KARL KEATING'S E-LETTER
TOPICS:
I GET A LETTER FROM THE POPE
Dear Friend of Catholic Answers:
It isn't everyday that one receives a private letter from a pope. In fact,
this is the first time I have received such a letter.
I once had the opportunity, nearly a decade ago, to be introduced to John
Paul II after attending a papal Mass in the Vatican's Apostolic Palace. I
handed him a copy of "Catholicism and Fundamentalism," and he made a
gracious remark about it. He gave me the customary papal rosary, which I
passed along to my wife. But never did I expect to receive a private letter
from a pope. I got one last month.
It was postmarked Springdale, Washington, not Vatican City, because the
letter was not from Pope John Paul II but from Pope Pius XIII, known before
his election as Fr. Lucian Pulvermacher, OFM Cap.
This lesser-known pope wrote, "You are old enough to know that bogus
Council Vatican II took place between 1962 and 1965. The bogus popes (John
XXIII and Paul VI) formed a new false Protestant religion. They made a new
liturgy with seven new invalid sacraments. They made a new false canon law
in 1983. Finally, they made a heretical 'Catechism of the Catholic
Church.'"
(Actually, it was John Paul II who oversaw the production of the revised
code of canon law and of the new catechism, but you get the drift.)
THE BOGUS CHURCH DOES NOT HAVE ANY CATHOLIC ANSWERS
"Karl, please look into the problem that you have. You just cannot get
God's help through being in the Novus Ordo bogus Church of John Paul II.
The people who think they are Catholics must leave the bogus Novus Ordo and
join Us in the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. ...
"Catholic Answers should be guided by the true Catholic Church. Why rocket
off from the quicksand base of the Novus Ordo? ... If you continue in the
Novus Ordo you do not have Catholic answers. You have bogus Council Vatican
II Novus Ordo answers. We alone have the answers you are required by God to
propagate."
Pius XIII referred me to his web site:
www.truecatholic.org
There you can learn how it came to be that the Catholic Church is headquartered
in a small town in the Pacific Northwest. You can learn other things, too,
including Pius XIII's background.
Earl Pulvermacher was born in 1918. He was ordained a priest in the
Capuchin order in 1946 and was given the religious name of Lucian. At first
he was posted to a parish in Milwaukee, but in 1948 he was sent to Japan,
where he served in the Ryukyu Islands and on Okinawa until 1970.
For the next six years he served as a missionary in Australia. And then he
went "cold turkey," as he puts it. "He never took the step of [getting a]
'leave of absence,' and that was the right way to do it. He never even said
good-bye to the Novus Ordo Church and Capuchin Order."
He returned to the U.S. and joined up with some Traditionalist priests, but
he "learned, to his surprise and dismay, that they were not truly Catholic,
so in August of 1976, he left the Traditionalist movement and since that
time has been all alone as a priest."
The web site does not make clear why the man who would become Pius XIII so
abruptly abandoned what he terms the "Novus Ordo." It does say that he was
upset with the poor catechetical materials used in parishes in Australia
and that his provincial reprimanded him for preaching on hell. It also says
that he had what apparently was a turning-point conversation with a priest
who helped him understand "the mess around us."
After that conversation Lucian Pulvermacher was gone from Australia and
gone from the Capuchin order. He lasted only eight months in the
Traditionalist movement, finding even it too accommodating to the "Novus
Ordo." He ended up entirely on his own, and he came to understand that
there had been no valid pope since Pius XII died in 1958.
THE TRUE CHURCH NEEDED A HEAD
By 1998 the remnant Church had wandered in the ecclesiastical wilderness
for forty years, and it was time for a new pope to be elected. Pulvermacher
came across a German priest (otherwise unnamed) "who at the time was
thought to be papabile." He seemed to be a man acceptable to the few real
Catholics left in the world, but then the German backed away.
That left Pulvermacher without a candidate for pope--but not for long. He
had been planning a conclave for three years. He even had a methodology.
Since all of the cardinals named by Pius XII and earlier popes were dead,
there no longer were cardinal-electors. No matter. In times of crisis God
permits extraordinary arrangements.
"Natural law allows for Catholics, clergy and laymen, to be the electorate
to vote for the pope," explains the web site. "This is because the Church
as a perfect society must have the means to restore its visible head, the
pope."
First, the electors had to be verified as true Catholics. This was
accomplished by having them sign affidavits attesting to such things as
their rejection of Vatican II and of the pseudo-popes who followed Pius
XII. The electors consisted of both men and women. Since they were spread
around the world, it was not convenient for them to gather in one place for
the conclave, so they voted by telephone.
The first ballot was tallied and verified on October 24, 1998, and Lucian
Pulvermacher himself was elected pope. He took the name Pius XIII, to
indicate immediate succession to the last real pope.
As one of his early acts he named cardinals. "In order to protect the
College of Cardinals from depletion by forces and events known only to
God," Pius XIII named two men publicly as cardinals and another six
secretly. These appointments were of laymen.
He ordained one of the cardinals, Gordon Bateman, a priest and then
consecrated him a bishop in June 1999. This was accomplished even though
the Pope himself was only a priest. On the Fourth of July, Bateman
consecrated Pius XIII, making the Pope finally a bishop. (The web site
gives a not-very-persuasive explanation of how a mere priest was able to
consecrate a bishop.)
A "PETIT EGLISE"
Stalin, referring to Pius XII, is quoted as asking, "How many divisions has
the Pope?" You may ask, how many followers has Pius XIII?
His web site gives an evasive answer: "Certainly the entire body of the
electorate [those who participated in the conclave] is subject to Pope Pius
XIII. In addition, as news gets out to the world, more laity and clergy are
sending their obedience to the pope. At this time we have no specific
numbers." Well, probably they do, but the numbers must be so small as to be
embarrassing.
After all, Lucian Pulvermacher is not the only claimant to the papal
throne. There are others scattered throughout the world.
"Pope Michael I" lives in Delia, Kansas, above his parents' store, and
there are at least two men who style themselves "Pope Gregory XVII," one in
Canada and one in Spain. Every few years we hear of another new pope. It
may be that never have so many in so many places believed themselves to
have been elected to the See of Peter.
Pius XIII's web site includes links to several short video clips of the
Springdale pope. He is nearly 86 and looks like a kindly man: medium
height, portly, his voice tentative, as though he is not comfortable
speaking before a camera. Still photographs show him in what may be the
back yard of his residence, dressed in papal white and standing near a
chicken-wire fence.
You wonder what happened to the Fr. Pulvermacher of three decades ago. What
made him leave not just Australia and the Capuchins but the real Catholic
Church? What propelled him, in just a few months, clear past the
Traditionalist movement and into a church of his own making?
Was it one great disappoint he suffered, or was it a serious of small
injustices that finally built to a crescendo? Was it that some
long-standing character defect surfaced, perhaps a species of pride that
convinced him that God had singled him out for the highest of all offices?
What we can say is that Lucian Pulvermacher now lives simply in rural
Washington, and he lives a delusion. He has a handful of devoted followers,
some of whom, in all likelihood, still will be his followers when he dies,
which cannot be many years off.
We can speculate that two of those survivors may conclude that they are
called by God to become the Supreme Pastor, and that means the church of
Pius XIII will undergo fission. Just as there are two Gregory XVIIs, so
there will be two Pius XIVs, each with his own church.
It is easy to make fun of all this, but it is good to keep in mind that the
players in these dramas are not play acting. They think they are acting out
real life. They think they lead the remnant Church.
What they really have done is to succumb to despair. Their despair prompts
them not to do away with themselves (which is what despair so often leads
people to do) but to elevate themselves to the loftiest of stations, where
they imagine they are withstanding forces that unsleepingly work against
the true Church of Christ.
You have to grant them a bit of a smile, even as you shake your head in
bewilderment.
p.s., Montreal! Quebec City! Halifax! Cairo! (Well, not Cairo.)
Join Jimmy Akin, Rosalind Moss, Tim Staples, Thomas Howard, Bishop Colin
Campbell, and me for a week of beautiful fall scenery and invigorating
large- and small-group events, including daily Mass, rosaries, and fun
on-shore excursions.
The 2004 Catholic Answers apologetics cruise runs from October 2-9,
starting in Montreal and ending in Boston.
For more information, go to:
http://catholicanswerscruise.com
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