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Fr. James Altman in an Oct. 23, 2020 interview with LifeSiteNews.

BALTIMORE (LifeSiteNews) – Father James Altman blasted members of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) on Tuesday at Church Militant’s “Bishops: Enough is Enough” prayer rally and conference, excoriating the prelates over their part in the sex abuse crisis and for mandating the reception of the abortion-tainted COVID jabs for clerics under their jurisdiction.

Altman, suspended by Bishop William Callahan of La Crosse, Wisconsin from his post as pastor of St. James the Less Church in La Crosse in July after he advised his parishioners that they “can’t be a Catholic and a Democrat,” unloaded on the USCCB, whose members are currently gathered for their annual Fall Assembly in a hotel directly opposite from where he was speaking, in a fiery nine-minute speech.

“You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy,” Altman said of the gathered bishops. There are “five billion dollars of payouts for criminal abuse and cover-up that continues to this day to prove the point,” he added.

The canceled priest called out Pope Francis, whom Altman described as “a card-carrying member of the ‘Saint Gallen Mafia,’” for his alleged part in the cover-up of the serial sexual abuser and ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick.

Altman stated that Francis “knew unequivocally … and understood that McCarrick was a boy molester, a seminarian molester and a priest molester” but that he still “rehabilitated his friend,” in reference to details revealed by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò in 2018.

After denouncing the Pope for facilitating the actions of the disgraced cardinal, Altman likewise called Francis “a disgrace” who is “not worthy of the white cassock of the Catholic Church.”

“Neither I nor anyone in Church Militant or any other speaker today ever will forget the wretched boy molesters and those who covered it [the abuses] up and who to this day continue by their silence to cover up the ‘sorority sisters’ [reference to undisclosed members of the USCCB] among them,” Altman declared.

No concession was made for bishops whom he described as “halfway decent,” and who might say “a few of the right things.” “The halfway decent ones do not get a free pass from me … because their silence is complicity,” Altman said.

Turning his attention toward the recent scandal of non-Catholic Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot receiving the Eucharist at a Mass, Altman asked whether any of the USCCB had voiced criticism of Cardinal Blaise Cupich, archbishop of Chicago, after he “sat by without comment or correction when the non-Catholic, same-sex ‘married,’ pro-abortion mayor of Chicago pressed up to commit sacrilege against the Holy Eucharist.”

“He said nothing before, he said nothing after, and neither has any other one of them [the bishops]. Sacrilege,” Altman railed.

One notable exception among the American hierarchy who has spoken out, the priest noted, is Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Texas, the mention of whose name prompted rapturous applause among those gathered. “With the exception of the great Bishop Strickland, I don’t know of anyone across the street who has our backs,” Altman said.

The outspoken priest praised Strickland for his opposition to mandating the COVID-19 jabs, cutting against Cupich and a raft of his brother bishops who have mandated “vaccination” for diocesan staff and clergy. According to Altman, Strickland described any such requirement as “evil.”

“So here’s a memo to Blase Cupich and every other monster in a mitre who mandated the jab,” Altman continued, “repent or burn in the hottest fires of hell you so richly deserve … God, damn every one of their mandates to take the jab.”

In conclusion, Altman said that most of the American bishops “are just plain bad, B–A–D,” adding that the letters of the word can be seen as an acronym describing the bishops as having betrayed, abandoned, and denied the lay faithful of access to the Church and her sacraments “during the godless ‘fear-demic.’”

“They abandoned us in our time of fabricated need … they denied us the sacraments of grace that we need for our eternal souls to get to heaven,” the priest lamented. “They have one job: salvation of souls, and they betrayed us, abandoned us and denied us grace.”

In a final exhortation to the gathered prelates of the Church in America, Altman said “repent and resign now, because your mitre is your great millstone.”