Welcome to the Council of Trend Podcast, a production of Catholic Answers.

Hey everyone, in today's episode I want to talk about Father James Altman and what he said about Pope Francis.

But first, check out the new studio.

We've got new lights, new paint, lots of other things to brighten up the space in here and make things look a lot better.

There's going to be a few other pre-recorded episodes with the old design in the next few weeks.

But I'm really grateful to our patrons at trendhornpodcast.com that made all of this possible to keep upgrading our studio set.

So please consider supporting us at trendhornpodcast.com and definitely subscribe to the channel.

Alright, so Father Altman is a priest in the diocese of La Crosse who was removed from ministry by his bishop in 2021.

In today's episode, I want to talk about how he now rejects the authority of Pope Francis and is embraced a kind of set of econtism.

So a video he released a few weeks ago is called Bergoglio is not the Pope, which is a reference to Pope Francis's given name, Jorge Bergoglio.

Now most set of econtists believe the papacy has been empty since 1958.

But Father Altman seems to hold what is called the Benavicontist view, the idea that Pope Benedict XVI was the last valid Pope.

This is a dangerous position because the Catechism says the sin of schism involves the refusal of submission to the Roman Pontiff,

or of communion with the members of the church subject to him.

Father Altman is encouraging people to not be in communion with the Roman Pontiff, plain and simple.

You can't say he's not schismatic because that requires recognizing someone is the Pope and not submitting to him.

The fact that nearly every Catholic on earth, as well as all of the Cardinals and bishops, recognize Pope Francis is the Pope,

is enough to show Father Altman is an error and he should repent.

He's acting like a married man, defending an affair by saying, well, my wife isn't really my wife, even though every ecclesial authority says that she is.

So to say that Father Altman's one solitary voice is correct, and the entire church hierarchy has been corrupted,

well that follows the same path of destruction Martin Luther put laid out 500 years ago.

So I'm not going to go through his entire video because a lot of it, it's just rhetoric or bald assertions,

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