Palmarian Catholic Church
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The Palmarian Catholic Church (One Holy Catholic Apostolic and Palmarian Church) is a schismatic and heretical Catholic church with its own, self-acclaimed pope, Peter II. He is held as an antipope (a false claimant to the papacy) by the Roman Catholic Church.
The Palmarian Church as a group was established in 1975 by Clemente Domínguez y Gómez, an insurance broker from Seville, Spain, who claimed the Virgin Mary appeared to him at a shrine outside the small village of El Palmar de Troya in Andalucía with instructions to rid the Roman Catholic Church of "heresy and progressivism" as well as Communism. Before Domínguez y Gómez styled himself as a seer, the seers at El Palmar de Troya had only been young children. From the start of the apparitions in 1968 until 1975, the seers could count on many devotees and considerable support from diocesan and regular priests.
Initially the group around Domínguez y Gomez did not style itself as a separate church, but as a new Roman Catholic order of conservative Carmelites (Order of Carmelites of the Holy Face or Carmelite Order of the Holy Face), inspired by the supposed apparitions and which styled itself as "faithful to the holy Pope Paul VI." This canonically unapproved order has claimed that Paul VI (who is still honoured by them as a martyr-pope) was detained in the Vatican by cardinals. Furthermore, the order has been isolated from mainstream Catholicism by its use of hallucinogenic drugs. The order was initially run by laymen, but supported sacramentally by a range of Roman Catholic priests.
A key figure in obtaining Holy Orders for the Carmelites of Palmar de Troya was the former Roman Catholic priest (Bernardine canon) Rev. Maurice Revaz. Revaz convinced the elderly Vietnamese Roman Catholic Archbishop Ngo Dinh Thuc Pierre Martin of the authenticity of the apparitions in Palmar de Troya. Accepting the mystical message of the seer-mystics in Palmar de Troya, the Archbishop believed he was called to raise two of the order's lay members (Dominguez and Corral) and three of the priests associated with the group, to the rank of bishop without seeking permission of the Vatican in 1976. He also ordained some of its lay members to the priesthood to secure the survival of these 'Carmelites.' Thuc and the five men he had consecrated as bishops were subsequently excommunicated by Pope Paul VI because the episcopal consecrations had been conducted without Vatican approval. Thuc cut off association with the Palmar de Troya group and asked Paul VI to be forgiven and absolved of canonical penalties, a request met by the Holy See.
In 1978 Clemente Domínguez y Gomez set up his own holy see in Seville claiming he had been mystically crowned pope by Jesus Christ in a vision, and that only he was the legitimate successor to Pope Paul VI. He took the name Pope Gregory XVII and named his own cardinals. By these actions the group formerly known as 'Carmelites of the Holy Face' transformed into the Palmarian Catholic Church. Some of Catholics previously associated with the Carmelites left the group because of this formation of a separate Palmarian Church, which they considered schismatic.
Uniquely, the popes of the Palmarian Church do not claim to be the titular Bishop of Rome. Rather, they claim that Christ transferred the position of Patriarch of the West and Supreme Pontiff to the new episcopal see of Palmar de Troya. This is a departure from traditional Roman Catholic doctrine, which identifies the papacy with the Bishop of Rome and holds that personal revelations are not binding on the whole Church.
The Palmarian Church claims to have 60 members of clergy (all of whom are bishops), 70 nuns and 2,000 followers. It has chapels in Britain and Latin America as well as Australia and New Zealand.
Palmarian Pope Gregory XVII called the Roman Catholic Church a false church, and declared Pope John Paul II excommunicated. He also canonized Francisco Franco, Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer and Christopher Columbus and declared Paul VI a martyr saint (according to the group's claim he had been kept a hostage and drugged in the Vatican while Masonic cardinals usurped his authority).
Since 1983 the Palmarian Church has drastically reformed its rites and its liturgy, which previously had been styled in the Tridentine form. The Palmarian liturgy was reduced to almost solely the Eucharistic words of consecration. The See of Palmar de Troya has also declared the real presence of the Virgin Mary in the sacred host and the bodily assumption into heaven of St. Joseph to be dogma. By 2004 they had their own version of the Bible, as revised by Dominguez who claimed to have received prophetic authority to do so. This breach with traditional Catholic teaching on the authority of the Bible led to the secession of a dissident group of Palmarian bishops based in Archidona, Spain; they maintain that Dominguez was indeed appointed as Pope by Christ but forfeited his office when he fell into heresy through his claim to rewrite the Bible.
Between 1978 and 1983 many adherents left the Palmarian Church, among them key figure Rev. Maurice Revaz who had been consecrated a Palmarian bishop in mid-1976. He was reconciled to the Roman Catholic Church by Pope John Paul II in 1983 (and subsequently laicised) and cut all ties with the Palmar community.
A similar case was Alfred Seiwert-Fleige who was ordained a priest for the Carmelites of the Holy Face in early 1976 by Archbishop Ngo Dinh Thuc, and consecrated a bishop around 1980. He left the Palmarian Church in 1981 and was finally reconciled with the Roman Catholic Church in 2001 by Pope John Paul II, and concelebrated at a Papal Mass at St. Peter's Square, Rome, after which he was publicly embraced by John Paul II.
Domínguez died in March 2005 whilst administering Palmarian Easter Liturgy and in a vision. His church later declared him to be Pope Saint Gregory, XVII, the Very Great. Manuel Alonso Corral succeeded him as the Palmarian Pope Peter II.
Despite the name 'Peter II' the Corrall does not claim to be 'Petrus Romanus', the last Pope, according to the Prophecy of the Popes (controversially accredited to St. Malachy of Ireland and generally disputed among many Catholics and secular scholars alike), as he does not claim to be the Bishop (titular or otherwise) of Rome and has no personal ties to that see.
[edit] Popes of the Palmarian Catholic Church
- Clemente Domínguez y Gómez (Pope St. Gregory XVII, the Very Great) - Reigned August 1978 to March 2005
- Manuel Corral (Peter II) - Reigning Palmarian leader, reign began April 2005
(until the death of Pope Paul VI in 1978, Palmarian Catholics generally accept the conventional succession of Roman Pontiffs as valid)
[edit] Notes
The original version of this article was adapted from "A million gather for Pope's 'last words' to Spain" by Isambard Wilkinson in Madrid.
Also of note, in The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman, a professor at Jordan College is the Palmarian Professor.
