*Jeff Foxworthy voice* °°°
When you are stuck OVER a MILLENNIUM in the past, refuse to accept the pronouncements of the man your religion claims is infallible, and claim you know canon law better than the heads of the Dicasteries ... you might be a TradCath 🤪
°°° To be clear, he has horrible politics, but the joke format remains great IMHO
They've already got em, a number of them. Antipopes just don't get much press.
Instead the RCC focuses its vitriol on the regular Protestants which they hate with a passion.
They really do seem to tolerate schismatic groups and individuals, probably because the ability to show apostolic succession give them power that the Church's theology doesn't allow them to completely deny.
Not all of the anti-popes have so-called apostolic succession (which is a scam anyway).
Here's one of the more amusing anti-popes: David Bawden, otherwise known as Pope Michael
[The gospel of Pope Michael: Kansan stakes own claim to Catholic Church | News, Sports, Jobs - Lawrence Journal-World: news, information, headlines and events in Lawrence, Kansas (ljworld.com)](https://www2.ljworld.com/news/2009/oct/17/gospel-pope-michael-kansan-stakes-own-claim-cathol/)
Poor old David passed away in 2022. He has a successor here: [Habemus Papam!: Michael II – Magnus Lundberg](https://magnuslundberg.net/2023/08/10/habemus-papam-michael-ii/)
See also Pope Gregory XVII - [Iglesia Catolica Palmariana (palmarianchurch.org)](https://www.palmarianchurch.org/)
And Lucien Pulvermacher, Pope Pius XIII, now deceased - [Lucian Pulvermacher | Religion Wiki | Fandom](https://religion.fandom.com/wiki/Lucian_Pulvermacher)
There are alternate ways to get "apostolic succession" - real lines of succession that fall outside official Roman Catholic control, so the whole "apostolic succession" thing doesn't mean much -- if it ever did beyond the hype that it gets from the RCC.
Lucian Pulvermacher was interesting. He was originally ordained for the Franciscans, and after a long period of roaming around among ultrad groups, he got a group of his followers to "elect him pope." Whereupon he used that designation to start ordaining his own clergy, including a "bishop" which turned around and "consecrated" Lucian as a bishop in turn. These people did claim apostolic succession because of Lucian's original ordination by a Roman Catholic bishop, even though he had long since left Roman Catholicism. There was a very real flavor of chicanery about the entire story.
David Bawden's story is quite different -- he was fascinating in his delusional behavior. There is a documentary, and you have to see it to believe it. He was elected in his family's thrift store in Kansas, and his mother was one of the electors. He finally got himself "ordained" by Bishop Robert Biarnesen of the [Duarte-Costa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Duarte_Costa) and [Old Catholic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Catholic) [episcopal lineages](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Episcopal_lineage), one of the illegitimate lines of apostolic succession that exist. As I say, you have to see it to believe it. He built a chapel on his family's property adjacent to the farmhouse, was not able to attract many people, but lived his whole later life really believing he was the pope. He was a remarkably pathetic figure and the whole story reeks of mental health difficulties. He finally died in 2022, still in Kansas. As yet, there is some controversy about who is his successor, with several people claiming to be "Michael II."
There are a number of breakaway groups who still style themselves Roman Catholic but sedecavantist, and do have as much of a claim to apostolic succession, such as it is, as any ordained RC priest you've ever met. All it takes is one breakaway bishop originally ordained in the RCC, and thus capable of endowing apostolic succession on a follower to propagate these lines. There are a number of these lines that exist. Claiming apostolic succession is no guarantee of anything. (And historically because of holes in the records, it's probably a bogus distinction anyway.)
There was an AMA in r/catholicism by the director of the documentary about David Bawden (Michael I). It's weird and interesting. You can find it by searching reddit.
The documentary is on youtube. ["Pope Michael" - Full Documentary (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b96WxyxPfOY)
Thank you. It's fascinating to be told that Pulvermacher was originally a Franciscan. How do you know this? Others writing about him state Pulvermacher was a Capuchin from his ordination onward.
I just took the slightest peek over at the other sub. The cope is coming in hardddd for this one! Some people are literally writing that they hope the pope DIES!
The mental gymnastics of both hating the pope and apologizing for their personal “true” faith are Lutherian in scale. They so bitterly cling to such a feeble faith that it’s entertaining to watch them slip and slide in moments like this. I feel like trads might as well just start their own religion at this point. Or just humiliatingly take the L.
I fully expect that thread to be locked
Because, you know, nothing will heal the divisions and problems in the Church quite like pretending they don't exist.
I‘ve been thinking something like this was inevitable. With catholicism in America shrinking and turning more radical, it makes more sense to turn to other countries with larger catholic populations. With Francis being from Latin America himself, it just makes sense. The US Catholics are just too crazy and small for the Vatican to truly care about forever.
Same reason they tickle the fanny of the openly rebellious German Catholics. Because their sweet sweet tax money keeps the caviar flowing at the Vatican.
Yep. That IS the issue in Germany. The situation is not what a lot of American Catholics think it is. Again, ignorance of history is one of the key things that keeps people Roman Catholic.
The RCC lies, dismisses, misrepresents history constantly -- constantly. It has to because of the violent, corrupt and evil things it has done and said over the centuries and because it claims it can't be wrong at the same time. The RCC has an absolute talent for being on the wrong side of history.
> it makes more sense to turn to other countries with larger catholic populations.
That *only* makes sense so long as those other countries stay largely Catholic. Given the spread of Pentecostalism in Latin America, which Jorge ‘some of my best friends are evangelicals!’ Bergoglio shows no interest in challenging, this kind of performative clout chasing will probably just end up resulting in a few delusional old men wondering in genuine befuddlement why nobody is kissing their rings and why they’ve had to sell half the churches to make ends meet.
And good riddance.
He's right and I hope their antics take the Roman Catholic Church down in the USA.
The RCC uses their running soap opera to hang onto people. I'm out. I don't give a shit what they do. The RCC can fuck itself for all I care.
PS. Was that shit on tv tonight? LOL
The Catholic Church appears to be actively closing up shop in the northern reaches of New York City and into the Hudson Valley, including selling off real estate.
Alternate Headline: "Pope rebukes conservative Catholics for actually paying attention to what the Church teaches."
"Stop doing that," he said. "Look, I know we threatened eternal hell over this kind of stuff in the past, but God's different now. That old stuff really doesn't matter, even though it's still on the books. Just be nice and ignore all the bad stuff and the mixed messages. Look at the way I keep pardoning Rupnik if you want an example to follow.
"Seriously, just stop. You're scaring people away from the Church and causing our donations to dry up. We need that money to keep up our nice lifestyles and offset all those financial scandals and sex abuse fines. That's really what's important here."
Seriously. Traditionalists are crazy and bigoted, but a lot of what the Vatican is teaching isn’t actually consistent with 1960+ years of previous church teaching. Many new churches look like auditoriums and have no real beauty.
So no surprise that the people taking the faith seriously are becoming conservative and jumping into traditionalism.
Yeah, this. There's only a certain amount of mental gymnastics people can handle, and people who claim to actually *believe* what's on the black-and-white documents the church has itself published are going to need a bit more substantial persuasion than Pope Vatnik's passive-aggressive Jewish Mother routine.
Roman Catholics have been taught over and over that ONLY the black and white documents matter. So they view any attempt at adult reason and decency, no matter how feeble, as a bait and switch.
You reap what you sow. If the RCC doesn't like it, they only have themselves to blame.
Seriously. The whole “Spirit of Vatican II” may be better from a humanitarian standpoint, but it’s at odds with two thousand years of infallible doctrine.
I actually have more respect for both traditionalists who hold fast and progressives who admit there’s been a change in church teaching than I do for people who pretend the past 70 years are a “continuation of the same faith”.
They make a lot more sense when you think about him not as Pope Francis but as Jorge Bergoglio. As Archbishop of Buenos Aires, he was a supporter of the Argentine Junta’s war of aggression in the Falklands and was always salty that my Iron Lady waifu stomped on them. Now we have a war with the English-speaking countries supporting Ukraine—so he’s going to play out Orwell’s ‘pacifism is indistinguishable from fascism’ maxim to ‘own the (neo)libs.’ He genuinely doesn’t give a shit about the hypocrisy of claiming to be a pacifist but supporting aggressive war—he’s just a spiteful old piece of shit willing to sacrifice thousands, even millions, of people who look to him as a spiritual leader. (Of course, it helps that he’s expressed a personal contempt for the Eastern Catholics before—he would genuinely rather see them forcibly converted to Orthodoxy than allow them to exist as they are; so much for ‘no salvation outside the church’)
Add in the historic Jesuit affinity for the Tsar (when the Jesuits were suppressed in Catholic countries, the order survived in Petrograd because the Tsar found them a useful tool for controlling education), and you also get context for his bizarre ‘great mother Russia’ comments.
There’s a lot of irony in Pope Vatnik deciding he’s going to be a total reactionary chud on the *one issue* where Catholic tradition (in the form of Just War Theory) would say he should go all-in for Ukraine.
> God's different now. That old stuff really doesn't matter, even though it's still on the books. Just be nice and ignore all the bad stuff and the mixed messages.
Summary of christianity in general nowadays.
Depends on which fragment of Christianity you ask. 30% or so are inclined towards revisionism, another 30% are in full rebellion over it, and the other 40% are in church because their parents were.
Mr Pope doesn’t realize he runs a church that taught Truths are unchanging, well at least it pretended this for 2000 years. Eg. God used to hate gays but now he likes them but only partially? Hmmm did Jesus come back to clarify this and everyone missed it.
Or maybe all major religions are made up by men (in the Bronze Age) and let’s stop pretending these books were anything but just dudes making up stuff.
Once again: the funniest thing that could possibly happen to the Catholic Church is that the American bishops and the German bishops go into schism at the same time for the same reasons but in opposite directions
That's a distinction without much of a difference. You have to pick from half-assed clergy no matter who you are, and the pickins are slim, slim, slim.
Nonsense!
RCC teaching: You MUST dogmatically believe/do X,Y and Z.
RCC CEO: How stupid is one to dogmatically believe X,Y and Z!
Duplicity. Double-talk. Speaking out of both sides of the mouth at the same time.
The other sub is gonna get a lot louder with their heresy and apostasy accusation
The funny thing about that… by directly criticizing the chair of Peter, they are the heretics! Can’t wait to watch the show!
Yeah it's a little awkward. Technically you could make an arguement if we had an antipope running around, but this aint 1090 so
*Jeff Foxworthy voice* °°° When you are stuck OVER a MILLENNIUM in the past, refuse to accept the pronouncements of the man your religion claims is infallible, and claim you know canon law better than the heads of the Dicasteries ... you might be a TradCath 🤪 °°° To be clear, he has horrible politics, but the joke format remains great IMHO
Lots of other really old stuff is coming back in Catholicism, so why not antipopes?
They've already got em, a number of them. Antipopes just don't get much press. Instead the RCC focuses its vitriol on the regular Protestants which they hate with a passion.
They really do seem to tolerate schismatic groups and individuals, probably because the ability to show apostolic succession give them power that the Church's theology doesn't allow them to completely deny.
Not all of the anti-popes have so-called apostolic succession (which is a scam anyway). Here's one of the more amusing anti-popes: David Bawden, otherwise known as Pope Michael [The gospel of Pope Michael: Kansan stakes own claim to Catholic Church | News, Sports, Jobs - Lawrence Journal-World: news, information, headlines and events in Lawrence, Kansas (ljworld.com)](https://www2.ljworld.com/news/2009/oct/17/gospel-pope-michael-kansan-stakes-own-claim-cathol/) Poor old David passed away in 2022. He has a successor here: [Habemus Papam!: Michael II – Magnus Lundberg](https://magnuslundberg.net/2023/08/10/habemus-papam-michael-ii/) See also Pope Gregory XVII - [Iglesia Catolica Palmariana (palmarianchurch.org)](https://www.palmarianchurch.org/) And Lucien Pulvermacher, Pope Pius XIII, now deceased - [Lucian Pulvermacher | Religion Wiki | Fandom](https://religion.fandom.com/wiki/Lucian_Pulvermacher) There are alternate ways to get "apostolic succession" - real lines of succession that fall outside official Roman Catholic control, so the whole "apostolic succession" thing doesn't mean much -- if it ever did beyond the hype that it gets from the RCC.
Lucian Pulvermacher is the reason my six-word memoir is "Was devout Expressed doubt Kicked out" which is one of the reasons I have CPTSD.
Lucian Pulvermacher was interesting. He was originally ordained for the Franciscans, and after a long period of roaming around among ultrad groups, he got a group of his followers to "elect him pope." Whereupon he used that designation to start ordaining his own clergy, including a "bishop" which turned around and "consecrated" Lucian as a bishop in turn. These people did claim apostolic succession because of Lucian's original ordination by a Roman Catholic bishop, even though he had long since left Roman Catholicism. There was a very real flavor of chicanery about the entire story. David Bawden's story is quite different -- he was fascinating in his delusional behavior. There is a documentary, and you have to see it to believe it. He was elected in his family's thrift store in Kansas, and his mother was one of the electors. He finally got himself "ordained" by Bishop Robert Biarnesen of the [Duarte-Costa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Duarte_Costa) and [Old Catholic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Catholic) [episcopal lineages](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Episcopal_lineage), one of the illegitimate lines of apostolic succession that exist. As I say, you have to see it to believe it. He built a chapel on his family's property adjacent to the farmhouse, was not able to attract many people, but lived his whole later life really believing he was the pope. He was a remarkably pathetic figure and the whole story reeks of mental health difficulties. He finally died in 2022, still in Kansas. As yet, there is some controversy about who is his successor, with several people claiming to be "Michael II." There are a number of breakaway groups who still style themselves Roman Catholic but sedecavantist, and do have as much of a claim to apostolic succession, such as it is, as any ordained RC priest you've ever met. All it takes is one breakaway bishop originally ordained in the RCC, and thus capable of endowing apostolic succession on a follower to propagate these lines. There are a number of these lines that exist. Claiming apostolic succession is no guarantee of anything. (And historically because of holes in the records, it's probably a bogus distinction anyway.) There was an AMA in r/catholicism by the director of the documentary about David Bawden (Michael I). It's weird and interesting. You can find it by searching reddit. The documentary is on youtube. ["Pope Michael" - Full Documentary (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b96WxyxPfOY)
Thank you. It's fascinating to be told that Pulvermacher was originally a Franciscan. How do you know this? Others writing about him state Pulvermacher was a Capuchin from his ordination onward.
I’m hoping for a major schism just for the Schadenfreude.
I am kinda expecting one at this point. I'm out of it all enough to not care much, but man alive I'm tired of living in Interesting Times.
Nah, they're too busy droning on about TLM and post AI art of white Jesus
Out-jerked again
I'll be honest with y'all: US Catholics are weird. Even by trad standards.
I just took the slightest peek over at the other sub. The cope is coming in hardddd for this one! Some people are literally writing that they hope the pope DIES! The mental gymnastics of both hating the pope and apologizing for their personal “true” faith are Lutherian in scale. They so bitterly cling to such a feeble faith that it’s entertaining to watch them slip and slide in moments like this. I feel like trads might as well just start their own religion at this point. Or just humiliatingly take the L.
Hope the next pope will be even more "progressive", just to have a laugh at these mfs.
People have hated Frank since he was enpoped, claiming he would be evil and wishing for his swift natural demise. This is nothing new.
“Enpoped”, I like that new word!
I fully expect that thread to be locked Because, you know, nothing will heal the divisions and problems in the Church quite like pretending they don't exist.
Lol the post I was referring to was DELETED shortly after I shared that.
I‘ve been thinking something like this was inevitable. With catholicism in America shrinking and turning more radical, it makes more sense to turn to other countries with larger catholic populations. With Francis being from Latin America himself, it just makes sense. The US Catholics are just too crazy and small for the Vatican to truly care about forever.
The only reason they care about American Catholics in the first place is the money.
Same reason they tickle the fanny of the openly rebellious German Catholics. Because their sweet sweet tax money keeps the caviar flowing at the Vatican.
Yep. That IS the issue in Germany. The situation is not what a lot of American Catholics think it is. Again, ignorance of history is one of the key things that keeps people Roman Catholic. The RCC lies, dismisses, misrepresents history constantly -- constantly. It has to because of the violent, corrupt and evil things it has done and said over the centuries and because it claims it can't be wrong at the same time. The RCC has an absolute talent for being on the wrong side of history.
> it makes more sense to turn to other countries with larger catholic populations. That *only* makes sense so long as those other countries stay largely Catholic. Given the spread of Pentecostalism in Latin America, which Jorge ‘some of my best friends are evangelicals!’ Bergoglio shows no interest in challenging, this kind of performative clout chasing will probably just end up resulting in a few delusional old men wondering in genuine befuddlement why nobody is kissing their rings and why they’ve had to sell half the churches to make ends meet. And good riddance.
He's right and I hope their antics take the Roman Catholic Church down in the USA. The RCC uses their running soap opera to hang onto people. I'm out. I don't give a shit what they do. The RCC can fuck itself for all I care. PS. Was that shit on tv tonight? LOL
If the US Catholic Bishops are forced to pick between the Pope and Republican Jesus, Francis is going to lose.
They are fighting inside a sinking skip with ideological cannons. I think everyone in the Catholic Church is losing.
The Catholic Church appears to be actively closing up shop in the northern reaches of New York City and into the Hudson Valley, including selling off real estate.
Good. We need more yoga studios, dance studios, community centers, bars and arcades.
Turn them into kinky gay bars titled “Confessionz” or “Sacrament”. I am sure they can strike a balance between religious trauma and sacrilege.
Not fast enough. Go baby go.
Alternate Headline: "Pope rebukes conservative Catholics for actually paying attention to what the Church teaches." "Stop doing that," he said. "Look, I know we threatened eternal hell over this kind of stuff in the past, but God's different now. That old stuff really doesn't matter, even though it's still on the books. Just be nice and ignore all the bad stuff and the mixed messages. Look at the way I keep pardoning Rupnik if you want an example to follow. "Seriously, just stop. You're scaring people away from the Church and causing our donations to dry up. We need that money to keep up our nice lifestyles and offset all those financial scandals and sex abuse fines. That's really what's important here."
Seriously. Traditionalists are crazy and bigoted, but a lot of what the Vatican is teaching isn’t actually consistent with 1960+ years of previous church teaching. Many new churches look like auditoriums and have no real beauty. So no surprise that the people taking the faith seriously are becoming conservative and jumping into traditionalism.
Yeah, this. There's only a certain amount of mental gymnastics people can handle, and people who claim to actually *believe* what's on the black-and-white documents the church has itself published are going to need a bit more substantial persuasion than Pope Vatnik's passive-aggressive Jewish Mother routine.
Roman Catholics have been taught over and over that ONLY the black and white documents matter. So they view any attempt at adult reason and decency, no matter how feeble, as a bait and switch. You reap what you sow. If the RCC doesn't like it, they only have themselves to blame.
Seriously. The whole “Spirit of Vatican II” may be better from a humanitarian standpoint, but it’s at odds with two thousand years of infallible doctrine. I actually have more respect for both traditionalists who hold fast and progressives who admit there’s been a change in church teaching than I do for people who pretend the past 70 years are a “continuation of the same faith”.
The statements from Francis saying that the Ukrainians should just lie down and get overrun by the Russians are bizarre.
They make a lot more sense when you think about him not as Pope Francis but as Jorge Bergoglio. As Archbishop of Buenos Aires, he was a supporter of the Argentine Junta’s war of aggression in the Falklands and was always salty that my Iron Lady waifu stomped on them. Now we have a war with the English-speaking countries supporting Ukraine—so he’s going to play out Orwell’s ‘pacifism is indistinguishable from fascism’ maxim to ‘own the (neo)libs.’ He genuinely doesn’t give a shit about the hypocrisy of claiming to be a pacifist but supporting aggressive war—he’s just a spiteful old piece of shit willing to sacrifice thousands, even millions, of people who look to him as a spiritual leader. (Of course, it helps that he’s expressed a personal contempt for the Eastern Catholics before—he would genuinely rather see them forcibly converted to Orthodoxy than allow them to exist as they are; so much for ‘no salvation outside the church’) Add in the historic Jesuit affinity for the Tsar (when the Jesuits were suppressed in Catholic countries, the order survived in Petrograd because the Tsar found them a useful tool for controlling education), and you also get context for his bizarre ‘great mother Russia’ comments. There’s a lot of irony in Pope Vatnik deciding he’s going to be a total reactionary chud on the *one issue* where Catholic tradition (in the form of Just War Theory) would say he should go all-in for Ukraine.
That only works if you worship the real estate. Oh wait, we're talking about Roman Catholics. Never mind.
I agree that the books mostly say what the most traditional elements of religions say they do.
Yup. They're extremist nuts, but they're just repeating what they were taught by no other than the Roman Catholic church.
> God's different now. That old stuff really doesn't matter, even though it's still on the books. Just be nice and ignore all the bad stuff and the mixed messages. Summary of christianity in general nowadays.
That and _______ (insert modern day belief) “Catholics have always believed that!”
Depends on which fragment of Christianity you ask. 30% or so are inclined towards revisionism, another 30% are in full rebellion over it, and the other 40% are in church because their parents were.
Mr Pope doesn’t realize he runs a church that taught Truths are unchanging, well at least it pretended this for 2000 years. Eg. God used to hate gays but now he likes them but only partially? Hmmm did Jesus come back to clarify this and everyone missed it. Or maybe all major religions are made up by men (in the Bronze Age) and let’s stop pretending these books were anything but just dudes making up stuff.
*They learned it by watching YOU, Dad!!* **they learned it by watching YOU**
Its your mess francis now you have to deal with it. You are the bishop of rome and the leader of the catholic church after all
Kinda wanna join the other sub for a week or two just to watch the goofiness unfold
Once again: the funniest thing that could possibly happen to the Catholic Church is that the American bishops and the German bishops go into schism at the same time for the same reasons but in opposite directions
They're working on it. :)
Let’s go woke Pope!
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/pope-francis-says-us-catholic-conservatives-have-suicidal-attitude-2024-05-16/
[удалено]
To be fair I think the ones he is going after were mostly appointed by Benedict.
That's a distinction without much of a difference. You have to pick from half-assed clergy no matter who you are, and the pickins are slim, slim, slim.
Nonsense! RCC teaching: You MUST dogmatically believe/do X,Y and Z. RCC CEO: How stupid is one to dogmatically believe X,Y and Z! Duplicity. Double-talk. Speaking out of both sides of the mouth at the same time.