Lucian Pulvermacher

Father Earl Lucian Pulvermacher, OFM Cap (born April 20, 1918) became Pope Pius XIII of the "true Catholic Church" in 1998. The "true Catholic Church" is a small sect based in Montana, which claims to be the "true" Catholic Church, as against all other groups or entities claiming that name. Pulvermacher technically could be considered an antipope by other denominations, although he has far fewer followers than the historical antipopes.

Early life and early ministry

Earl Lucian Pulvermacher was born in 1918. He entered the Capuchin Order in 1942 (where he was given a religious name of Lucian) and was ordained a Roman Catholic priest in 1948. After an initial period as a priest in Milwaukee he served as a missionary priest in Amami Oshima and later Okinawa. From 1970 to 1976 he served as a missionary in Australia. He left his Order and Australia "without permission" in 1976 and associated with some traditionalist Catholic organizations that had opposed Vatican II.

Post Vatican II

After leaving Australia Pulvermacher was affiliated for a short time with the Society of Saint Pius X. His brother Fr. Carl Pulvermacher joined the Society of Saint Pius X shortly after Fr. Earl Lucian Pulvermacher left them and remains affiliated to this day. After leaving the Society, Pulvermacher established a circuit of private chapels throughout the United States claiming he had the authority to provide the Mass and Sacraments to these people, despite the fact he must have committed heresy for celebrating the Novus Ordo while in Australia. David Bawden demonstrated that he did not have such authority in an article entitled "Jurisdiction During the Great Apostasy". Despite the fact this served as a chapter of 'Will the Catholic Church Survive the Twentieth Century?' Pulvermacher ordered ten copies in hopes that he might be elected pope in 1990. When he saw this was not likely to happen, he departed the effort, changing his claim to jurisdiction to a claim that he had jurisdiction from the bishop in Okinawa (who was in full communion with Rome) and according to Canon Law a priest may hear confessions if he travels by boat or airplane, provided he has jurisdiction somewhere in the world. Since he claims authority from the so-called "Novus Ordo" church, he must have remained member of that church.

1990s

Pulvermacher claims that none of these satisfied him: he judged them all as too liberal and in error. He gradually drifted away until the 1990s. In the mid-1990s he became convinced on highly shaky evidence that Pope John XXIII had been a freemason, and that thus his election as pope in 1958 had been invalid. According to this argument, not just his papacy and all his acts such as the calling of Vatican II would be invalid, but so in a chain reaction would be the conclave necessitated by his death, the resultant election of Paul VI, John Paul I and II and Benedict XVI. According to Pulvermacher's theory, the See of Peter had been vacant since the death of Pope Pius XII in 1958.

In 1998, a conclave of conservative catholics, both lay and clerical, in a telephone vote elected Pulvermacher to the allegedly vacant papacy (see Sedevacantism). The new pope has now established his College of Cardinals to provide an ecclesiatical mechanism for the election of his successors.

Though he has adherents, his support is mainly limited to a few people in Montana. Only 28 attended his purported episcopal ordination in a hotel ballroom following his "election". It is noteworthy that he castigates not only what is usually understood as the "Roman Catholic Church" but also (and often with greater fervor) all traditionalist Catholics who reject his claim to be the true pope.

Gordon Bateman

Gordon Bateman was a married Australian layman who belonged to Pulvermacher's circle of friends. Pulvermacher persuaded Bateman to take part in a complicated exercise, whereby Pulvermacher, after being supposedly elected pope, "dispensed" himself from restrictions on his priestly orders, and thereby "consecrated" Bateman a Bishop; thereafter Bateman consecrated Pulvermacher a bishop. As a result, Bateman's marriage broke up. The mutual consecrations of Bateman and Pulvermacher were both invalid (in that they had no ties whatsoever to the historic episcopate) and illicit (in that they were done by persons not allowed to consecrate a bishop).

Subsequently, Bateman fell away from Pulvermacher after he discovered a curious fact: That Pulvermacher, from his seminarian days, had practiced "divining" with a pendulum. Pulvermacher does not deny this, but on the contrary has defended this. However, as a result, Pulvermacher had himself incurred excommunication latae sententiae on account of Pope Pius XII's (rarely obeyed) ban on such practices. Thus Pulvermacher, having previously proclaimed John XXIII's supposed ineligibility for the papacy because of his supposed membership of the Freemasons, was himself ineligible to be elected "Pope" under Catholic law. While the claims against Pope John remain unproven and disputed, in the case of Pulvermacher he himself had openly admitted they were true.

Bateman's relatives, at the present, are attempting to bring the various Sedevacantist factions together into unity under "Pope Michael" (the aforementioned David Bawden). This is the "St. Gabriel's Group" (*[1] (http://www.geocities.com/st_gabri99/sedeunity.html))

Family

Pulvermacher's family do not believe in his "true Catholic Church." Seven of his eight siblings and their families remain in full communion with Rome, including two brothers, both priests. The eighth, another brother, also a priest, is a member of the Society of St. Pius X.

See Also

• Sedevacantism for a more general discussion of this particular post-Vatican II phenomenon
• David Bawden, Clemente Dominguez y Gomez and Manuel Corral for other primary Sedevacantist claimants to the Papacy
• Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, the claimants to the Papal See generally held to be valid by the world during Lucian Pulvermacher's "reign".

External links

• A letter from "Pope Pius XIII" (http://www.catholic.com/newsletters/kke_040406.asp) (from Catholic Answers (http://www.catholic.com))
• Official website (http://www.truecatholic.org/pope/)
• The Vatican-In-Exile (http://www.VaticanInExile.com/)
• Michaelinum: The Catholic Restoration Site (http://www.geocities.com/prakashjm45/index.html)de:Lucian Pulvermacher

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