Antipope

Antipope Felix V, the last historically significant antipope.

An antipope (Latin: antipapa) is a person who, in opposition to the legitimately elected Bishop of Rome, makes a widely accepted claim to be the Pope.^[1] In the past antipopes were typically those supported by a fairly significant faction of cardinals and kingdoms. Persons who claim to be the pope but have few followers, such as the modern sedevacantist antipopes, are not generally counted as antipopes, and therefore are ignored for regnal numbering.

In its list of the popes, the Holy See's annual directory, Annuario Pontificio, attaches to the name of Pope Leo VIII (963-965) the following note: "At this point, as again in the mid-eleventh century, we come across elections in which problems of harmonising historical criteria and those of theology and canon law make it impossible to decide clearly which side possessed the legitimacy whose factual existence guarantees the unbroken lawful succession of the successors of Saint Peter. The uncertainty that in some cases results has made it advisable to abandon the assignation of successive numbers in the list of the popes."

History

Saint Hippolytus (d. 235) is commonly recognised as the earliest antipope, as he protested against Pope Callixtus I and headed a separate group within the Latin Church. Hippolytus was later reconciled to Callixtus's second successor Pope Pontian, when both were condemned to the mines on the island of Sardinia. He has been canonized by the Church. Whether two or more persons have been confused in this account of Hippolytus,^[2] and whether Hippolytus actually declared himself to be the Bishop of Rome, remains unclear, especially since no such claim is found in the writings attributed to him.

The Catholic Encyclopedia also mentions a Natalius,^[3] before Hippolytus, as first antipope, who, according to Eusebius's EH5.28.8-12, quoting the Little Labyrinth of Hippolytus, after being "scourged all night by the holy angels", covered in ash, dressed in sackcloth, and "after some difficulty", tearfully submitted to Pope Zephyrinus. As proof of the angels' actual intervention, Natalius displayed the wounds they had left on his back.

Novatian (d. 258), another third-century figure, certainly claimed the See of Rome in opposition to Pope Cornelius, and is thus reckoned as the first unequivocal antipope.

The period when antipopes were most numerous was during the struggles between the popes and the Holy Roman Emperors of the 11th and 12th centuries. The emperors frequently imposed their own nominees in order to further their cause. The popes, likewise, sometimes sponsored rival imperial claimants in Germany in order to overcome a particular emperor.

The Great Western Schism, which, on the grounds of the allegedly invalid election of Pope Urban VI, began in 1378 with the election of Clement VII, who took up residence in Avignon, France, led to two, and eventually three, rival lines of claimants to papacy: the Roman line, the Avignon line, and the Pisan line. The last-mentioned line was named after the town of Pisa, Italy, where the council that elected Alexander V as a third claimant was held. To end the schism, in May 1415, the Council of Constance deposed John XXIII of the Pisan line, whose claim to legitimacy was based on a council's choice. Pope Gregory XII of the Roman line resigned in July 1415. In 1417, the Council of Florence also formally deposed Benedict XIII of the Avignon line, but he refused to resign. Afterwards, Pope Martin V was elected and was accepted everywhere, except in the small and rapidly diminishing area that remained faithful to Benedict XIII. The scandal of the Great Schism created anti-papal sentiment and fed into the Protestant Reformation at the turn of the 16th century.

List of historical antipopes

The list of popes and antipopes in the Annuario Pontificio does not include Natalius (perhaps because of the uncertainty of the evidence) nor Antipope Clement VIII. It may be that the following of the latter was considered insufficiently significant, like that of "Benedict XIV", who is mentioned along with him in the Catholic Encyclopedia article on Pope Martin V.

As for Sylvester III, sometimes listed as an antipope, the Holy See's Annuario Pontificio classifies him as a pope, not an antipope. In line with its above-quoted remark on the obscurities about the canon law of the time and the historical facts, especially in the mid-eleventh century (see the second paragraph of this article), it makes no judgement on the legitimacy of his takeover of the position of pope in 1045. The Catholic Encyclopedia places him in its List of Popes, though with the annotation: "Considered by some to be an antipope".

Modern claimants to papacy

Modern claimants to papacy in opposition to Pope Benedict XVI do not fit the Encyclopaedia Britannica's definition of "antipope": "one who opposes the legitimately elected Bishop of Rome, endeavours to secure the papal throne, and to some degree succeeds materially in the attempt."^[4] Except by their followers, whose number is minuscule, they are not regarded as serious claimants.

They are usually religious leaders of breakaway Roman Catholic groups who reject the commonly recognized popes (sedevacantist groups), For this reason they are often called "sedevacantist antipopes". Claiming to have elected a pope in a "conclave" of perhaps half a dozen laypeople (conclavism), they hold that, because of their action, the see of Rome is no longer vacant and they are no longer sedevacantists.

A significant number of them have taken the name Peter II, due to its special significance.

The Roman Catholic Church regards them as excommunicated schismatics and in some cases as heretics.

Current claimants

For further information, see the article Conclavism

As well as antipopes in the historical sense of the term, there have been and are people who, with a very limited following, ranging from very few to some hundred, claim to be Pope.

Collinites

Frenchman Michel Collin or Colin,^[5] born in a village of Lorraine in 1905 and ordained a priest in 1935, announced in 1936 that he had been ordained a bishop by Christ himself and founded a community called the Order of the Mother of God (a name later changed to "Apostles of Infinite Love"), in response to the 1846 request made by the Blessed Virgin Mary, as reported later by Mélanie Calvat, one of the seers of La Salette. In 1950 he announced that he had been crowned as Pope and had taken the name Clement XV.^[6] Pope Pius XII, who died only in 1958, reduced him to the lay state in 1951^[7] and publicly declared him by name a vitandus (one who should be avoided) excommunicate.

In 1952, Canadian Jean-Gaston Tremblay (born 1928) founded near St. Jovite in Quebec, Canada a community under the name of the Congregation of Jesus and Mary. In 1961 he met Michel Collin and the two decided to merge their communities into a single one called the Apostles of Infinite Love. In the following year Collin consecrated Tremblay as a bishop. The St. Jovite community grew rapidly in the first years of the Second Vatican Council.^[6]

In 1967, Collin announced that he had been divinely instructed to bypass Tremblay as his designated successor as Pope; but in 1968, Tremblay declared that he had mystically been made Pope under the name of Gregory XVII and, in the following year, Collin acknowledged that Tremblay was now Pope.^[6]

In France, Collin's movement broke up into different factions some years after his 1974 death,^[8] but the Canadian group continues, using the name "Apostles of Infinite Love", but giving more prominence to the name "Order of the Magnificat of the Mother of God" and > and "Order of the Apostles of the Latter Times".^[9][10]

Palmarian Catholic Church

• Clemente Domínguez y Gómez (Pope Gregory XVII), mystically self-proclaimed (1978–2005) in Spain
• Manuel Alonso Corral (Pope Peter II), succeeded Gregory XVII in 2005

The Palmarian Catholic Church regards Pope Paul VI, whom they revere as a martyr, and his predecessors as true popes, but hold, on the grounds of claimed apparitions, that the Pope of Rome is excommunicated and that the position of the Holy See has, since 1978, been transferred to the See of El Palmar de Troya.

Other examples

The following organised their elections by allegedly faithful Catholics, none of whom was a recognized cardinal. The smallest such "conclave" was attended by only three electors, the largest is claimed to have comprised more than sixty-one electors. Examples are:

• Mirko Krav Fabris (Pope Krav I), (since 1978), elected in Zagreb, Croatia.
• David Bawden (Pope Michael I), (since 1990) elected in Kansas, United States of America
• Lucian Pulvermacher (Pope Pius XIII) (since 1998), elected in Montana, United States of America, pope of the "True Catholic Church".
• Raphael Titus Otieno (since 2004), third of the Legio Maria popes (since 1962) of western Kenya

Fiction

Antipopes have appeared as fictional characters. These may be either in historical fiction, as fictional portraits of well-known historical antipopes or in the guise of imaginary antipopes.

• Jean Raspail's novels of — "L'Anneau du pêcheur" (The Fisherman's Ring) — and Gérard Bavoux — "Le Porteur de lumière" (The Light-bringer) feature two antipopes.^[11][12] From two rather different perspectives these recount the fictional history of a parallel hierarchy, by which in secret French cardinals nominated the true Pope. As it is told, the antipope Benedict XV', Pierre Tifane, was recognized as pope in Avignon from 1437 to 1470. His successor, the antipope Benedict XVI (not to be confused with the validly-elected 21st century Pope Benedict XVI), Jean Langlade, reigned there from 1470 to 1499. These books build on claims that Jean Carrier, the second antipope Benedict XIV, nominated cardinals who were to continue this antipapal line, in the Great Schism.

• Robert Rankin's first part of his comic fantasy "The Brentford Trilogy" is called "The Antipope," and features the resurrected Pope Alexander VI, the last Borgia pope.

• Walter M. Miller's "A Canticle for Leibowitz" makes repeated reference to an "Antipope Vissarion," leader of the Vissarionist Schism of ca. 3000 AD. Several popes in the sequel, the post-apocalyptical novel Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman are called antipopes during or after their papacies.

• The fictional synth-pop artist Zladko Vladcik claims to be "The Anti-Pope" in one of his songs.

• Dan Simmons's novels "Endymion" and "Rise of Endymion" feature a Father Paul Duré who is the routinely murdered antipope Teilhard I.

• S.M. Stirling's "Dies the Fire" and its sequels feature an antipope named Leo, who is set up by one of the surviving communities of Western Oregon after the "the Change." After communications with Europe are reestablished, and the death of this antipope and his secular sponsor, his followers are reconciled with the Church.

• Ralph McInerny's novel "The Red Hat" features a schism between liberals and conservatives following the election of a conservative African Pope; the liberal faction, taking as pretext the exclusion from a previous conclave of a number of cardinals who had been named but not formally appointed before the Pope's death, elect an Italian cardinal who calls himself "Pius XIII".

References

External links and bibliography

• Catholic Encyclopedia: Antipope
• Encyclopaedia Britannica: Antipope
• The Pope Encyclopaedia: Antipope
• Kelly, J.N.D, "The Oxford Dictionary of Popes," Oxford University Press, USA (June 1, 1986), ISBN 0-19-213964-9
• Raspail, Jean, "L'Anneau du pêcheur," Paris: Albin Michel, 1994. 403 p. ISBN 2-226-07590-9
• Bavoux, Gérard, "Le Porteur de lumière," Paris: Pygmalion, 1996. 329 pp ISBN 2-85704-488-7

Antipopes of the Roman Catholic Church Hippolytus · Novatian · Felix II · Ursicinus · Eulalius · Laurentius · Dioscorus · Theodore · Paschal · Constantine II · Philip · John VIII · Anastasius · Christopher · Boniface VII · John XVI · Gregory VI · Benedict X · Honorius II · Clement III · Theodoric · Adalbert · Sylvester IV · Gregory VIII · Celestine II · Anacletus II · Victor IV (1138) · Victor IV (1159–1164) · Paschal III · Callixtus III · Innocent III · Nicholas V · Clement VII · Benedict XIII · Alexander V · John XXIII · Clement VIII · Benedict XIV · Felix V