homily at Holy Mass, which was celebrated in the Extraordinary Form, Bishop Schneider focused on the importance of reverence with respect to the Holy Eucharist. Jesus knew the Holy Eucharist, which is His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, would be profaned by his enemies, the bishop said.
“The only other person as little and defenseless as Jesus in the Consecrated Host is an unborn baby,” Bishop Schneider noted. It is therefore incumbent, he said, on the Church’s bishops, priests and the lay faithful to counteract that sacrilege by showing Jesus the utmost reverence at all times, especially at Holy Mass, and in particular at Communion.
In the second conference, Bishop Schneider talked about the Church on earth. Citing St. Paul and the Gospel evangelists, he noted that the “Christian life is indeed a warfare” against worldly values, and that the Catholic Faith “is the faith for which countless holy martyrs suffered and died. It is the faith that has brought true civilization with all its benefits into the world. And it is the only faith that can truly reform and preserve public and private morals.”
Bishop Schneider’s second conference was followed by an hour of Eucharistic adoration and then Benediction. He concluded the retreat with a question-and-answer session on a variety of topics.
When asked during that session for his advice to young people, Bishop Schneider encouraged them to be “spiritual and moral salmon” who swim against the anti-Christian attitudes of the day.
For those called to family life, the Bishop said he hoped they would create a “domestic Church” within their own homes and pass the Catholic faith to the next generation, just as the bishop’s own parents did while surrounded by a culture steeped in atheistic communism. As for young men called to priestly life, Bishop Schneider exhorted them to accept the call and to be “holy, humble and courageous priests.”
After the retreat, Bishop Schneider traveled to the Newman Center in Lincoln, where he preached at a holy hour attended by more than 300. He then attended a reception in his honor, gave a talk, and participated in a question-and-answer session.
To learn more about OneHeartOneMind, the sponsor of Bishop Schneider’s visit, contact Margaret Wall at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or (307) 287-0980.
