Lucian Pulvermacher
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Fr. Lucian Pulvermacher (born Earl Pulvermacher on April 20, 1918) is a non-traditional Roman Catholic priest. He is the head (Pope) of the True Catholic Church, a small conclavist group, which elected him Pope Pius XIII in October 1998. He currently resides in the United States (in Springdale, Washington).
Ministry up to the mid-1990s
Earl Pulvermacher was born into a Roman Catholic family; three of his brothers became priests. In 1942, at the age of 24, he joined the Capuchin Order, taking the religious name Lucian. He was subsequently ordained to the priesthood in June 1946. He spent the greater part of his career as a Capuchin (from 1948 to 1970) as a missionary priest in Japan, residing initially in the Ryukyu Islands and subsequently on Okinawa. In 1970, he was transferred from Japan to Australia, where he continued his missionary work until his disillusionment with the changes that followed the Second Vatican Council of 1962-1965. In January 1976, he left the Capuchin Order and the Roman Catholic Church, and returned to the United States. "I was without money," he later remembered, "without a home or anything. The few things I brought along with me I could carry in two bags." [1]
In the United States, Pulvermacher attempted to find a new home for himself in the Traditionalist Catholic movement. He joined the Society of St. Pius X, a traditionalist organisation that is in dispute with the Holy See but recognises the Popes in Rome. His refusal to give the sacraments to people who retained communion with non-traditionalist Roman Catholics became a source of serious conflict between him and his fellow priests and superiors.
From August 1976 onwards, Fr. Pulvermacher established and served a circuit of private chapels across the United States, working as an independent traditionalist priest unaffiliated with any religious order or society. He claims that none of his congregations satisfied him: he judged them all too liberal and modernistic.
The True Catholic Church papal election
Until his election, Pulvermacher was a sedevacantist, believing that the Holy See has been vacant since the death of Pope Pius XII in 1958. He argues that Pope John XXIII was ineligible, as he supposedly had become a Freemason in 1935 - an act punishable by automatic excommunication under canon law. Pulvermacher also maintains that none of John XXIII's successors (Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II and Benedict XVI) have been true Catholics, and that they have all hence been ineligible for the papacy. In contrast to other sedevacantists he argued that the remnant faithful could elect a new legitimate pope, apart from Rome or the college of the cardinals.
Pulvermacher's supporters were few in number and geographically wide-spread. In October 1998, an election was held in a conclave in a wooden house in Montana, where many of Pulvermacher's followers lived. He chose Pius as his pontifical name. His episcopal consecration, held on 4 July 1999 in a hotel ballroom, was attended by 28 people.
Pulvermacher castigates not only the Roman Catholic Church but also (and often with greater fervor) other traditionalist Catholics who reject his claim to the papacy.
Gordon Bateman
Gordon Bateman was an Australian who belonged to Pulvermacher's circle of friends and supporters, and subsequently became one of his cardinals. Following the 1998 papal election, Pulvermacher attempted to obtain episcopal orders by delegating Bateman (who possessed priestly orders) to consecrate him to the episcopate and then in turn bestowing episcopal orders on Bateman. (While there are some mediaeval precedents for a priest who does not himself possess episcopal orders being delegated by the Pope to confer them, this has not been practised for centuries and it is generally believed by non-sedevacantist catholics that the decress of Vatican II on the status of episcopal orders rule it out, implying, for those who accept them as Pulvermacher does not, that such episcopal consecrations were always invalid. In any case, the legitimacy of Pulvermacher's delegation of Bateman depends on his prior claim to be Pope.)
Bateman later left Pulvermacher's church after he discovered that Pulvermacher, from his seminarian days, had practiced "divining" with a pendulum. Pulvermacher has defended the practice as beneficial and God-given, but it is regarded by other Catholics as a type of occultism, rendering Pulvermacher ineligible for the papacy.
Family
At least seven of Pulvermacher's eight siblings and their families, as well as more distant relatives, remained in full communion with the Roman Catholic Church, including two of his priest-brothers, who were active members of the Capuchin Order. The eighth sibling, Fr. Carl Pulvermacher OFM (Cap), joined the Society of St. Pius X shortly after Lucian left it, and remained a member until his death in June 2006.
See also
- Sedevacantism for a more general discussion of this phenomenon
- David Bawden, Clemente Dominguez y Gomez and Manuel Corral for other primary conclavist claimants to the Papacy
- Popes John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, whose papal reigns "Pope Pius XIII" claims to be illicit and invalid.
External links
- A letter from "Pope Pius XIII" (from Catholic Answers)
- Official website
- The Vatican-In-Exile (a conclavist site that opposes Pulvermacher's claims)
- Michaelinum: The Catholic Restoration Site (also anti-Pulvermacher, this site supports the claims of David Bawden, "Pope Michael I")