Bishop Schneider: Catholics in Kazakhstan Are Safe Amid Unrest

Bishop Athanasius Schneider issued the message on his Twitter account on Jan. 8.

Bishop Athanasius Schneider tweeted the news on Saturday.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider tweeted the news on Saturday. (photo: Monegasque2, CC BY-SA 4.0 / via Wikimedia)

Bishop Athanasius Schneider said on Saturday that Catholics in Kazakhstan are safe amid unprecedented unrest in the Central Asian country.

Bishop Schneider, an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Maria Santissima in Astana, issued the message on his Twitter account on Jan. 8.

“The Catholics in Kazakhstan are thanks to God safe,” he wrote. “In our churches we continue to celebrate the Holy Mass, doing Eucharistic Adoration and praying particularly for peace in our country and for harmony in the social live [sic], which the Kazakh people desire.”

Protests broke out in the nation of almost 19 million people on Jan. 2, after a steep rise in gas prices. 

Demonstrations began in world’s largest landlocked country in the city of Zhanaozen and spread to other urban areas, including the country’s largest city, Almaty.

President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev declared a nationwide state of emergency and summoned troops from the Collective Security Treaty Organization, an alliance comprising Russia and allied states.

Tokayev ordered security forces to “fire without warning,” the BBC reported on Jan. 7.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the day before for “a peaceful, rights-respecting resolution to the crisis.”

Kazakhstan, the world’s ninth-largest country by area, is a Muslim-majority nation neighboring Russia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. There is a sizable Russian Orthodox minority.

The country has an estimated 250,000 Catholics, many of whom are ethnic Poles, Germans and Lithuanians. The Catholic population rose considerably as a result of deportations under Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. 

Most of Kazakhstan’s Catholics are Latin Rite, but there is also an Eastern Rite minority of around 3,000 people.

John Paul II became the first pope to visit Kazakhstan in 2001. Pope Francis was reportedly considering a trip to the country before the outbreak of the pandemic.

In recent years, Kazakhstan has emerged as a bastion of traditionalist Catholicism. Bishop Schneider has gained an international profile through his advocacy of traditional liturgical practices.

He was one of three bishops in Kazakhstan who signed a “Profession of the Immutable Truths About Sacramental Marriage” in 2017. 

In 2019, Bishop Schneider joined Cardinal Raymond Burke in backing a 40-point “Declaration of Truths.”

Bishop Schneider signed an “Appeal for the Church and the World” regarding the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. He defended the document against critics who said it was marked by conspiracy theories.

Pope Francis and other participants attend the Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions at the Palace of Peace and Reconciliation in Nur-Sultan on Sept. 15.

Kazakhstan, German Synodal Way and Planned Parenthood’s New Business (Sept. 17)

Pope Francis went to Kazakhstan this week to visit the small Catholic community there as well as attend a congress for leaders of world religions. AC Wimmer, an editor and journalist for EWTN News, joins us on Register Radio to discuss the papal trip as well the latest news of the German ‘synodal path.’ Then we turn to Register national reporter Lauretta Brown to look at Planned Parenthood’s thriving ‘transgender services’ business and how a growing number of people are speaking out against the adverse effects of so-called gender transition.

Pope Francis: ‘The West Has Taken the Wrong Paths’

In the course of the in-flight press conference, the Pope also addressed the Russo-Ukrainian War and Ukraine’s right to defend itself, relations between the Holy See and China, and critiques that participation in the Kazakh interreligious congress risks indifferentism.