At 6:00 p.m. on Wednesday, May 30, the Society of St. Dominic, a private association of lay faithful in Winnipeg, Manitoba, will confer on His Excellency Bishop Athanasius Schneider its Regina Sacratissimi Rosarii Award for the Fatima centenary. The award will be presented on the Society’s behalf by Dr. Peter Kwasniewski of Wyoming Catholic College at the Fort Garry Hotel, 222 Broadway, Winnipeg.
For more information, please visit the Society of St. Dominic website.
The recipient: Bishop Athanasius Schneider, ORC
Bishop Schneider is the auxiliary bishop of Archdiocese of Maria Santissima in Astana, Kazakhstan. He was born of ethnic German parents on April 7, 1961, in the Central Asian republic of Kyrgyzstan, which was part of the former Soviet Union at the time. When he was eight, the family moved to Estonia, then also part of the Soviet Union. For four years, they travelled, at great risk from the communist authorities, a hundred kilometres by train one Sunday a month to attend Mass at the nearest church.
The family moved to Germany in 1973. Bishop Schneider joined the Canons Regular of the Holy Cross in Austria and was ordained a priest on March 25, 1990. He received a doctorate in Patristics from the Pontifical Patristic Institute Augustinianum in Rome in 1997, and began teaching at Mary, Mother of the Church Seminary in Karaganda, Kazakhstan in 1999. His episcopal ordination took place on June 2, 2006, and he served as Auxiliary Bishop in Karaganda before being appointed to his current post in Astana in 2011. He is also General Secretary of the Conference of the Catholic Bishops of Kazakhstan.
Una Voce Canada was honoured to have Bishop Schneider as guest speaker at its 2015 annual general meeting.
The presenter: Dr. Peter Kwasniewski
Dr. Kwasniewski holds a B.A. in Liberal Arts from Thomas Aquinas College in California and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. After teaching at the International Theological Institute in Austria and for the Franciscan University of Steubenville’s Austrian Program, he joined the founding team of Wyoming Catholic College in Lander, Wyoming, where he serves as professor and choirmaster. He is a board member and scholar of The Aquinas Institute for the Study of Sacred Doctrine, which is publishing the Opera Omnia of the Angelic Doctor, and a Fellow of the Albertus Magnus Center for Scholastic Studies.
Dr. Kwasniewski has taught and written several hundred articles on Thomistic thought, sacramental and liturgical theology, the history and aesthetics of music, and the social doctrine of the Church. He has published two books with The Catholic University of America Press and a volume of music for liturgical use, Sacred Choral Works (Corpus Christi Watershed, 2014). His book Resurgent in the Midst of Crisis: Sacred Liturgy, the Traditional Latin Mass, and Renewal in the Church (Angelico Press, 2014), has been translated into Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Polish, and Czech. His latest book, Noble Beauty, Transcendent Holiness: Why the Modern Age Needs the Mass of Ages, was published by Angelico Press in 2017.
Una Voce Canada was honoured to have Dr. Kwasniewski as guest speaker at its 2016 annual general meeting.
