On the website truecatholic.org there is an encrypted webpage to vote for the successor of Pius XIII, AKA Father Lucian Pulvermacher, the “pope of Montana”, who was elected with white smoke on a ranch in 1998 and who died three years ago.
“All electors and those who could be elected pope, please enter your username and password to enter…”
In the meantime in Canada, on the 12th of January, another pope was elected, he is father Mathurin.
In Italy, in Gavinana, in the province of Pistoia, father Gino Frediani, a parish priest who claims of to have been chosen directly by the heavens to be pope Emmanuele I, has founded the Chiesa Novella Universale del Sacro Cuore (Universal Novel Church of the Sacred Heart) and after his death his successor, another priest, started managing the community.
These are only some examples of the varied and colourful world of the antipopes of the third millennium, characters with small followings, in many instances coming from the most exasperated traditionalism.
They consider the seat of Peter vacant because of the “heresy” of the conciliar Popes who have strayed from the true catholic faith. For this reason, with the support of small groups of admirers, they have nominated themselves.
To avoid misunderstandings, it has to be said that all these claimants to the papal throne have nothing to do with the serious traditionalism represented by the Society of Saint Pius X founded by Mgr. Lefebvre; also as far as the number of followers is concerned.
Nor are they linked to the sedeprivationist thought represented in Italy by the Mater Boni Consilii di Verrua Savoia institute (Institute of the Mother of Good Counsel), which acknowledges the heresy of the Popes from John XXIII on, but does not think it possible to proceed with a new conclave.
It is commonly known that in the history of the Church there have been moments in which there was more than one potential successor of Peter, and due to the lack of effective media, the faithful were not always in the position of knowing who the legitimate bishop of Rome was and who the antipopes were.
The situation today is not even remotely comparable, and certainly Benedict XVI does not feel his authority threatened in any way by the self-made antipopes, such as the young David Bawden, a former Lefebvrian seminarian never ordained clergyman, who proclaims himself “pope Michael” and lives with his mother and two deacons in Belvue, Kansas (he is the only one with a movie dedicated to him, popemichaelfilm.com/watch/youtube).
But in some cases, some of these claimants to the Throne have managed to be consecrated as bishops from a real catholic official, such as the Vietnamese Pierre Martin Ngô Đình Thục, who died in 1984 after reconciling with the Holy See, but who has perpetrated dozens of illicit Episcopal ordainments.
The forefather of the contemporary antipopes is Michel Collin, the self-proclaimed Pope Clement XV, who died in 1974. Clergyman and French Catholic missionary, he founded the Renewed Church of Christ and claimed to have been crowned by God Himself. Collin founded his own college of cardinals with 19 members.
One of these, the Canadian Jean Gaston Tremblay, has become the protagonist of a schism by founding the Church of the Magnificat and proclaiming himself Pope Gregory XVII.
Tremblay, who has opened the priesthood to women, died last year, and three months ago Michel La Vallee (Fr. Mathurin) was elected as his successor. The Church of the Magnificat has an Italian branch in the city of Brescia with a few dozen followers.
A unique and important phenomenon because of its size is the Iglesia Palmariana (Palmarian Chruch), founded in Spain by Clemente Dominguez, a would-be clairvoyant who became blind because of a road accident. After being ordained bishop by Mgr. Thuc, he proclaimed himself Pope Gregory XVII in 1978.
The Palmarian Church has a real cathedral and counts several thousand followers, but there have been a few schisms after Dominguez confessed in public to have abused some nuns.
After the death of Gregory XVII in 2005 the palmarians have elected his lawyer, Manuel Alonso Corral (Peter II), who died last year; now the antipope is Sergio Maria (Gregory XVIII).
Murky stories have also accompanied the career of the South African Victor Von Pentz. Born in 1953, he was a former Lefebvrian seminarian who never became a priest, was nominated by a “conclave” in Assisi to become Pope Linus II and was crowned with a real tiara.
His supporters had attempted, on the 29 June 1994, to establish him in the Basilica of St. John Lateran (the oldest of the four papal basilicas in Rome).
Four years later, he had himself consecrated bishop in London, but his traces have been lost.
On a different note, a large following has been attracted by William Kamm, AKA “The Little Pebble” who, in Australia, proclaims himself the true heir of Pope Wojtyla who, he claims, has not actually died and who he is expected to come back to proclaim Kamm pope Peter Romano II, the last pope according to the prophesy of Malachi.
Kamm is currently detained because two of his 84 “mystical” wives, barely fifteen-years-old, have accused him of rape.
The sociologist and founder of CESNUR (Center for Studies on New Religions), Massimo Introvigne, has studied many of the contemporary antipopes in depth and comments, “These phenomena represent the extreme tip of radical traditionalism and demonstrate that if one begins to claim that the Pope is not longer legitimate, sooner or later someone self-appoints in his place. And it is interesting to note the unforeseeable reversal of fronts, like the one that happened in Tremblay’s “most traditional” Canadian community where the priesthood has been opened to women.”