Father James Altman is under fire again, this time by the fence sitters who refuse to take principled stands.
This is too bad. Because if there was ever a time when your everyday, regular Catholic needs to be on their toes and ready to defend our Lord Jesus, Christ the King, it is now in the face of an onslaught of the Modernist heresy expected to rain down in the next month of October, at the Synod on Synodality. Sadly, it appears there seems to be little zeal or desire to even engage in that battle, or at least ask questions that need to be asked.
Case in point is the response to the most recent video Fr. Altman produced. As you may recall, Fr. Altman was a simple parish priest who became well-known in the Catholic media world in 2020 when he began warning Catholics against voting for pro-abortion Democrats on Youtube and began to question the standard Covid-19 vaccine narrative contrary to the open advocacy for the abortion-tainted injections by Francis and other Vatican officials.
I defended Fr. Altman at the time and began writing letters to his Bishop in support of Fr. Altman’s ministry. Two years later, Fr. Altman is still “cancelled,” and still prevented from exercising his vocation as a parish priest.
The current controversy arises because Fr. Altman made another video in which he lays out the case, up to twenty points, of errors, sacrilege and heresies that Jorge Bergoglio (Francis) committed since 2013.
Specifically, Fr. Altman referred to Francis’ encyclical Amoris Laetitia. Fr. Altman points out what all Catholics used to claim and know quite easily: When someone insists on committing mortal sin, like adultery, with no intention of reforming their lives and first going to sacramental confession, it would be a grave evil to present oneself and receive Holy Communion. In support of this contention, Fr. Altman cites to the Session XIII, canon 11 of the Council of Trent, which states:
“lf any one saith, that faith alone is a sufficient preparation for receiving the sacrament of the most holy Eucharist; let him be anathema. And for fear lest so great a sacrament may be received unworthily, and so unto death and condemnation, this holy Synod ordains and declares, that sacramental confession, when a confessor may be had, is of necessity to be made beforehand, by those whose conscience is burthened with mortal sin, how contrite even soever they may think themselves. But if any one shall presume to teach, preach, or obstinately to assert, or even in public disputation to defend the contrary, he shall be thereupon excommunicated (emphasis added).”
Notice the last sentence, which provides a stiff penalty of automatic excommunication for “any one” who teaches to the contrary.
Fr. Altman drew the quite logical conclusion that if Francis taught that a Catholic in a state of unrepentant mortal sin, which would be the case of someone committing adultery on an ongoing basis, could still receive Holy Communion worthily, he must by the terms of this canon be excommunicated automatically. If Francis taught such heresy and was automatically excommunicated, he could not be considered Catholic and certainly not be the Pope.
Significantly, notice that Fr. Altman is not officially “declaring” (use your deep voice here) Francis removed from his office because Fr. Altman thinks he is a heretic. Obviously, he is simply saying that Francis’ own actions, by the authority of the Church herself as expressed at the Council Trent, resulted in automatic excommunication, indicating Francis cannot possibly also then be the Pope.
Regardless of whether you agree with Fr. Altman or not, it’s not a frivolous argument, and certainly many conservative/traditionalists have been quite critical of Francis’ statements about the divorced and remarried receiving Holy Communion in Amoris Laetitia. One would think a serious Catholic would be willing, at minimum, to at least think about or research Fr. Altman’s contentions.
Instead, we get a strange, visceral response—not to Francis’ heresies and the destruction of a key foundational doctrine of the Catholic faith, which puts many souls in danger—but to Fr. Altman!
Fr. Altman Gets Attacked
A good example of this can be found in a recent piece by Leila Lawler. In this article, Mrs. Lawler makes it clear that she doesn’t like politically active priests and that speaking out on public issues is an “abuse of the pulpit, where in my opinion, political rants from any side ought to be completely forbidden.”
Just imagine that: a priest should be totally and completely barred from talking about social and political issues when instructing the faithful in his role as a teacher and leader! It is unclear how defending the Social Kingship of Christ plays into that thought process.
Regardless, she then goes on to say:
“You see, the argument used to rationalize Fr. Altman’s intemperance is that Pope Francis is just that bad. Believe me, we get the bad part. In fact, Phil [her husband] and I have been accused of being schismatics for this reason: calmly arguing that he is a bad Pope. Our defense is that it’s better than thinking he is no Pope at all. Why? Because it is for the bishops to decide such a thing. Yes, we understand their pusillanimity, their inaction, their strange, yet historically consistent, alas, state of denial.”
Read that paragraph again, just to soak in the intellectual confusion, laced with irrational emotionalism.
First, Mrs. Lawler accuses Fr. Altman of intemperance. Why? Because he pointed out Francis’ heresies and then pointed out exactly word for word how the Council of Trent instructs us to deal with these very same heresies that Bergoglio spouted in Amoris? Drawing conclusions from a data set must be a new definition of intemperate.
And then, in the next sentence, proceeds to tell us how bad Francis really is! He is really really bad! But don’t worry, it’s better, according to Lawler, that we have a really bad pope than no pope at all!
But then, we get the kicker: “Because it is for the bishops to decide such a thing.”
Well, that would be nice if they decided such a thing. How is that working out?
Well, it’s NOT working out, answers Mrs. Lawler! The bishops have not acted, are pusillanimous, and in a state of denial.
And what’s the conclusion to draw from all of this, badness, inaction and derelict of duty by the bishops? The answer, apparently, is for Fr. Altman to shut his mouth!
The Modus Operandi of Fence Sitters
What we see here is a classic example of what can best be described as a “fence sitter.” It is a form of effeminacy and willingness to shirk one’s duties in the face of hardship. In this case, it is a refusal to accept one’s duty to search for the truth and exercise one’s well-formed conscience, while refusing to act in the face of obvious evil.
Fr. Altman, certainly, cannot be accused of this. He boldly lays out his case point by point, cites to authorities in the Council of Trent and St. Robert Bellarmine, and draws the conclusion from this reasonable analysis that Francis cannot be the Pope or at least lost the Papacy along the way.
Contrary to Fr. Altman’s attempt to spur some action in the Church and convince someone, anyone, into preserving the Church’s teachings and doctrinal heritage, the fence sitters seek a way to avoid the uncomfortable crisis the Church finds herself in.
Basically, it becomes an effort among those in conservative/traditional circles whereby they attempt to play both sides of the fence, in the sense they acknowledge errors, even heresies, while at the same time defend the rights and authority of those who teach the heresies to do so.
On one hand, a Catholic with only a basic knowledge of the catechism knows that Modernists, like Francis, teach, promote and actively facilitate heresy and immorality. Many conservative/traditionalists know this and see it. And therefore, they have no problem publicly proclaiming that what they see and hear coming out of the Vatican is not Catholic, it is heresy, and at minimum, is very bad. They are happy to form judgments based on what they hear and read in this instance.
And yet, on the other hand, those same people in the same breath, will proclaim their “obedience” and undying loyalty to the same Modernists that promote and actively facilitate manifest heresy. The reason they give for this obvious hypocrisy and contradiction is that Catholics must be obedient to the Pope and the Church’s magisterium. They ridicule those who claim to make judgments in this instance.
While I am not a mind reader, it is obvious to a casual observer what is going on here: the fence sitters are attempting to appear faithful to the teachings of the Church without suffering any negative consequences for doing so. I mean who can fault them for upholding the faith and the Church while at the same time remaining completely obedient to those who seek to destroy the faith and the Church? It’s a win—win!
Rather than attempt to use their well-formed Catholic conscience and basic reasoning skills to think outside the box and find solutions to this catch-22 trap the devil set, they simply publicly proclaim, with all the virtuous signaling they can muster, clear and obvious contradictions and demand that no one call them out on it.
Consequences of Fence Sitting
So, how should Catholics resolve this Catch-22? Is it necessary to agree with the 1958 sedevacantists that every pope since 1958 was an antipope because some amount of material heresy crossed their lips? I don’t think so, and that’s not what Fr. Altman suggested either.
Far from rejecting Christ’s promise that the Church will never defect, could this divergence between authority and Truth be better understood if we acknowledge that authority exists to serve Truth, and not the other way around?
And perhaps we can trust the Holy Ghost not to abandon the Church and allow someone who rejects authentic Catholicism to serve as the standard bearer of unity for the One, Holy and Apostolic Church? Perhaps Francis was never the Pope to begin with—or if he was—somehow lost the papacy because of his rejection of Catholic Truth? One would think Catholics would be curious about such possibilities.
Fr. Altman made his case and it’s not an unreasonable one. We have the right, and I believe a duty, to search for the truth and take action according to our well-formed consciences, so long as they are consistent with the doctrines of the Church that have been handed down to us. We don’t have the right to intentionally pretend like we are ignorant, helpless people. We do have the right to exercise our God given reason and search for the truth, especially with regard to matters concerning the Church and the faith.
The point is, and what I hope the reader takes away from all this, is that we need real men like Fr. Altman who are willing to take a stand for Christ, and His bride, the Church.
What we don’t need are fence sitters. If you are content with living in a world of illogical contradictions and hope some future Pope will come along to fix this mess you don’t like to think about, that’s your choice. But, please, get out of the way of those trying to do something about it now.
Postscript:
Get ready for the fence sitters to come out in full force if the rumors concerning Bishop Strickland of Tyler, Texas are true. DO NOT RESIGN Bishop Strickland. Make them drag you out kicking and screaming. You did nothing wrong.