Because of the heated debate on the interpretation of Amoris Laetitia, “we are witnessing today a bizzare form of schism,” Bishop Athanasius Schneider said in a French television interview.
Bishop Schneider—an auxiliary in the Archdiocese of Astana, Kazakhstan, who has been an outspoken supporter of traditional Catholicism—said that the Church today faces a crisis of faith that is “only comparable to the general confusion of the Arian crisis in the 4th century.”
He charged that some influential clerics have broken away from the Catholic tradition to promote a “gospel of sexual liberty.” He added that these clerics have sought to suppress open discussion of their aims, and “make use of calumnies for the sake of silencing the voice of truth.”