The Pillar portal reports on an interview with Bishop Clemens Pickel, who has led the Diocese of St. Clement in Saratow, Russia, for over two decades. His sprawling jurisdiction covers over 1.3 million square kilometers—an area larger than France, Spain, and Germany combined—yet it is home to a mere 20,000 Catholics. Born in communist East Germany in 1961, Bishop Pickel was ordained a priest in 1988 and ventured to the Soviet Union in 1990, before the fall of the Berlin Wall. He became a bishop at the remarkably young age of 36 in 1998 and was appointed the first bishop of the newly erected Diocese of St. Clement in Saratov in 2002. Since 2017, he has served (with a break) as the head of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Russia. In May of this year, he was received in a private audience by “Pope” Leo XIV. This interview, conducted via email, covers his childhood in the GDR, his vocation, the turbulent years following the Soviet Union’s collapse, and the current challenges facing the Catholic Church in Russia.
The Illusion of a “Beautiful Diocese”: A Kingdom of Spiritual Desolation
Bishop Pickel’s affectionate description of his diocese as “the most beautiful in the world” is a chilling testament to the triumph of bureaucratic sentimentality over supernatural reality. He paints a picture of a vast, empty expanse—1.3 million square kilometers with fewer than 20,000 souls—where priests are as rare as “oases in the desert.” This is not a diocese; it is a missionary territory in the most desperate sense, a monument to the failure of the conciliar Church to evangelize. The bishop’s pride in this desolation, his focus on the geographical grandeur (“the Elbrus… the Volga… the Don”) rather than the spiritual poverty, reveals a mind shaped by the world, not by the Gospel. Where is the holy anguish over the millions of souls in his territory living in darkness? Where is the burning zeal of a St. Francis Xavier or a St. Isaac Jogues? Instead, we are offered the administrative satisfaction of a manager surveying a vast but empty corporation.
The “Vocation” Narrative: A Product of Naturalistic Psychology
The account of his vocation is a textbook example of the modernist reduction of a divine call to a psychological and sociological phenomenon. “It seemed to me initially that Christ was calling me to be a priest was a matter between us two: Him and I,” he recalls. This is the language of private, subjective experience, not of the objective, supernatural reality of a divine vocation. His motivations—feeling “at home” in the Church, wanting to “give that to many others”—are purely naturalistic. Compare this with the Church’s perennial teaching: a vocation is an unmerited gift from God, demanding a life of sacrifice, mortification, and total self-oblation for the salvation of souls. The bishop’s narrative, filled with “8 years of paralyzing doubt” and the support of friends and professors, reads like a case study in modern spiritual direction, which seeks to accommodate the “self” rather than crucify it. It is the formation of a counselor, not a shepherd willing to lay down his life for his sheep.
The Soviet Years: A Missed Opportunity for True Witness
His descriptions of ministering in the collapsing USSR are filled with a dangerous sentimentality. He speaks with admiration of the faithful who “unmistakably put faith first,” but this admiration is directed at their endurance of suffering, not at the doctrinal purity that should be its fruit. The focus is on the emotional and communal aspects—”they taught me to say ‘I love the Church’ without fear.” Where is the mention of the unchanging dogmas that sustained them? Where is the clear condemnation of the errors of communism, which the Church had consistently condemned as “intrinsically perverse” (Pius XI, Divini Redemptoris)? The bishop’s narrative aligns perfectly with the modernist ecumenical project: a focus on shared human suffering and vague “faith,” while the specific, divinely revealed truths that are the only remedy for error are passed over in silence. His work is described as “helping” and “providing the sacraments,” but the propitiatory nature of the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the necessity of conversion to the one true Church for salvation, and the social reign of Christ the King are entirely absent from his account.
The Conciliar “Synodal Process”: The Democratization of the Mystical Body
Perhaps the most revealing portion of the interview is his critique of the “Synodal Process” initiated by the antipope Francis. He states, “In many places, as it seems to me, it is still being confused with a democratization of the Church.” This is a profound admission from within the conciliar structure. He correctly identifies the error but fails to trace it to its source: the conciliar constitution Lumen Gentium, which redefined the Church as the “People of God,” a concept inherently susceptible to democratic and horizontal interpretations. The bishop’s solution—”neither the laity should carry the priests, nor the priests their communities. And yet ‘bear one another’s burdens’!”—is a tepid, liberal compromise. It avoids the hierarchical, supernatural constitution of the Church as defined by the Council of Trent and Vatican I, where authority flows from Christ to the Pope and bishops, not from the “community.” His call for “walking together, attentively, yes, lovingly!” is the language of a therapy group, not of the Mystical Body of Christ.
The Ultimate Omission: The Silence on the Social Kingship of Christ
The most damning silence in Bishop Pickel’s entire interview is on the duty of the state and nations to publicly recognize and obey Christ the King. He speaks of living in a state where the Church is “between tolerated and desired,” and advises that “everyone should gladly and wholeheartedly accept this place.” This is a direct repudiation of the solemn teaching of Pius XI in Quas Primas, which instituted the Feast of Christ the King precisely to combat the “secularism of our times” and to insist that “the entire human race is subject to the authority of Jesus Christ.” The Pope taught that rulers must “publicly honor and obey the reigning Christ” if they wish to maintain their authority. Bishop Pickel’s counsel of passive acceptance of a merely “tolerated” status is a betrayal of this dogma. It is the practical application of the modernist error condemned in the Syllabus of Errors (Proposition 77): “In the present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all other forms of worship.”
Conclusion: A Shepherd of the Conciliar Desert
Bishop Clemens Pickel emerges from this interview as a quintessential prelate of the conciliar sect: administratively competent, emotionally intelligent, and theologically adrift. His “beautiful diocese” is a spiritual desert where the primary struggle is against “fatigue” and “secularization,” understood as a sociological force rather than a rebellion against God’s law. His vision for the Church in Russia is not one of conquest for Christ the King, but of survival through “intense charitable activity” and pleasing God “today,” with the vague hope that “He will take care of the rest.” This is the gospel of the neo-church: a horizontal, temporal, and naturalistic religion, devoid of the supernatural triumphalism of the true Faith. It is the religion of the “abomination of desolation,” speaking of “dialogue” and “accompaniment” while the souls within his vast, empty jurisdiction perish for want of the unadulterated truth. His meeting with the antipope Leo XIV was not a consultation with the Vicar of Christ, but a meeting between two functionaries of a globalist, modernist organization, content to manage decline while the world burns.
Source:
„Ich glaube, mein Bistum ist das schönste der Welt“: Begegnung mit Bischof Clemens Pickel (pillarcatholic.com)
Date: 09.06.2026