Lucian Pulvermacher
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Fr. Earl Lucian Pulvermacher (born April 20, 1918) is a Roman Catholic priest who was elected Pope Pius XIII in October 1998 by the true Catholic Church, a small conclavist group. He is considered an Antipope, though not a historical Antipope, as his following is too small. He currently resides in the United States (in Springdale, Washington).
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[edit] Ministry up to the mid-1990s
Earl Pulvermacher was born into a Roman Catholic family: three of his brothers became priests. In 1942, at the age of 24, he joined the Capuchin Order, taking the religious name Lucian; he was subsequently ordained to the priesthood in June 1946. He spent the greater part of his career as a Capuchin (from 1948 to 1970) as a missionary priest in Japan, residing initially in the Ryukyu Islands and subsequently on Okinawa. In 1970, he was transferred from Japan to Australia, where he continued his missionary work until his disillusionment with the changes that followed the Second Vatican Council of 1962-1965 had reached a critical point. In January 1976, he left the Capuchin Order and the "official" Catholic Church, and returned to the United States. "I was without money," he later remembered, "without a home or anything. The few things I brought along with me I could carry in two bags." [1]
In the United States, Pulvermacher attempted to find a new home for himself in the Traditionalist Catholic movement. He joined the Society of St. Pius X, the leading traditionalist group, but his refusal to give the sacraments to people who associated themselves with the "official" Church became a source of serious conflict between him and his fellow priests and superiors. (One of his brothers, Fr. Carl Pulvermacher, joined the SSPX shortly after he left it, and remained a member until his death in June 2006.) From August 1976 onwards, Fr. Pulvermacher established and served a circuit of private chapels across the United States, working as an 'independent' traditionalist priest unaffiliated to any religious order or society. He claims that none of his congregations satisfied him: he judged them all too liberal and modernistic. In the mid-1990s, his ministry took a dramatic new direction.
[edit] The true Catholic Church papal election
Pulvermacher was a sedevacantist, believing that Pope John Paul II and his immediate predecessors were neither true Catholics nor true popes. He was of the opinion that a new, legitimate pope could be elected by the remnant faithful of the sedevacantist movement. After preparations that were not without difficulties, a papal election was held in October 1998. Pulvermacher was the choice of the electors: he accepted the papacy when it was offered to him, and chose "Pius" as his regnal name.
Though he received support from across the world, Pulvermacher's followers were few in number, and many of them lived in Montana, near to his own place of residence. Only 28 people attended his purported episcopal consecration, which was held in a hotel ballroom on 4 July 1999.
It is noteworthy that Pulvermacher castigates not only the "official" Catholic Church but also (and often with greater fervor) other traditionalist Catholics who reject his claim to the papacy.
[edit] Gordon Bateman
Gordon Bateman was an Australian who belonged to Pulvermacher's circle of friends and supporters, and subsequently became one of his cardinals. Following the 1998 papal election, Pulvermacher attempted to obtain episcopal orders by consecrating Bateman to the episcopate and then having Bateman consecrate him in turn. Whether or not a simple priest can, with the Pope's authorisation, consecrate another man as a bishop is a disputed question: some firmly dismiss the notion, while others point to alleged historical precedents for such an action. Of course, this theological question becomes important only if one accepts that Pulvermacher is the Pope: his episcopal orders otherwise fall to be considered invalid.
Bateman later left Pulvermacher's church after he discovered that Pulvermacher, from his seminarian days, had practiced "divining" with a pendulum. Pulvermacher has defended the practice as beneficial and God-given, but it is regarded by other Catholics as a type of occultism. In the 1940s, Pope Pius XII banned such practices on pain of excommunication, and it was noted that Pulvermacher was therefore, on his own logic, as ineligible for the papacy as the allegedly heretical "official" popes whom he so despised.
[edit] Family
Pulvermacher's surviving family do not recognise his claim to the papacy, though his mother is alleged to have done so before her death.[citation needed] At least seven of Pulvermacher's eight siblings and their families, as well as distant relatives, remained in full communion with the official Roman Catholic Church, including two of his priest-brothers, who were active members of the Capuchin Order. The eighth sibling, Fr. Carl Pulvermacher OMCap, was until his death an associate of the Society of St. Pius X, an organisation that recognises the post-conciliar popes, but whose canonical standing in the Roman Catholic Church is a matter of dispute.
[edit] See also
- Sedevacantism for a more general discussion of this phenomenon
- David Bawden, Clemente Dominguez y Gomez and Manuel Corral for other primary conclavist claimants to the Papacy
- Popes John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, whose papal reigns "Pope Pius XIII" claims to be illicit and invalid.
[edit] External links
- A letter from "Pope Pius XIII" (from Catholic Answers)
- Official website
- The Vatican-In-Exile (a conclavist site that opposes Pulvermacher's claims)
- Michaelinum: The Catholic Restoration Site (also anti-Pulvermacher, this site supports the claims of David Bawden, "Pope Michael I")
