Denver, Colo., Apr 25, 2019 / 03:51 am (CNA).- Do you remember the last poem you read, or heard?
Statistics suggest it has probably been since high school that the average American took the time (or was forced by a teacher) to read a piece of poetry. The rise of the internet and the correlating decline in the number of people who say they’ve read a poem in the past year has fueled an ongoing debate among those who still care: is poetry dead? Whether it is dead, or dying, or not, should Catholics care?
“Yes, emphatically they should,” said Joseph Pearce, the director of book publishing at the Augustine Institute in Denver, and editor of The Austin Review and of the Faith & Culture website.
“Up until relatively recently in the history of Christendom, poetry was the main form of literature that people enjoyed and read,” Pearce said. “The best-selling works of literature up until Shakespeare’s time were poetry…so you can’t talk about the legacy or the heritage of Christian literature and leave poetry out of the equation without doing violence to what Christian literature is.”
What happened to poetry?
Poetry used to be memorized in schools and was a central, normal part of people’s literary lives – something they would just “bump into” on a regular basis.
“I can remember growing up…we would get Reader’s Digest at home and it would have poetry in it, so would the newspapers, and The Christian Science Monitor…there were a lot of places where you would just bump into it,” said Tim Bete, who serves as poetry editor for the website Integrated Catholic Life (ICL). ICL is a website that provides articles, spiritual reflections, blogs and resources that strive to help Catholics better live lives of faith, according to its description.
So what, exactly, has contributed to its decline?
Pearce blames the so-called “death” of poetry on the “rather pathetic culture in which we find ourselves,” with decreased standards of literacy and decreased attention spans brought on by technology.
“The thing about our modern culture is that most of us spend most of our time wasting it in the dust storm and the desert of modern secular social media,” he added.
Dana Gioia is a Catholic by faith and a poet by trade, and has served as the Poet Laureate of California since 2015.
Gioia spent much of his career as a poet in the secular world, but told CNA that he has become an increasingly vocal Catholic, as it has become harder to be a Catholic in the world of poetry and literature.
The decline of Catholic poetry in the United States, for example, is in part because of Catholicism’s “very complicated position” in American literature since the beginning of the country, he said.
“Catholics were initially banned from coming to the U.S., and then they enjoyed very little rights where they were allowed at all for a long time,” he told CNA. “And there persisted to be – persists to this day – a kind of anti-Catholic prejudice in the U.S. for a variety of religious, cultural, economic and political reasons.”
“American Catholics largely represent poor, immigrant communities from Europe, Latin America and Asia, and to this day if you go to most Catholic Churches you are sitting among the poor,” he added.
For these reasons, there was no “significant” Catholic American poetry (that is still being read today) until the 20th century, Gioia said. Then suddenly, around the 1950s, there is an explosion of Catholic literature in the United States, he said.
Writers such as Robert Lowell, Flannery O’Connor, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Walker Percy, William Tate and Brother Antonitus were leading the way (many of them converts from Protestantism), Gioia said, and Catholicism was being taken seriously for the first time in American cultural life.
“You have a huge list of these really significant thinkers who reshaped American intellectual life…a moment in the 1950s when Catholicism is part of the conversation of American literature,” he said.
But by the early 2000s, that was already gone.
“By 2000 it had fallen apart. In 2010, Catholics are marginalized in American literary lives,” he said.
The reasons for this were several, Gioia suggested: firstly, as Catholics became accepted into American society, they became increasingly secularized. Secondly, the world of art became increasingly anti-Christian, and finally, Vatican II caused “schisms” in the Catholic Church in America, turning her focus to internal debate rather than to an external, unified identity.
“I’m the uncomfortable truth-teller in the room,” Gioia added as an aside. “The contemporary Catholic Church in America, and everywhere, lost its connection with art and beauty.”
“For centuries, millennia really, the Church was a patron of the arts, and understood that beauty was an essential medium for its message,” he said.
“Now the Church is so caught up with practical necessities, that it considers beauty an unaffordable luxury. But beauty is not a luxury, it is a central and essential element of the Catholic faith. And we know this, because if we have anything at all to say about creation, it is that it is beautiful – nature is beautiful, the world is beautiful, our bodies are beautiful. So we’ve lost this essential connection because we’re so busy funding the parish school, keeping the homeless center running, and paying the mortgage on the church – all good things, but useless if the message of the Church is not heard among its own congregations and secondly in the modern world,” he said.
It’s a problem that has been identified by many in the Catholic Church who are concerned with the New Evangelization – Fyodor Dostoevsky’s maxim “beauty will save the world” has become the battle cry of many Catholics who want to reconnect the Church and the arts.
But “healthy” Catholic culture has two cultural conversations going at once, Gioia said – one internally, and one that reaches out to the world – “and both of those conversations have become greatly diminished in the last half-century.”
What poetry has to say to Catholics
The thing about being Catholic, Bete noted, is that if you’re going to Mass and reading the Bible, you are probably are more immersed in poetry than you realize.
“About 30% of all scripture is poetry,” Bete said. “Even (Catholics) that say oh, I never read poetry, well, if you’re praying the Divine Office (a Catholic form of prayer centered on the Psalms), it’s almost all poetry.”
“We’re hearing poetry preached at Mass every week,” he added, and so becoming familiar with all kinds of poetry “helps you understand scripture better because it gets you in tune and trains you to think about metaphor.”
“So much of (scripture) is poetry but I think we kind of race through it sometimes and we don’t really kind of appreciate it for being poetry,” he said.
“In my mind, one of the reasons that there’s so much poetry in there is it’s so difficult to define who God is, and God is so much greater than any author can put down on paper, but poetry…it provides a different type of truth.”
Bete added that poetry is often the fruit of silence and prayer, and vice versa – one can lead into the other. An example of this in scripture, he said, is the Canticle of Mary, when the pregnant Blessed Virgin Mary is visiting her cousin Elizabeth and bursts into poetic song about how God has blessed her by calling her to be the mother of Jesus.
“When Mary really has to explain to Elizabeth what is going on, what does she do? She speaks in poetry. It’s very powerful…and so one of my hopes is that if people read current poetry, it trains them to look at things differently and will translate back to scripture and really help to bring the scripture alive for them,” Bete said.
Pearce said another reason Catholics should engage with poetry is because God himself is a poet.
“The word ‘poet’ comes from the word ‘poesis’ which means to make or to create,” he said.
“So when we are being poets in that broader sense of the word of being creative…it’s God’s creative presence in us, so we’re actually partaking in the divine when we write poetry or read it and appreciate it.”
Many great works of literature, from Beowulf to The Divine Comedy to The Canterbury Tales and the works of Shakespeare, are works of Christian and Catholic poetry, Pearce said.
Many saints, too, have written great works of poetry, Pearce said, such as St. Patrick’s breastplate poem or St. Francis of Assissi’s Canticle of Brother Sun.
Bete, a secular Carmelite, said he loves to read poetry by Carmelite saints – “it’s actually hard to find one who was not a poet,” he said.
“Elizabeth of the Trinity, Therese the Little Flower, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, they all wrote poetry,” Bete said, including some that was prayerful and some that was more lighthearted.
“Almost always it came out of their prayer life,” Bete added. “I think it has to do with the closer that you get to God, especially if you’re a writer, I think it just comes out.”
“I would say poetry is like going to Mass or saying your prayers,” Pearce said. “The writing of it and the reading of it is time taken and not time wasted, its something which is worth doing in its own right, as is prayer.”
Poetry 101: How can Catholics start a poetry habit?
Pearce has made it easy for Catholics who are looking for an introduction to Catholic poetry, with his book “Poems Every Catholic Should Know.”
“That book is very popular, and I think it’s popular because people are very aware that they don’t know poetry very well, because they haven’t really been taught it, and they are perhaps intimidated by it or they have misconceptions about it,” he said.
“So they see a book called ‘Poems Every Catholic Should Know’ and they think well, I should at least own one book of poetry and perhaps this is it,” he added.
The book goes through 1,000 years of Christian poetry, from the year 1,000-2,000, Pearce said, from both well-known and lesser-known poets, and it includes short biographies of each poet and how they fit into the broader context of the Christian poetry and literary world.
“A personal favorite of mine is a 20th century war poet, Siegfried Sassoon, who was a convert to the Catholic faith, so we published some of his post-conversion poetry in the book which I’m very fond of,” Pearce noted.
It was because of the sharp decline in the reading and writing of poetry that Bete pitched the idea for Integrated Catholic Life to start publishing poetry, to provide a new opportunity for visitors to the site to once again “bump into” poetry.
“The response has been great,” he said. “I think it just goes to show that when people see…beauty, and they see something that is of interest to them,” they respond, he said. “It doesn’t take a huge time commitment. It’s not like reading War and Peace or anything.”
Bete said he thinks it’s important for Catholics to come up with new and creative ways to reintroduce people to Catholic poetry.
“On Instagram where you’re seeing some of these Instagram poets who are up and coming, and I haven’t seen any Catholic ones yet, but I think what they’re doing is they’re putting poetry where people already are,” Bete said.
Another innovative concept that brings poetry to the people is the “Raining Poetry” project in Boston, Bete said, which paints poetry on the sidewalk with clear paint so that it only shows up when it rains.
“And I love that as a concept. Where are people, and then how do we find ways to get poetry in front of them? And I don’t think we’ve been very good or innovative at that.”
Gioia said the most important thing Catholic creatives can do is to create communities for Catholic artists.
“This country is full of Catholic writers and artists who feel isolated,” Gioia said. “If we can create communities for them, they will understand their own art and its possibilities much better. We are stronger together than we are alone.”
Pearce, Bete and Gioia all said they have been heartened by what seems to be the start of a Catholic cultural revival, in which Catholics are talking more about the need for the Church to reconnect with beauty and the arts and to create great Catholic art again.
“I find this very encouraging,” Pearce said. “One of the things I’m doing with ‘Faith and Culture’ at the Augustine Institute and with the magazine The Austin Review…is to try to engage this new Catholic revival in the arts that we see going on. Certainly there’s a Catholic literary revival going on, so there’s an increase not just in the quantity, but more importantly in the quality with Catholic literature written today in the 21st century.”
Gioia said that while he’s encouraged by these movements, he would also caution against the notion of “homemade” culture.
“I worry that they sometimes have a kind of homemade version of culture that needs a shot of energy and perspective you only get by studying masterpieces, especially contemporary masterpieces,” he said. “Any serious writer must engage with the broader literary culture.”
“So I think one of the things to do is we need to identify the very best contemporary writers. What that doesn’t mean is saying here’s a list of 65 writers. It’s – who are the three or four best fiction writers? Who are the three or four best poets?”
“If we had a (Catholic literary) community, we’d invite everyone in, because that’s the right thing to do,” he said. “But when we write about literature we have to be ruthlessly discriminating, because the best work is what will speak most loudly. That’s what a critic does, that’s what an editor does, that’s what an anthologist does. Right now we do not have enough anthologies, or magazines; we do not have enough Catholic writers conferences. We need to build the infrastructure.”
Gioia started the first Catholic Imagination Conference for this reason – to bring together serious Catholic writers as a community.
“Four hundred people came, and they looked around and they were astonished and heartened by how many serious writers they saw in the same room,” he said. “Each one is bigger than the one before, and some of the people who came to the first conference created magazines, book clubs, discussion groups, and so once again, we’re stronger as a community than we are separately.”
The third such conference will be held at Loyola University this fall.
Ultimately, Gioia said, while he is concerned about the state of Catholic poetry and literature in the U.S., he has hope.
“I believe that our Church and our tradition embodies in it a great central truth of existence. And so if you believe that, how could you not be optimistic?”
[…]
I support Fr. Altman for speaking the truth at a time when we are being silenced! I feel like he is leading a flock much larger than he can imagine. Love catching his homilies and podcasts on various programs. He has made my Faith come alive again! At a time America needs so much Hope for its future. He has given so much encouragement. On of the most Holy Priests I’ve been honored to know. Fr. Parker is another one. God renew the Church by filling it with Holy Priest. God bless Fr. Altman and Fr. Parker!
So many of Catholic Faith proponents support Fr Altmen’s position on these topical issues; but Altman is bound by his sacred vows including obedience to his Bishop! Obviously the Bishop must act based on his perception of the consequences of Altman’s actions!
It’s not a popularity issue! Sit back quietly and observe
observe! I’m sure we will all learn something!
Well said, but it carries with it the assumption that we the laity accept that the Bishop is a wise man whom we can trust to do the right thing in Fr. Altman’s case – by silencing him.
This is not the case.
WATCH: Fr. Richard Heilman’s FANTASTIC Response To Fr. Altman’s Cancellation
What part of his nutty demagoguery is the Truth? His excuses for lynching as “capital punishment”? His claim that Warsaw Jews deserved the Holocaust? His ugly stupid lies about vaccination that have helped kill nearly a million Americans? He needs to be laicized.
Sincere question…Would you please quote the sources that you’re using to make these comments about Fr. Altman? I’m not familiar with the accusations that you’re making, and I’d like to find out the entire context of your comments. Thank you!
Last time I bothered looking up any of the bile emitted by Shea, he was praising George Soros. His comment here makes it clear that he is untroubled by the use of vaccines derived from research on aborted babies. Yet, this character, last I heard, is still invited to lecture at Catholic parishes.
He made none of those statements, but the Eighth Commandment has meant little to those directing venom towards defenders of orthodoxy for decades.
And Bishop Callahan might want to consider the Gospel before taking refuge in cliche words of libCatholicspeak and pseudo-Catholic cowardice.
“Unity” is not, never has, and never will be a Catholic value. Jesus preached that his disciples be divisive when truth was on the line. A man’s enemies will be members of his own family.
The statements saying lynchings were somewhat justified like “capital punishment” are around minute 46 in this recording: https://youtu.be/AjeWSYzbxiE
In this show https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13oaWClB9oM at minute 6:20 you’ll hear him state how the “Jews in Warsaw, the doctors” would, by performing abortions, bring about their demise (i.e. the Holocaust, although he doesn’t speak this specific word, only that “they had it coming”)
This is one of the sermons where he derides science and Covid-19 deaths: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVj_zejxIRo
There’s a lot more, but this should already show you that these accusations are based on things Fr. Altman does publicly say or preach.
Georg, Thank you for taking the time to put the links up so that I could listen to Fr. Altman’s comments in context. I appreciate it!
Your citations only support your dishonesty. Father said nothing that implied that actions of individual abortionists had any direct connection to the Holocaust. And, as a scientist, I’ll point out that there is a sound basis for not being impressed by the propaganda that affirms the unproven efficacy of the serums, falsely called vaccines, or that they represent sound “science,” and sanity requires skepticism regarding manipulative government statistics regarding deaths from Covid.
Please speak clearly. It is not at all clear to whom you refer when you slander a person named “he.” Further, you make no sense whatsoever. Your questions are without any reason, without explanation, and they lack correct syntax.
If someone helped kill a half million people, what have we to do with that? Why didn’t you call the police?
There is only one truth and you will find it. If you not familiar with the Scriptures read the word of God in John 14:6
” I am the way, the truth and the life , no one goes to the Father except through me.”
So are disputing the Word of God ? by asserting that Fr Altman is author of truth? I hope not. Read St Paul letter about preachers Appolos versus St Paul
1 Corinthians 3
We all have different gifts from the Holy Spirit but that does not makes us superior to others.
As for COVID-19 vaccines, again Fr Altman is mistaken in his interpretation. I suggest you read Galatians 3:1 St Paul’s letter should be encouraging for those who are being misled by ignorance of Science and the Scriptures. Read the Bible and don’t follow others in ignorance.
Our Catholic faith teaches us to be obedient and accept criticism from our elders or superiors and God demands this of us. This is called humility. You don’t have to prove that we are the only ones who speaks or knows the truth. Again , you must be familiar with our Lord Jesus Christ and His Mission. Remember His victory on the Cross, an innocent man, but obedient to His Father’s will. The list goes on, Abraham and Isaac another good examples of obedience. On the other hand you have the opposite, which is pride. Father Altman has been given time to reflect on his vocation, and the sin of pride.He needs to ask himself whether he is a priest, or a politician. Only Fr Altman can answer with the help of our prayers. Give Cesar what is due to Cesar. He does not belong to this world as we children of God, we only should focus on spiritual growth especially those of the people he is condemning. Jesus was always in the company of sinners, Matthew, Zacheus, Mary Magdalene to name a few. We have duty to pray for conversion rather than to condemn.
Don’t be the first to throw the stone. Fr Altman has lost his way. He needs our prayers, especially that of St Francis of Assisi. The pride of Lucifer led to his downfall and I think gathering a crowd of totally blind followers is not the way forward. The crowd should be following Jesus Christ not him. We are followers of ONE man. Only God and noone else. I suggest he donates the money raised to the poor. He has made an error and has allowed Lucifer to misguide him in disguise. As for you, focus on the Bible and that is truth. Jesus said to Nathaniel “I saw you reading the Scriptures under a fig tree.” When you read the Bible everyday, every hour, every second, Jesus, your High Priest will reveal the truth and transform your life. Not a mere misguided, disobedient Priest who has lost his way and needs healing of inner wounds. God is good.
Silence father Altman but put “ father” Martin along with Tobin and cupuch and their homosexual agenda on a pedestal. This is why the church hierarchy is becoming irrelevant!
“Becoming” irrelevant?
I would argue that they are already there, but they just haven’t got the memo yet.
Another gibberish report by the bishops’ lapdogs at Catholic News Agency.
More lies and slander from Mark Shea. Nothing new here, for sure. Fr. Altman does not need to be laicized. Mark Shea needs an exorcism.
And Fr. James Martin, SJ will be removed from his office when???
Good call! My question exactly!
What we will learn is that there are two sets of rules. If there is a problem with Fr. Altman, it is clericalism, the same clericalism that plagues the hierarchy and perhaps his bishop too.
Altman Fr. Giving sermon on pentecost day looks a problem, give details on his sermon? Which his bishop asks him to resign?
‘Blessed are those who are persecuted for my sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”.
Father Altman speaks the truth!Abortion IS murder!Beleive me,anyone that supports abortion is list to the fires of Hell
Our Lord called this man from being a lawyer(12 yrs)to the priesthood to administer to his people.Father Altman followed the call although he could have ignored the call and kept making money being that lawyer.The reason that father Altman became a priest?Our lord wanted him to speak loud and clear as to what is going on in the states and all the sins and transcriptions being committed!His bishop I think works for the higher ups that don’t want to hear the truth!They will listen someday when it will be too late for all concerned who don’t like to hear father Altman tell the truth get their just reward.
The episcopate is unhinged, drunk on its own juices. There is not a priest of any perspective who does not know this to be true. We learned to live without our parish priests last year because of inane episcopal rationalizations. It would serve the USCCB well to see the diocesan priesthood withdraw from ministry for an indeterminate period to bring the reckoning to the episcopate’s reckless stewardship not only in financial administration but in their scandalous theological and moral inadequacy as well.
We need to be cleaning house and it starts at the top. The laity have learned to “do without” in critical matters for a long time.
Yes, but Fr Altman needs to pray for better ways to get his points across than just spue out accusations. I agree with what he says but thoroughly did agree with how he is going about it. Perhaps he can consult Bishop Robert Barron, whose methods get people to think and listen rather than divide and turn their backs. In addition, he should NOT make his remarks from the pulpit. The pulpit is for the spreading of the Good News of Christ and only the Good News of Christ, in other words, the Gospel. Other means can be devised to speak the truth of what Fr Altman is saying. I pray that he will find these ways.
Fr. Altman is a Saint speaking the truth.The truth I was truth I was taught in Catholic schools.It is very had for me to continue in my faith,with Bishops that are evil.I believe the bishops and the pope are distorting our faith . They are helping the anti Christ.
We have become so used to platitude homilies of “God loves you, have a nice day” that when a priest preaches like the early apostles and Fathers of the Church, we think he is overdoing it. I have seen nowhere in these articles about Father Altman where the bishop has said that this statement of his is not true. His bishop’s initial statement was that he objected to Father Altman’s manner and tone. Even on topics, like the abortion tainted vaccine and climate change, he is as qualified to talk on the subjects as the Vatican.
Although this article says that father Altman’s statement on the democrats is because the party’s leadership supports abortion, the situation goes far beyond that. They not only support it, they push to expand it. Not only the leadership, but 99-100% of democrat members of congress vote for abortion. Their platform calls for abortion anytime, any place, for any reason, up to birth, paid for by the government.
We have bishops and cardinals who give communion, and state that they will continue to give communion, to militantly pro-abortion politicians, in violation of canon 915, and nothing at all is done about them.
I have no doubt that father’s bishop came under pressure from other bishops and cardinals. But this is no excuse for what he did. In my state three of the four bishops are registered members of the democrat party – the party of death. I am sure they did not like his statement that you cannot be a catholic and a member of the democrat party.
I admire and support father Altman.
Fr. Altman is the best thing to happen to the Catholic Church since Bishop Sheen. Altman speaks the truth and is concerned with saving souls. He is unlike the bishops, interested in money, who speak vague political correctness in order to keep their huge government contracts for providing NGO services.
Sad but not unexpected news. Fr. Altman helped me through the toughest time of my life. His 90yr old parents and Griffin his dog are also going to be uprooted. I pray for Fr. Altman every day. I think he’ll go forward just fine.
The bishops can’t remove Joe Biden from the Communion line but they can remove Fr. Altman from his priestly duties for the crime of pointing out that Biden is in violation of biblical teaching as reflected in Canons 915 – 916 of the Catholic Church’s Code of Canon Law. Got it !
AMEN
I think it is well past time this Priest who has publicly on utube suggested contrary to Christ’s teaching – judge others. I agree abortion is an abomination and as part of the Pro Life Movement I protest it but I have to wonder Where was his voice when the Republicans under Trump were praising neo nazis. white supremicists, attacking the poor, refugees – this definitely is not Christ’s teaching that he is perpetuating. Sadly there are many within the church who are attacking her and the chosen head of the Church Pope Francis. The Holy Spirit made that choice and I am content that the Holy Spirit knows best. No Priest, Bishop or Cardinal has the right to dictate that anyone who is Catholic must hold the same view point as to his. It’s time he took the log out of his own eye before telling his brother to take the speck out of theirs. Thankfully Christ assured us that the gates of hell will not prevail against Holy Mother Church. God bless and protect Holy Mother Church and Pope Francis and bring an end to abortion.
How dare you trade in bald-faced lies to support the framing of your caricatures? When did Republicans “praise” neo-Nazis or white supremacists? Are you referring to your forerunners in bald faced dishonesty in the media who merely claimed they did when they did not? At great length President Trump, for example, condemned those who were motivated by racism at Charlottesville. And yet, in order to manipulate the dishonorable, extracted his comment of good people on both sides referring only to the peaceful demonstrators to try to create the impression he was referring to the racists. They knew what they were doing, just as lib Catholics always reduce conservative Catholics to caricatures rather that act honorably with a fair hearing. Incidentally, Father Altman has given dozens of homilies condemning the sins you say he never mentions.
contrary to Christ’s teaching – judge others. (sic)
Time for you to brush up on Scripture, madame.
“And why even of yourselves, do you not judge that which is just?” Jesus Christ, Luke 12:57
After you slowly and deliberately ponder that for a few days, take a gander at Matthew 18 and read Christ’s explanation on how to excommunicate the unrepentant from the Church, an act which requires judging another.
The Holy Spirit made that choice(sic)
Assumes facts not in evidence and also commits the serious sin of presumption on your part.
“I think it is well past time this Priest who has publicly on utube suggested contrary to Christ’s teaching – judge others”
You do seem a tad bit irony challenged.
“Where was his voice when the Republicans under Trump were praising neo nazis. white supremicists, attacking the poor, refugees”
He was nowhere, because that didn’t happen.
“The Holy Spirit made that choice ”
The Holy Spirit doesn’t make the choice of Popes.
“No Priest, Bishop or Cardinal has the right to dictate that anyone who is Catholic must hold the same view point as to his.”
Are you demented? On matters of faith and morals they most certainly do.
If Fr. Altman had preached far left-wing policies and beliefs; would he have received the identical treatment as he is getting now? Truth comes from revealing both sides of an issue, and discerning which has the greater argument. Faith will guide your mind to ascertain which side has the greater truth. But, in our democracy, both sides must be allowed to express themselves fully without fear of severe punishments.
Its interesting how a priest of the church can be silenced for being faithful to church teaching. Even when that teaching comes out in an abrasive manner. Yet the same Bishops are afraid to call out a “Catholic” public figure for his blatant pro-abortion stand, which should be in itself a sin.
Perhaps Bishop Callahan could better spend his free time by turning off CNN/MSNBC and reading a good, thought provoking novel (such as ‘Father Elijah : an Apocalypse’ or ‘Lord of the World’). His action begs the question: “To whom does he answer: the Democratic National Committee, the USCCB or the Holy See?” I pray that there are still distinctions between them.
For some time it has confounded many of us commoners as to why our church leaders refuse to make clear statements and take proper stands against the current evils of our society. Well, there’s no more use to give them the benefit of the doubt. It’s time to accept that the actions of the prelates are not just influenced by, but are effectively directed by the same destructive ideologues that are reducing our culture to sludge. Accepting that fact clears away the fog of confusion, after which we can redirect our energy toward praying ever more fervently that the Holy Spirit will finally crash down on their corrupt network and strangle the writhing worm that it truly is.
I previously fully supported Fr. Altman but upon reading this article Fr. Altman holds some views of a madman. One thing I do somewhat support him on is that no Catholic can be a Democrat. I don’t totally agree, some people vote Democrat because of some of the lunacy of the Republican party’s intentions. There is a correlation between the Democratic party and Freemasonry, namely, DESTROY THE GOOD!! There is a strong semblance between the Republican party and Bergoglio and his henchmen. I do question the intentions of the Bishop, Is this true for the good or is he out to just destroy a popular priest? In the last 50 years destroying holy priests has been a fun sport of many Bishops and Modernist priests and laity enjoying it all as spectators.
Let’s pray for both men, Fr. Altman and Bishop Callahan. Let’s respond to the facts as best we can know them.
Given the available information from readily accessible primary sources online, a reasonable person could conclude that the bishop’s objections lack a basis in fact. Nothing that Fr. Altman is on record as saying has been unfaithful to the Gospel. Has Fr. Altman’s manner or delivery been intense, blunt even? Sure. So what? That people get bent out of shape because criticism merely offends them, and to their way of thinking (which avoids substance and integrity) justifies calumny toward another, toward Fr. Altman in this instant, suggests that those offended by Fr. Altman’s criticism are merely bullies who imagine themselves to be victims.
The decree invites him to make a 30-day spiritual retreat to allow him “the possibility to spiritually heal and recharge and to address the issues that caused the issuance of this decree.” Maybe it’s time for this bishop Callahan and others of his ilk, like james martin, sj, attend a spiritual retreat.
I watched the first two videos cited by Georg. Neither suggests that Father Altman implied support for either lynching or the Holocaust. He simply mentioned some uncomfortable and unpopular ideas concerning ownership of slaves by blacks, The Democratic Party’s fierce resistance, to the point of war, of slave emancipation, and the alleged performance of abortions by Jewish doctors in Warsaw. He merely made a suggestion about Divine Justice, which, of course is unfathomable.
Altman suffers from the modern societal dysfunction of an attempt to suppress free ideas. His bishop should be ashamed of himself. Little courage on his part.
Mark Shea’s comments are entirely erroneous, deliberately or otherwise. Watch the video.
God bless courageous clergy like Father Altman.
We have maybe come to the bottom of the Slippery Slope? At 88 yrs old, I do have a copy of Humanae Vitae packed away, and not too many ears ago, I was caring for one of my Neighbors who had a Priest Nephew, and Niece caring for her. the Niece was engaged and I offered her a copy of Humanae Vitae, And, the reply was: Oh you are one of those. Father Forgive Us — We do need your Intervention.
Having been in the Health Field for over 60 year, and assisted in the Military Maternity Ward for a couple years, and then after having had 7 children who had to struggle through college because of an absent father, and spending another 20 years trying to DISCERN the meaning of all that is happening — I keep thinking about my Favorites. like C.S. Lewis. Bishop Sheen, Pope John Paul II. and lately Archbishop Chaput’s New Book on things worth dying for — could only read parts , as Macular degeneration limits all of us to some degree. Archbishop quotes from Doc Scott Peck’s book — people pf the Lie. and I do wish to listen once again to Doc Pek’s Farther down the Road Less Travelled, and His work with a Catholic Exorcist — Who came to our country after Pope Paul VI released him from his jesuit vows, I m now thinking of that so called Interim Pope who Opened the Windows f Vatican II — Did Satan enter the Sanctuary? Having been educated by those School Sisters of St Francis who taught the Baltimore Catechism, I do believe that we have come to the Bottom of the Slippery SLope that Pope Paul warned us would happen when so many rejected Humanae Vitae. “Father Forgive us, We do not know what We are Doing”!!
Fr. Altman’s angry self-righteous “blame” of others (a tool of the devil) tirades that championed Trump but scourged Pope Francis and other bishops is now coming to a halt. Fr. Altman doesn’t speak now for the Catholic Church or his diocese but is just a sad reflection of his own egotistic ambitions to be another prophet like John the Baptist. Unlike Jesus who was silent before his accusers. Fr. Altman would be a good champion of King Herod as his shouts crucify in response to Christ.
Don’t need his voice. Another voice that blames others but can’t take responsible for his behaviors is another victim hoax we don’t need. Blaming others is a tool of the evil one starting in the garden. Our Lord didn’t blame, He took responsibility for His creation.