| Lucian Pulvermacher |
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Father Earl Lucian Pulvermacher, OFM Cap (born April 20 , 1918 ) was elected '''Pope Pius XIII''' of the '' True Catholic Church '', a small Sedevacantist group, in October 1998 . Pulvermacher resides in the United States in the small town of Springdale, Washington , and has a following of around 90 families worldwide. MINISTRY UP TO THE MID-1990S In 1942 , at the age of 24, Earl Pulvermacher entered the Roman Catholic Capuchin Order , taking the religious name ''Lucian''. He was ordained to the priesthood in June 1946 , and from the spring of 1947 to the autumn of 1948 he served as an assistant priest at St Francis Parish-Monastery in Milwaukee. He spent the greater part of his career as a mainstream Catholic priest in Japan, where he served as a missionary between 1948 and 1970, residing initially in the Ryukyu Islands and subsequently (from 1955 onwards) on Okinawa. In 1970, he was transferred from Japan to Australia, where he continued his missionary work until he became disillusioned with the changes that had followed the Second Vatican Council of 1962-1965. In January 1976 , he left the Capuchin Order and the mainstream Catholic Church, and returned to the United States. 'I was without money,' he later wrote, 'without a home or anything. The few things I brought along with me I could carry in two bags.' {Link without Title} Between January and August 1976, Pulvermacher attempted to find a new home for himself in the Traditionalist Catholic movement. He joined the Society Of St. Pius X , but his refusal to give the sacraments to people who associated themselves with the mainstream Catholic Church became a source of serious conflict between him and his fellow priests and superiors. (His brother, Fr. Carl Pulvermacher, joined the SSPX shortly after he left it, and remains affiliated to it to this day.) From August 1976 onwards, Fr. Pulvermacher established and served a circuit of private chapels across the country, working as an 'independent' priest unaffiliated to any religious order or society. He claims that none of his congregations satisfied him: he judged them all too liberal. In the mid-1990s, however, his ministry took a dramatic new direction. THE TRUE CATHOLIC CHURCH PAPAL ELECTION Pulvermacher's support was largely limited to a small number of people in Montana. Only 28 people attended his purported episcopal ordination, which was held in a hotel ballroom on 4 July 1999 . It is noteworthy that Pulvermacher castigated 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. Claims that Pius died on January 11, 2006 have been both advanced and denied. GORDON BATEMAN Gordon Bateman was an Australian layman who belonged to Fr. Pulvermacher's circle of friends and supporters. Following the papal election, Pulvermacher attempted to obtain episcopal orders by consecrating Bateman to the episcopate and then having Bateman consecrate him. Whether or not a simple priest can, with the Pope's authorisation, consecrate another man as a bishop is a disputed question, with Pulvermacher's opponents firmly dismissing the notion and his supporters pointing to alleged historical precedents for such an action. 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 automatic ('' Latae Sententiae '') excommunication 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" ( David Bawden ). This is the "St. Gabriel's Group" (see {Link without Title} ) FAMILY Pulvermacher's surviving family do not recognise his claim to the papacy, though his mother did so before her death. Seven of his eight siblings and their families remain in full communion with Rome, including two brothers, both priests. The eighth, Fr. Carl Pulvermacher, also a priest, is a member of the Society Of St. Pius X . SEE ALSO
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