Clemente Domínguez y Gómez

Clemente Domínguez y Gómez (born April 23, 1946 in Seville , † March 22, 2005 in Palmar de Troya ) was the head of the Palmarian Catholic Church . He referred to himself as " Pope Gregory XVII." And was thus one of numerous people who recently claimed to be the rightful Pope.

From 1969 onwards Domínguez regularly visited the southern Spanish town of Palmar de Troya , where, according to his own admission, he had regularly had apparitions of the Virgin Mary since 1968 . He received divine messages and stigmatization . Among other things, he is said to have lost 16 liters of blood once . However, as studies have shown, the blood shown did not come from himself.

In 1975 he founded the Order of the Carmelites of the Holy Face .

Domínguez contacted Bishop Marcel Lefebvre and asked him to consecrate him. However, this initially only sent priests. A former professor at Écone's seminary, Maurice Revaz, later persuaded the Vietnamese senior archbishop Pierre Martin Ngô Đình Thục to undertake such ordinations. Without a papal mandate, he ordained Clemente Domínguez y Gómez as priest and ten days later as bishop .

In 1976 Domínguez was in a car accident that left him blind. After a “divine vision” he now called himself Father Fernando.

On August 6, 1978 , at the death of Pope Paul VI. , he was finally elected by his "cardinals" as "Pope".

As a result, Domínguez himself ordained other people to priests and bishops, including minors.

In 1983 he was excommunicated along with the priests and bishops he had ordained by the official Catholic Church . As “Pope Gregory XVII” he canonized the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco , among others , because he defended Christianity in the Spanish Civil War and in the decades of dictatorship.

Domínguez died in March 2005 in Palmar de Troya, where he had resided since 1978. Manuel Corral was elected to succeed him and he took on the "Pope's name Peter II".

Web links

• CESNUR: Another Pope Dies: Clemente Dominguez of Palmar de Troya, 1946-2005 (English)