The Crisis Is Over
©Prakash J. Mascarenhas, Bombay. 15th December 2002.
We have laboured for some fourty years under the Crisis in the Church. However, when we have examined and analyzed this 'Crisis' we saw that this Crisis was, in fact, no crisis, but a deliberately cultivated and maintained Circus of Auto-Destruction, organized by Angelo Giovanni Roncalli, Giovanni Baptista Montini and now by Karol Wojtyla.
At the time that I became aware of these facts, sometime in 1993, I had found Dr. Rama Coomaraswamy's writings (http://www.Commarasway-Catholic-Writings.com). The doctor not only exposed the heresies of these false 'popes' but also taught that a man, when he became Pope, still retained his free will, and so could even err, as a private person, and fall into heresy, thus losing his Papal office. On the contrary, there is evidence that each of these four false 'popes' - Roncalli (John 23), Montini (Paul 6), Luciani (John-Paul 1) and Karol Wojtyla (John-Paul 2) were heretics before their purported elections, and that therefore these elections are null and void in Catholic Law (Code of Canon Law, 1917 & Pope Paul IV, Bull Cum Ex Apostolatus Officio).
As a result of recognizing these facts, one becomes a Sede-Vacantist - one who affirms that the Papacy is vacant, that the men who presently inhabit and speak and teach from the Vatican are non-popes, antipopes.
But the internal logic of Catholicism demands that one must not stop at this point of development but proceed further. The next step is to find if a true Pope had been somehow elected or to organize the election of one. Many who called themselves Conservatives, Concerned Catholics, Traditionalists and Sede-Vacantists, have baulked from pursuing this natural course of development, and have preferred to continue in a state of deprivation, wherein they are really free to be as they choose, each man his own pope.
The result is utter and complete anarchy: every one pronounces for himself and dispenses himself from what he does not like or feels inconvenient to his work. Dr. Rama Coomaraswamy, whom I greatly admire as a great thinker and intellectual, has, though married, and also under a probable impediment from birth, allowed himself or put himself forward to receive ordination as a Priest, calling himself Fr. Dr. Rama Coomaraswamy. And so on and on. The whole mess is unacceptable.
Many have said that with the mass defection of the Church, a Restoration was not possible. However, if one studies the teachings of the Church prior to 1958, one sees that this is not so, and one does not even need to be a theologian to understand this.
A similar, though different, situation had arisen some five centuries back, during the Great Western Schism, when there were two and then three persons claiming to be Pope, and the Church was divided in confusion over whose claim was true.
But some laymen, principally of the Universities, and lower clergy, moving for an extra-ordinary method of solving this problem, summoned the Council of Pisa, which failed, and then the Council of Constance, which succeeded. Here, they obtained the resignation of one of the claimants and deposing the other two, they proceeded to elect Pope Martin the Vth as the true Pope. Thus ended the Great Western Schism.
But for those whom the Catholic Faith is precious and not merely an ornament, to remain in this state of uncertainity and anarchy is unacceptable. Therefore, many, such as Fr. Saenz y Ariaga, Dr. Elizabeth Gerstner, Kenneth J. Mock, etc. moved for electing a pope. Dr. Gerstner, who had worked in the Vatican during the times of Pope Pius XII and of Roncalli, attempted to move Archbishop Lefebvre to join these moves, and even proposed that he be elected the true Pope. However, this was not to be, for Lefebvre himself was compromised.
Finally, the thread was taken up by Teresa Stanfill-Benns and David Bawden, who wrote a thesis, and posting it out, called for an Extra-Ordinary Election. When no one responded, they went ahead, and in a Conclave comprising of six persons, David Bawden was elected Pope on 16th July 1990, taking the name Pope Michael the First. (http://PopeMichael.Homestead.com)
The election of Pope Michael followed the requirements of the Church, so much so, that one can say with the fullest confidence, that the Principles of the Church are the Principles of his Claim, and therefore to reject his Claim is to reject the Church.
Therefore, I announce this Good News: The great, artificial crisis that has engulfed us has been dissipated. We now do have the true Pope, the Vicar of Christ. And it is our duty, for our salvation that we rally around him, and join in him the great work of reclaiming the stray, seduced flock.