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Father Richard HeilmanAlpha News / YouTube

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CROSS PLAINS, Wisconsin, July 14, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — The popular Father Richard Heilman has firmly defended Father James Altman amid his sanctions, saying that the saints and Christ Himself also “overstepped their boundaries” by calling out the hierarchy of their time.

Heilman, who is pastor of St. Mary of Pine Bluff Catholic Church in Wisconsin, and a friend of Altman’s, expressed his shock and dismay over the removal of Altman’s faculties during a homily he gave this past Sunday.  

“We’re living in a tumultuous time,” said Heilman, who was quick to add, “I always qualify by saying I have great hope. And I believe and I hope I'm right about this, that this is a time when evil is being drawn out from the darkness, so it can be seen easily for what it is.”

Heilman believes that “we have some bishops that are trying to be in league with the powers that be,” and that these bishops now “compromise their morals, ethics, truth,” to “keep the money train coming.” 

“And so there are those bishops that are appeasing the tyrants, and there are those bishops afraid of the bishops who are appeasing the tyrants. It’s hard to find any bishops who don’t fall into one of those two categories right now,” continued Heilman.

“And you have Fr. Altman who is shining a bright light on all this, and it’s almost like you can see the panic. ‘No, you can’t say that, you can’t do that.’ And it’s happening to other priests, those who are offering a reverent Mass and speaking the truth. That pretty much sums up the identity of those who are being persecuted right now.

“But what’s very disheartening is to see as they are being assaulted, attacked, censored, persecuted, is to see those who you thought, aren’t you in our company? Aren’t you in our kind of inner circle, our family of God? Yet you see people joining ranks with those who are persecuting these priests.

“One of the accusations that’s thrown, for instance, at Fr. Altman, is that it’s the cult of personality, like Father Corapi, they’ll say.

“And I’m going ‘really? So what you’re saying then is that anyone who inspires people, and they appreciate his message and look forward to the next message that he offers, automatically that places them in a category of cult of personality.’

“I said, ‘then you have to say that about Jesus’,” Heilman continued.

Heilman said that “you’ll see saints” who spoke in a vein similar to St. John the Baptists’ rebuke to Pharisees and Sadducees, “You brood of vipers!”

“Google Saint Peter Damian’s quotes,” said Heilman. St. Damian is known in part for his searing denunciation of sodomy among the clergy in his Book of Gomorrah.

“I’m talking about John the Baptist, Jesus Christ. People who stood up to the hierarchy of their time, and said ‘No, you can’t do this.’ That isn’t disobedience. That’s shining a light in our times.”

By contrast, Heilman said, there are those who try to hush such truth-tellers, who say, “Wait wait wait — the elites, the cabal, the tyrants of our times are going to get upset with your truth. You’re being divisive.”
“You’re upsetting people who want to hold onto their worldly sins while counting themselves as a child of the light, and then come and receive Communion and model that for the rest of the kingdom of God,” Heilman continued.

“And then you have hierarchy who are saying ‘come on, yes, this is the new normal. Go ahead and believe whatever horrendous thing, abomination unto God. Practice it, promote it, and then come and receive communion. And if you dare speak out against that, you’re divisive. And you need to be put out.’ That’s where we’re at right now.

“And some are saying ‘Shhh! we’re taking the long view here. We’ll chip at this piece by piece.’”

Heilman said he was reminded of the movie “Sing a Little Louder,” in which a minister tells his choir to sing louder in order to drown out the cries of prisoners on their way to concentration camps, who are crying out for help from their train.

“What’s that like?” said Heilman.

“1.7 billion babies. Under our watch. I gotta watch as a cardinal says ‘come on, President, and receive your Communion, even though you are the number one most influential and powerful person promoting tearing apart children from limb from limb.’ 1.7 billion worldwide since 1973.

But we're taking the ‘long view.’” 

“And we want to be like the saints who never upset anybody and went over in their hermitage and prayed.” But they didn’t just pray, Heilman pointed out.

“They were thrown to the lions. They were hung on trees. Because they dared to threaten the agenda of the ruling class. That’s it in a nutshell,” said Heilman.

“You’ll be hated by all because of me, Jesus said.

“I believe we're facing a watershed moment, and I think we all have to do a heart check. Am I willing to lose family members, for instance, because I ain't gonna call a guy a girl when he's not a girl? Am I going to get active to stand against this surge of tyranny that has come? Am I going to pray and discern, ‘what are the gifts that you gave me, God?’”

Heilman called on his listeners to pray to God to “Help us to fight off our weariness, our weakness, our fearfulness, our cowardliness, anything that's standing in the way to stand with the Saint Peter Damians, the John the Baptists of the world.”