CHRIST CONSOLED, STRENGTHENED BY FR ALTMAN AND OTHERS' SUFFERING

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Brave, faithful priest - sacked

Father James Altman, the American priest who had the courage to tell his parishioners in last year's election campaign that as Catholics they could not vote Democrat, has just been sacked by his bishop, +William Callahan of La Crosse, Wisconsin.

Bishop Callahan (right) and his look-alike, the party-going celebrity Cardinal Tim Dolan 

If our priests and bishops had the same courage, New Zealand would very likely now not be staring down the barrel of wholesale baby slaughter, neo-Marxism and Maori separatism. If the bishops had denounced Jacinda Ardern and her socialist creed, quite likely she wouldn't have won our rigged election.

Thank God for this opportunity to praise Father James Altman - once again. And also to praise Bishop Joseph Strickland - once again - of Tyler, Texas, for speaking up to defend Father Altman.

Bishop Joseph Strickland. Comparisons are odious but sometimes only too obvious

Father James Altman said his bishop asked him to resign Friday after he made a controversial video telling Catholics that they must not vote Democrat because of the party’s radical pro-abortion stance.

The Wisconsin priest told his parishioners Sunday that Bishop William Callahan of the Diocese of La Crosse accused him of being “divisive and ineffective,” the La Crosse Tribune reports.

“As the bishop has stated to me: I am ineffective. So for the record, dear family, Bishop Callahan has asked me to resign as pastor as of this past Friday, two days ago, because I am divisive and ineffective,” Altman said.

Ahead of the presidential election last year, Altman made some strong, controversial statements about Catholics’ role in politics in America.

In a video that drew national attention, the priest insisted that Catholics cannot vote Democrat because of the party’s radical pro-abortion stance. He faulted “gutless cowards in the clergy” for failing to teach Catholics the truth about God and the value of every human life.

“You can not be Catholic and be a Democrat. Period!” Altman said in the video.

Just as this blog said during the NZ election campaign. To no avail. NZ's bishops were unmoved. 

“Their party platform absolutely is against everything the Catholic Church teaches.

Just as the party platform of NZ Labour was.  

So just quit pretending that you’re Catholic [if you] vote Democrat.”

As this blog called out Kieran McAnulty, Labour MP for Wairarapa, who strutted his stuff as a Catholic but voted for abortion up till birth and euthanasia. 

"Yeah, I'm a socialist and I'm proud of it, yeah," he said in Parliament recently, "and I'm very happy to say to the good people of Wairarapa elected a proud socialist as their MP". Doesn't make sense but then, being a Catholic and a socialist doesn't make sense either. McAnulty should be denied Holy Communion but I bet he's not. 

Fr Altman continued, “There will be 60 million and counting aborted babies standing at the gates of heaven barring your Democrat entrance, and nothing you can say will ever excuse you for your direct or indirect support of that diabolical agenda here in the end.”

These and other statements appear to be the reason why Callahan asked Altman to resign. The Tribune reports Altman also recently faced criticism for speaking out against the new COVID-19 vaccines.

Altman said he has a canon lawyer who is asking the bishop for clarification and justification regarding his request to resign. The priest said he also wants to be allowed to review his file to find out why the bishop believes he “was so divisive and ineffective.”

“And I say all this only because I’m no expert on canon law, but understand only that while we are contesting the bishop’s request — and we are — he could in theory appoint a parish administrator whilst I remain a pastor without duties until the appeal goes through Rome, which could take up to a year or more,” Altman said, according to the local news.

The diocese did not respond to a request for comment from the local newspaper.

After the news broke, Bishop Joseph Strickland of the Diocese of Tyler in Texas defended Altman in a post on Twitter.

“Fr. James Altman is in trouble for speaking the truth,” Strickland wrote. “I originally supported him when he spoke bold truth during the election. I continue to support him for speaking the truth in Jesus Christ. He inspires many to keep the faith during these dark days. Let us pray for him.”

Last year, Strickland described the priest’s video as “courageous.”

Altman said to the people who accuse him of being too political, “Baloney!” He said politics fundamentally should be a moral enterprise, and Catholics have a “duty and obligation to speak up” when politicians act immorally.

“The problem in the world today, as it was in Noah’s day … is that there are way too many people who don’t know the first thing about Almighty God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,” he said in the video. “So truth be told, they do not love Him. And so we can see in the many godless politicians out there … they most definitely are not serving Him. They are not fulfilling their purpose in life to know, to love and to serve God.”

Father Altman is repeating almost word for word what a New Zealand Catholic laywoman I know personally said to her parish priest today. Her main concern was for the children at the parish school who had been told they are "here to love each other". She asked Father N if they were not here to know love and serve God. 

Fr N refused to confirm or deny. She worried that he was teaching the Second Commandment while skipping blithely over the First, and that - as Fr Altman says - if the children don't know God by spending time with Him, how can they love Him?

Father told her that the children know him, so they know God. 

This woman was concerned, too, that a liberal/modernist chap with much influence in her parish had told her that ascribing to Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament human emotions such as loneliness and love was "dangerously close to anthropomorphism" which means as of course you know, considering as human something which is not human. She wondered how many of her fellow parishioners thought the same, that Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament is not human. 

After much beating about the bush Father said he agreed with the liberal/modernist parishioner. Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, he told her, is "divine". 

So there you have it - perhaps the most poisoned of all the fruits of Vatican II;  the Novus Ordo effect: priest's and parishioner's denial of the source, summit and centre of the Catholic faith, the Real Presence of the Son of God, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, in the Sacrament of the Eucharist.

Much more must have been said, because her visit lasted about 40 minutes, until Father literally showed her the door. He said he was "too busy". 

Father had apparently never heard of Bishop Athanasius Schneider, which is perhaps not surprising, but still a great pity. Perhaps one of those bishops and priests he talks to, who read this blog, could recommend this brave and faithful bishop to Father (not likely), particularly +Schneider's book Christus Vincit, in which he says:

"When Christ suffered in Gethsemane, He was strengthened by an angel. This is a deep mystery: God in His human nature wanted to be consoled and strengthened by a creature.

"In this enormous spiritual crisis we are witnessing inside the Church, Christ is being consoled and strengthened by the souls who remain faithful to the purity of the Catholic faith, by souls who live a chaste Christian life, by souls who are committed to a life of intense prayer, by souls who do not run away from the suffering Christ, from the suffering Mother Church.

"The consolation and strength which Christ received from the angel in Gethsemane already contained the acts of expiation and reparation of all the faithful souls throughout the history of the Church. So many souls are suffering in our day, especially over the past fifty years, because of the tremendous crisis of the Church.

"The most precious are the hidden sufferings of the little ones, of the persons who were put out to the periphery of the Church by the liberal, worldly, and unbelieving ecclesiastical establishment.

"Their sufferings are precious, since they are consoling and strengthening Christ who is mystically suffering in our current crisis within the Church."

 

Christ suffering in Gethsemane
El Greco