Wisconsin Catholic pastor who preached against Covid-19 vaccine ordered to step down

[Quemado]

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/wisconsin-catholic-pastor-who-preached-against-covid-19-vaccine-ordered-n1268352

The pastor of a Roman Catholic parish in Wisconsin who told his congregation to shun the Covid-19 vaccine and preached right-wing politics from the pulpit has been asked to step down by his bishop.

The Rev. James Altman, of the St. James the Less Roman Catholic Church in La Crosse, made the announcement during his sermon at Sunday Mass, calling himself a victim of the “cancel culture.”

[sop]

1. Now it'll be the St. James the Less Republican Catholic Church.

[XanaDUer2]

2. waahhh!

[KS Toronado]

27. Let's hope so! Made me laugh.

[Siwsan]

3. Let me fix that church name. I'll simply add a little punctuation.

St. James, the less Catholic church.

[Comfortably_Numb]

4. Has been asked??? Seriously.

[Fla Dem]

5. Fr. Altman reiterates he will not resign, defense fund grows to $300,000

Support — and opposition — continue to grow for Father James Altman, who was asked by the Diocese of La Crosse late last week to resign from St. James the Less Catholic Church.

Devotees of Altman nationwide and beyond have contributed to his legal defense fund on Christian crowdfunding site Give Send Go, with a goal of $20,000 set and over $300,000 given as of late morning Friday.

Altman’s conservative rhetoric — including opposition to vaccination, criticism of Democrats, and dismissal of systemic racism and white privilege — has resonated with some while it has dismayed others, including individuals who practice Catholicism.

Already under some scrutiny for his strongly vocalized political stance, Altman sparked more controversy for not enforcing local, state and diocese masking and capacity guidelines during church services earlier this spring. In addition, Altman expressed criticism of vaccination and urged individuals not to become “guinea pigs.”

more......
https://lacrossetribune.com/news/local/fr-altman-reiterates-he-will-not-resign-defense-fund-grows-to-300-000/article_a74f49ca-1756-5003-8fab-a38c9609a0fb.html

There are RW lunatic everywhere. But I do fault the Catholic Church for not weeding out the the more vocal and insidious priests and demanding that politics stays out of the church.

[mn9driver]

10. Money explains a lot of Right Wing Crazy.

$300,000 for a $20,000 ask, for a “defense” that isn’t real.

There is no “defense”. This is not a trial. When your bishop asks you to resign, you resign. This appears to be a right wing pulpit scammer running one last scam on his sheep. You cannot make this shit up.

[jaxexpat]

16. I too am concerned. They should weed out more.

If only they had some sort of template for correct behavior.

HMMMM

[Marcuse]

24. They used to be more inquisitive.

[jaxexpat]

29. Those were the days when people played Nicenely together.

To the extent they could stretch the point.

[SergeStorms]

19. If they have enough money...

to defend the indefensible, the federal government should definitely start taxing these political activists masquerading as a religion. Fair is fair, after all.

[fwvinson]

26. And all churches should be taxed. I'm sure 90% of all churches are preaching politics.

It's called separation of church and state. Establishment Clause of the US Constitution. All churches are violating that clause. Tax them.

[bucolic_frolic]

6. cancel culture is for whiners

[AllyCat]

7. Great. And now they can pay taxes too.

These people are supposed to be leading their flocks spiritually, not spreading pseudo-science mumbo jumbo and endangering the lives of their parishioners.

[patphil]

8. I'm surprised he was asked to step down. Usually problem priests just get reassigned.

But, I'm truly amazed that a Catholic priest would embrace right-wing politics. Apparently this priest doesn't follow the words of Jesus.
And invoking the BS phrase, "cancel culture" identifies him as being totally out of touch with reality.
Right-wing conservatives have been chest deep in the philosophy of "cancel culture" for many decades. In fact, I don't remember a time when they didn't expound that idea...always trying to judge and reject anyone or anything they didn't like.

The Bishop needs to give this guy the heave ho.

[gratuitous]

9. "Cancel culture"? Really, Father Jim?

Did you just now discover that you're in a hierarchical denomination? Sounds like someone could stand to be re-assigned to the Jesuits to learn some critical thinking skills.

[Cryptoad]

11. Excommunicate the Thug,,,

[dalton99a]

12. The crazy asshole needs to be excommunicated, and exorcised

[halfulglas]

13. Unless the Bishop backs down he's gone.

Despite the "defense fund" raised, unless things are different from back when I was an RC, he's gone. The diocese owns and has authority over the individual parishes and the pastor is the administrator of the individual parish. I remember in one of the states I lived in, the diocese decided to close a church with very few parishioners left that they couldn't support the upkeep and wanted to divide the parish to be incorporated into surrounding parishes. The parishioners tried to stop it saying that they had paid to build the church and it was theirs. I'm pretty sure the diocese won in the end. However legally the churches are set up, I'm pretty sure the Bishop or Cardinal has the final say.

[shrike3]

14. Yes, you are correct.

Years ago, when Fr. Fleiger (in Chicago) mocked Hillary Clinton on camera, then-Cardinal George suspended him. And he had to accept it. If the Bishop/Cardinal says you have to go, you will go.

The situation regarding church closure: our local diocese tried to do the same and parishioners objected. The Bishop's office asked the parishioners to come up with a plan to keep the parish afloat and they did. It's open to this day. I've heard it done elsewhere.

[NoMoreRepugs]

15. This Douche can use his 300k to start his own cult in some

backwater goobertown.

[cab67]

17. I used to be very active in my Catholic community.

I was from the left wing of the Church - the wing that took social justice and the daily lives of the working class and poor to heart. We worked to help the Church improve its attitude toward the role of women in the church and broaden its appeal to everyone - the divorced (which now includes me), LGBTQ, those who chose to use modern science in family planning, and those who might not loudly advocate for banning abortion.

I have no idea if such a wing still exists anymore, but one of the reasons (there are several) I drifted away was the increasingly strident tone of the right wing, which came to dominate the clergy in ways it didn't even as late as the 1990's. The focus was less on building a community and more on making sure we were part of the Religious Right. More on protecting embryos and less on helping those already born. More on promoting conservative economic policies that are best described as "every man or himself" (lack of gender-neutral pronounds intentional) and less on making sure everyone is treated with innate dignity.

I often say I gave up Catholicism for Lent, and it kinda stuck, but in reality, I feel like the church hierarchy began pulling the whole outfit further and further to the right, such that real heroes like Oscar Romero wouldn't even recognize it. It left me as much as I left it.

[shrike3]

18. The left wing is very much still out there, just not as vocal.

I belong to a black Catholic parish (I'm white) and it's very much left wing. There's a parish in Chicago with a gay/lesbian ministry.

Oscar Romero, btw, has been canonized. The global church is quite diverse and very different from the American church, which makes up only eight percent of the church total. The American church continues to isolate itself from the global church thanks to actions by the hierarchy. It's only going to get worse. Someone made a comment recently that American Catholicism will become an entity howling and alone. I believe it.

[halfulglas]

25. I was raised Catholic but when the church changed I changed the other way.

I was raised in a fairly regular Catholic parish and went to Catholic grade school but when I went to high school I was taught by Franciscan nuns and realized how more progressive they were, even though I didn't know what was progressive was at the time. They were serious about things like a living wage being a Catholic value, respecting creation and against the death penalty and other things and I thought wow. They were still prudish about things like sex (after all, it was the 50s and early 60s). Although the school is gone I still get newsletters from the alumni and the order of nuns that taught us, and for a while when the school was closed they opened a day care there for working mothers until the building and land were sold to help support the aging nuns in the order. The Jesuits are about the only order of priests I respect, but they are rigorous in their scholarship and truth.

I had often had different ideas about the way the church treated women but I really drifted away when everything was about abortion and they became more political. They aligned with the native American protestant churches that ironically were the same ones that hated everything Catholic and preached about them being devil worshipers, all because they wanted to have more say in the politics of controlling women's bodies. They never seemed to preach that men should be more responsible for their bodies and actions.

Now in my 70s I have a theory about the American Catholic church's deterioration. It really started when our nation stopped taking in as many immigrants. The immigrants needed the help of the churches and the Catholic church evolved not only their facilities, but their thinking evolved to help immigrants, thus the new blood kept them from becoming too insular. Diminishing immigration stopped this new blood and the current situation is the result.

[Paladin]

20. Adios, shitbird.

The Catholic Church needs you like it needs another alter boy scandal.

[orleans]

28. lol & +1 n/t

[lonely bird]

21. When I hear "man/woman of God"

I immediately think grifter.

While I would be unsurprised to find grafting in other religions the three so-called Abrahamic faiths, particularly Christianity and Islam, but all of, them seem to have the franchise on grifting.

“God’s will” is just alleged permission to do whatever the fuck they want to do.

[Pepsidog]

22. My wife will not go to catholic mass because how the clergy has wrapped themselves around Trump Rs.

[Quemado]

30. I won't go to the nearest Catholic church because

last October, one of the deacons told the congregation that Biden was a communist during the homily. And, the priest attempted to apologize for the deacon's remarks, but the apology fell short, in my opinion.

[csziggy]

23. Victim of cancel culture - after how the Catholic Church has been canceling indigenous people

For hundreds of years? How about the Catholic school that apparently killed hundreds of Native American children in British Columbia for decades: https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/28/world/children-remains-discovered-canada-kamloops-school/index.html

Or how the culture of the Aztecs was destroyed by Catholics burning almost all their books after they murdered most of the Aztec people?

There are far more examples to list here, but anyone working for the Catholic Church should shut the fuck up about "cancel culture."