Fr James Altman - Judging the Pope
In a new video released on YouTube just a couple of days ago, Fr. James Altman made a bold and public proclamation that Jorge Bergoglio (Pope Francis) “is not the pope.” I wish to preface what I am about to write by saying that I have an abundance of respect for Fr. Altman and I am happy to count him as a dear friend. But on this tragic point, because of the danger to souls and because of our public association, I am compelled to warn our readers that he does not have the authority to make such a public judgment, and neither do any of us. Given the level of scandalous behaviors, statements and outright attacks on faithful Catholics it is only natural that any one of us would wonder if he is actually a legitimate pope. Our Blessed Lord said:
“Which of you, if he ask his father bread, will he give him a stone? or a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he reach him a scorpion? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father from heaven give the good Spirit to them that ask him?” (Luke 11:11-13)
Commenting on the same story recounted in Matthew (8:10), Fr. Cornelius a Lapide wrote:
“A serpent has the appearance and form of a fish, so that it might be deceitfully substituted for a fish, though only by a jealous enemy, not by a father. He says the same thing that He said in the previous verse, but by a more striking similitude. For if a father gave a stone to a child who asked him for bread, he would only give him a useless and uneatable thing; but if he gave him a serpent when he asked for a fish, he would give him not only a useless but a noxious and poisonous thing. For a serpent eaten by the son would destroy him by its venom; hence the father who would do that, which is the farthest thing from paternal piety and love for his children, would be guilty of filicide.”
Over the last 10 years, faithful Catholics, particularly those holding to the Church’s liturgical and moral Traditions, have been subject to an unending string of insults, abuse, and deprivations. When it is requested that the “bread” of the Traditional Latin Mass be allowed, Pope Francis handed those faithful children a stone, instead. When asked for “fish” – clarity on moral matters concerning contraception, homosexuality, and even transgender ideologies – he instead handed the children of faith a serpent of exceptions, acceptance, and “understanding.” And when asked for the “egg” of theological clarity, the sons and daughters of the Church were instead given the scorpion of idolatry, syncretism, and naturalism (that an atheist can be saved “because he was a good man.”) The kinds of things Pope Francis has said and done for the last decade have been a deep scandal to many, MANY faithful Catholics. And just as Our Lord asked which father would substitute nourishment for death when asked for food by his child, it is exceedingly difficult for those Catholics to understand how Pope Francis can be called “Father,” which is what “Pope” actually means.
So, it is understandable and even logical for many Catholics to doubt that Pope Francis is the pope because no true father would act as he does. But there is a very big difference between entertaining a doubt and passing a judgment. To pass judgment, one must have authority over the judged. A case can be brought to proper authorities about a particular matter to ask for judgment, but the judgment has to be reserved for the authority, alone.
For instance: A man enters a convenience store with a weapon. He kills the clerk and takes the money out of the till. Sometime later, a suspect is caught by police (authority), the information is examined by a prosecutor and a defense attorney (authority), and the case is presented to a judge and a jury (authorities) who then render the judgment. While witnesses are free to say that they saw the man commit the crime, or they believe the man is guilty, based upon the evidence, no one aside from that one judge and one jury has the authority to render a verdict.
In Father Altman’s video, he provides a lot of loosely connected facts surrounding Pope Francis’ pontificate, and he uses the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes to analogize what he is doing. He likened himself to the young child who witnessed the naked emperor parading down the street, crying out, “The emperor has no clothes!” But here’s the difference between what the boy said and what Fr. Altman is saying: the boy didn’t judge therefore that the emperor is not the emperor. He simply made a statement of fact.
It is good, and sometimes even a duty, to correct grave error. This is especially true if the error is coming from an authority. But such corrections must always be done in charity and in accord with the laws of piety. If someone’s father is a drunk, a philanderer, and a blasphemer who spends his days telling lies to his children it is necessary for the wife or even an older child to intervene. This could mean hiding the wicked activities from the children, closing their ears to the blasphemies, charitably correcting the lies (“your father isn’t thinking clearly”), and in severe cases it could mean separating from the father for a time. But even through the worst of the abuse, it would be a sin against piety for the wife or the children to declare that the father was not actually their father.
Now, there is a difference between the biological reality of fatherhood and the office of the papacy. The nature of the papacy is not unlike the nature of a marriage. In his book, “The Nullity of Marriage,” Frank Sheed explained the Catholic Church’s definition of a marriage as “a contract resulting not in a status only but in a relationship.” He wrote:
“A man and a woman are free either to make or not to make the agreement to marry. But if they make it, then God attaches certain consequences to their act. To this particular free choice of a man and a woman God has attached the consequence that a real relationship comes into being. They have stated their will to be husband and wife: God makes them so.”
By extension, one can see that something similar takes place when a new pope is elected. The College of Cardinals, who are the only ones with the authority to select a new pope, ask a man from among them (chosen by a vote) to assume the office of the papacy. When the man selected accepts this election, God then confirms and ratifies the election, thereby creating a situation by which no man on earth has the authority to revoke.
Now, it may happen that there are circumstances by which a marriage can be discovered NOT to have taken place. For instance, if a man was previously validly married, and his wife still lived, he would not have been free to marry another woman, and therefore a marriage would not have taken place. Similarly, it has happened in the past whereby a man thought to be the pope was found to be an anti-pope, and what this means is that evidence was discovered or presented to show that his election never occurred. In fact, such COULD be the case even now, but just as a man has no authority to tell his wife that he believes their marriage to have been invalid as a justification for him to leave, only a proper investigation conducted by proper authority can make a determination of nullity. Furthermore, such determination can only be made under very strict and narrow circumstances, and right judgment in these matters has eternal spiritual consequences for the judges in these cases. In fact, until such time as a proper judgment is made, the marriage MUST be assumed to exist, which is why it is NEVER morally licit for a spouse undergoing an annulment investigation to court a romantic relationship with someone else.
Fr. Altman referenced St. Robert Bellarmine to establish his case that “Jorge Bergoglio is not the pope.” He quoted this portion from De Romano Pontifice, II, 30:
“Now the fifth true opinion, is that a Pope who is a manifest heretic, ceases in himself to be Pope and head, just as he ceases in himself to be a Christian and member of the body of the Church: whereby, he can be judged and punished by the Church.”
What Father left off at the end was the portion which states, “and for this reason he can be judged and punished by the Church.” Had Father Altman simply presented a case, as one robbed and telling authorities who it was who had robbed him, that would be one thing. As I established in the beginning, we have a right and oftentimes a duty to point out and correct error and to demand rectification. But just as a robbed victim is not a judge who has the power and authority to declare a verdict, Father Altman – and by extension all members of the lower parts of the hierarchy – does not possess the authority or the power to declare whether a man sitting upon the Throne of Peter is or is not the pope.
The Church is the one whom St. Robert Bellarmine identified as the authority to judge and therefore also punish an apparent pope who has ceased to be pope by way of manifest heresy. The mechanism for such a thing would be similar to the manner in which the three popes controversy was handled – it is the purview of the College of Cardinals alone to hold a council and to render a verdict.
In the first chapter of the Second Book of Kings (2 Samuel), a messenger approached King David to tell him that both Saul and Jonathan were dead. David and his companions rent their garments and mourned their deaths, and when he asked how it was that Saul died, the messenger (who was lying) said that he himself had killed Saul. Scripture then tells us (vs. 13-16):
“David said to the young man that told him: Whence art thou? He answered: I am the son of a stranger of Amalee. David said to him: Why didst thou not fear to put out thy hand to kill the Lord's anointed? And David calling one of his servants, said: Go near and fall upon him. And he struck him so that he died.
And David said to him: Thy blood be upon thy own head: for thy own mouth hath spoken against thee, saying: I have slain the Lord's anointed.”
David is a type for Our Blessed Lord. David had the authority to slay Saul himself, but he did not. This messenger did NOT have the authority to slay Saul, and even though he didn’t actually do it, but lied about it instead, his words – in a sense – slew Saul: “thy own mouth hath spoken against thee saying: I have slain the Lord’s anointed.”
It is exceedingly dangerous to our own souls and the souls of others to assume authority we do not possess in order to render judgments we cannot ratify. For one thing, while we believe we possess all the facts, we do not, nor are any of us masters of the Law of the Church. Furthermore, though we have rational minds and can judge actions and words, we cannot see into the spiritual world and properly see and know spiritual realities. If Pope Francis has lost his office by way of manifest heresy, then he will be judged and punished for it, and Our Lord will provide the remedy for all the errors that coincided. Our Lady has been begging prayers for the pope for over a century now, and it is becoming eminently clear why that is. It is a fruitless endeavor to publicly declare that Jorge Bergoglio is not the pope because there is not a thing ANY of us – outside the College of Cardinals – can do about it. We can correct error, we can resist evil, and we decry abuse – and we should! But we should also recognize that what we are enduring is a chastisement of the Church and the only TRUE remedy is penance and to pray unceasingly for the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart.
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