Interview with Bishop Athanasius Schneider on Catholic resistance to LGBT propaganda

By Voice of the Family   |   12 November 2025

The passing into law of a bill banning LGBT propaganda in Kazakhstan is causing uproar in Western media, but follows a 2024 petition by the Kazakhstan Parents Union entitled, “We Are Against Open and Concealed LGBT Propaganda in the Republic of Kazakhstan”. In light of these developments, Voice of the Family presents this interview with His Excellency Athanasius Schneider, Auxiliary Bishop of Astana in Kazakhstan, on the right and duty of Catholic parents to protect their children from gender ideology.

VOICE OF THE FAMILY
What is your opinion of the reported legislative moves being made in the parliament of Kazakhstan to ban the spread of LGBT propaganda in the country?

BISHOP ATHANASIUS SCHNEIDER
Such a legislative move represents a real sign of hope. Indeed, in the midst of an almost worldwide systematic ideological indoctrination on behalf of powerful ideological and political organisations, there emerge countries who are starting to defend their own independence from such cultural colonisation by defending not only the moral traditional values of their peoples but also just common sense. I am happy that Kazakhstan is joining the ranks of some few countries in Europe who made similar legislative moves to enhance the institution of natural marriage and the family and protect society, and in first place the children and the youth, from morally devastating and nihilistic LGBT propaganda.

VOICE OF THE FAMILY
How would you respond to the reported comment of Tatiana Chernobyl, described as a human rights consultant, that the reported parliamentary moves to ban LGBT propaganda in Kazakhstan will “legitimise open discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity”?

BISHOP ATHANASIUS SCHNEIDER
Such fears are ill-founded, because as long as people are not displaying publicly and provocatively their sexual orientation they will be not discriminated by law. Moreover, in the civil identity documents there is no place foreseen to indicate a sexual orientation or gender identity. Therefore, using their civil documents such persons will enjoy the same rights as any other citizen.

VOICE OF THE FAMILY
In Britain, LGBT propaganda is routinely spread in schools, including in Catholic schools with the support of the bishops and educational officials, as a result of both government legislation and the influence of the media and powerful lobby groups. What should parents who wish to protect the innocence of their children do in this situation?

BISHOP ATHANASIUS SCHNEIDER
Parents should form legal associations to protect their natural rights to be the first educators of their children. Members of legislative bodies should submit legislative initiatives and moves to guarantee this fundamental educational right of parents by law. In the meantime, parents should withdraw, if possible, their children from schools promoting LGBT propaganda. Catholic parents and other parents with common sense and who reject the LBGT ideology could found independent schools, where such propaganda would be banned in virtue of their statutes. 

VOICE OF THE FAMILY
Are faithful Catholics right to be concerned about the influence of the homosexual lobby within the Church, for example, about gatherings like the one that took place in St Peter’s Basilica earlier this year?

BISHOP ATHANASIUS SCHNEIDER
They have not only the right but the duty to be concerned. Offering the most important Catholic church in the world — St Peter’s Basilica — as a platform for the propaganda and the legitimisation of sodomy and fornication constitutes a true abomination and an unheard profanation, which requires not only a firm protest but also acts of reparation.

VOICE OF THE FAMILY
Is there anything that the laity should do about the LGBT-themed liturgies that are now a regular occurrence in many dioceses?

BISHOP ATHANASIUS SCHNEIDER
The laity should peacefully protest against such “liturgies” which basically scorn God’s commandment and promote an objectively sinful lifestyle. Besides reasoned protests, the faithful should perform an act of reparation for every such LGBT-themed liturgy.

VOICE OF THE FAMILY
When most Catholics hear the word “synodality”, they are unsure of what it means. What are we to make of the German Synodal Way, which seems aimed at a radical restructuring of the Church’s moral teaching, her discipline and her governance? For example it contains an action plan, “Magisterial Reassessment of Homosexuality”, adopted in September 2022, which explicitly calls for the removal of homosexuality from the list of “mortal sins against chastity” in the Catechism?*

BISHOP ATHANASIUS SCHNEIDER
We should stick unshakably to the immutable truth of the Divine Revelation regarding the intrinsic evil of homosexual acts as taught infallibly by the perennial teaching office of the Church. Moreover, one should also highlight the fact that homosexual acts plainly contradict natural law and simple common sense. By rejecting the intrinsic evil of homosexual acts the Church and every true Christian are thereby making an act of charity towards those persons who have become addicted and slaves to such a lifestyle, which contradicts the inner nature of a human being and violates the deepest depth of their conscience. Instead of legitimising homosexual behaviour, one should be moved by sincere compassion towards actively homosexual persons, so that they might be freed from such a spiritually and morally addicted existence, which makes them unhappy in the deepest depth of their soul. For these reasons, those who resist the moral and legal recognition of the practice of homosexuality are ultimately true benefactors of humanity.