The Question of "David Allen Bawden" aka "Pope Michael I", His Claims & His Adherents:
The Maccabees Of These Last Days?
©Lúcio Mascarenhas (formerly "Prakash").
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From: Rt. Rev. Oliver Oravec
To: Lucio Mascarenhas
Subject: Re: Guerardism—Donald Sanborn's Strange New Religion!
Date: Tue, 5 Oct 2004 17:44:59 +0200
Dear friend,
Thank you for all your precious documents. I appreciate your zeal for true Catholicism. Obviously I must disagree with your "solution" of accepting Michael I for a pope. He was "elected" by members of his own family and by Miss Andriesen from Holland. That was really non-canonical election of a pope.
I am sede-vacantist and I disagree with my consecrator, the Rt. Rev. Robert McKenna, on this issue. At the same time I am in friendly contact with him. My main objection is: They (the Guerardists) believe that today's "cardinals" will elect a new pope and that is totally unacceptable for me. I do not believe that a woman can be pregnant materially and not formally.
I also disagree with you concerning our illegitimate distribution of sacraments. Catholic faithful have Divine right to receive them and we, who were baptized as Catholics, who never left the Catholic Church and who are celibate and who do not preach any heresy and who do not change our Catholic sacraments have to confer them. It is my / our duty.
One more point: I would not be so harsh to call Thuc, Lefebvre and others in time of "Vatican Council II" heretics. In those days it was very confusing time for all of us to make a true discerment of spirits.
It could take longer or shorter time to do so. All of us wanted to be obedient and to follow what "popes JXXIII and Paul VI" did and you should not condemn those men in that very difficult time of the Church. Now, in present time we are much smarter and we MUST NOT tolerate heresies of Novus Ordo sect.
May good God bless you!
Bishop Oliver Oravec
-----Original Message-----
From: Lucio Mascarenhas
Sent: Tuesday, October 05, 2004 10:29 AM
Subject: Guerardism—Donald Sanborn's Strange New Religion!
Guerardism—Donald Sanborn's Strange New Religion!
I have been an admirer of both Donald Sanborn and Anthony Cekada, his close associate, for their intellectual forthrightness. Indeed, I came to believe in the legitimacy of the Thuc consecrations only because of the strong case made out by these two.
And yet, recently I found an article by Sanborn (http://www.catholicrestoration.org/newsletter/02_may.htm) that disturbed me deeply. This is the announcement, made in May 2002, by Sanborn, that Bishop Robert McKenna would be consecrating him; which announcement he also uses to set out his Guerardist beliefs.
Continued... http://www.geocities.com/prakashjm45/sanborn.guerardism.html
Rebuttal
Dear Sir,
Please find my rebuttal below:
- There was no Mrs. Andriesen who participated in the July 1990 election. Mrs. Andriesen was deputed by a Dr. Walter Baisier of Belgium but withdrew at the last moment (No stated reasons).
This is the list of the persons who participated in that Election and elected Pope Michael (see http://www.geocities.com/prakashjm45/bawdeniteapologias.html), I have provided the blood relationship with H.H. Pope Michael in the last column:
| Sr. |
Participant |
Residence at that time |
Present Residence |
Relation |
| 1 |
Mr. Kenneth David Bawden |
301 Durink Street, St. Marys, Kansas |
R.I.P. |
Father |
| 2 |
Mrs. Clara Bawden nee Barton |
301 Durink Street, St. Marys, Kansas |
|
Mother |
| 3 |
Mr. Robert Hunt |
Hillman, Michigan |
34414 County Road 41G, Del Norte, Colorado, 81132 |
None |
| 4 |
Mrs. Diane Hunt |
Hillman, Michigan |
34414 County Road 41G, Del Norte, Colorado, 81132 |
None |
| 5 |
Mr. David Allen Bawden |
St. Marys, Kansas |
|
|
| 6 |
Mrs. Teresa Benns nee Stanfill |
Denver, Colorado |
Denver, Colorado |
None |
The venue of the Election was a store owned by Mr. Kenneth Bawden at 301, Broadway, Belvue, Kansas.
- "Pope Michael was elected by his own family": This is a patently false, even a mischievous allegation, but granted that this is true, is there a moral or dogmatic prescription by Catholic theology that electors cannot be all or predominantly from the same family?
How is it that separate individuals as electors, though from the same parents, is a criteria or relevant to the issue?
What is the theological source of your objection?
Some years ago, I remember that there was a ridiculous situation created in, I believe, Nicaragua or Guatemala, where the Parliament passed a law excluding children or in-laws of Presidents from succeeding or being candidates for election to the Presidency. This was targeted against the son-in-law of a President Violet Camarago, if I remember her name properly.
I believe that, in Catholic theology, family relationship is totally irrelevant: what is relevant is that they are legitimate Catholics, even if they are all blood brothers.
I believe that it is entirely possible that all the electors, or surviving electors in any particular day, be members of the same family, and that the man they elect, cannot be impugned on that ground.
In fact, it is Catholic law that if only one legitimate Cardinal remains, he can post the election of the next pope all by himself as the sole surviving Cardinal!
[Let me put things this way. We will consider a hypothetical situation. Suppose that a Pope had found a family extremely worthy, so that he made all the several sons Cardinals - there being nothing in Catholic Theology or law that prohibit such a step, and besides, if there was a Church Law (discipline), the Pope can dispense himself from observing it. Suppose that there is a civil war or some other difficulty, and only these brothers can post the election of the next pope. Do you believe that this election is invalid? Would you reject the Pope that was produced by this election as not being truly the legitimate Pope?]
This objection of "Family" is the most idiotic and contemptible allegation that I have encountered, and is demonstrative of the utter contempt that those who recourse to it, have for the Catholic Faith, for prescriptions and principles of Catholic Law and Theology.
[Pope Michael cannot be less worthy a Pope than Theophylactus the Tuscan (Pope Benedict IX, 1032-1048), whom all acknowledge to be legitimate, despite the equally incontrovertible fact that his election was procured by simony by his father� and despite his gross immoralities and crimes, even of grave scandal and schism and of disturbing the peace of the Church by armed conflict� by seeking to overthrow John Gratianus and Sudiger, both of whom are also acknowledged as legitimate Popes (Pope Gregory VI, 1045-1046 & Clement II, 1046-1047) by armed force from the Papacy and to resume it for himself... even though he had previously remitted the Papal Office in favor of Gratianus in a compact by which Gratianus would laicize him (Theophylactus) so that he could marry a woman he became besotted with!]
- I am willing to consider favourably your argument regarding confecting and dispensing the Sacraments. However, while I can assume that there are a few men who are sincere (I know of none), the vast majority are not. Many are insincere, while many more are promiscuous. The scandals are too numerous to be wished away. I provide at the bottom a list of the more conspicuous problems that I am aware of.
- When I call Lefebvre a heretic, it is NOT because of his part in Vatican II, but because of his relationship with the Freemason Achilles Lienart and with the Priory of Sion. If only one was taken, he could be excusable; the two of them put together are damning. I am convinced beyond any doubt that Lefebvre was a member of the Priory of Sion.
Lefebvre�s part in Vatican II has been excused by his apologists on grounds of ignorance. But Canon Law contemns doctrinal "ignorance" in bishops, and imposes stiff penalties�. How is it that these bishops were ignorant? Was it really ignorance or was it cupidity? It was cupidity that gave them a false sense of obedience and of submission to infiltrators masquerading as Catholic Popes and presiding over the subversion of the Church�. Cupidity and the fear of losing one�s material comfort, one�s position and station in life�. A fear of having to go out into the cold, at their advanced ages, and to begin anew, to repair the Church, to make sacrifices�. A fear born out of a profound, radical breach with and break in their faith and in their trust in and upon God and His Providence� and in the Fundamental Truth that unless we take up our crosses and follow Him we cannot get to Heaven!
It is this Cupidity and this Failure that betrayed us, the Laity, and put us in the Power of the Wolves� and you would have us not blame these unworthy shepherds?
Compare them with the bishops and clergy in the time of the saintly though "incompetent" Rainier (Pope Paschal II, 1099-1118) and the Investiture Controversy, to cite but one of innumerable incidents in the life of the Church: The entire Episcopacy (including St. Bruno of Segni, Guy of Burgundy, at that time the Archbishop of Vienne and the future Pope Callistus II, with his brother, St. Hugh of Grenoble and St. Godfrey of Amiens,) roared out at the Pope with one voice (in 1112) that unless he retracted from his concessions on the Question of Lay Investiture (1111) to the Holy Roman Emperor of the German Nation, they would depose him and elect themselves another Pope! Paschal II fled into exile� until he could achieve a reconciliation, which included a retraction of those concessions (1116). Those were men�. Lefebvre and Thuc were pussycats! Craven cowards!
If the more than two hundred "Orthodox Fathers", including Cardinals Ottaviani, Tadeschi, Siri, Bishops Lefebvre, Thuc and Castro-Maier, etc., who played out that self-defeating game in "Vatican II" had been even half the men that Guy and Hugh and Godfrey were, they would have spat straight into the face of that queer Roncalli and had walked out and elected a Catholic Pope�. History would have been different!
These are the men who have betrayed us� and would you have us honor and obey them, and submit to them?
- I derogate Thuc, not so much as a heretic, than as a fool and an insincere man, and even as a man without scruples�. A man who apparently allowed himself to be led all over the place by different men, and became a laughing stock, and was taken advantage of by most unscrupulous persons.
Participation By Women
Men who do not want to disturb their own set ways, will keep on making excuses why they are not obliged. Because I know that some one or the other will gleefully latch on to the fact that of the six participants, three were women, and pretend that the Election that these six posted was nullified for that reason, I pre-emptively
repeat my argument against that pretension when made by the Canadian fraudster, Hans Lorenz:
Christianity does not admit women to the Sacred Ministry, and forbids them to speak, preach, prophesy, etc., in Church and during the Sacred Public Liturgy of the Church.
However, Christianity not only does not forbid the participation of women in the normal activities of the Church, such as the Sacred Liturgy, but actually demands that they participate, as much as men are required to.
Now, because a normal Conclave is composed of Cardinals who are necessarily clerics, there cannot be in a normal Conclave any woman.
Likewise, if the pope had been elected by an Acephalous Ecumenical Council, such as those of Pisa and of Constance, which Council is also necessarily composed of bishops — a category that necessarily excludes women, no woman could legitimately participate in such a Council.
However, in the case at hand, the assembly was not legally a Conclave of Cardinals, as such, nor an Ecumenical Council, but purely and merely an assembly of the laity.
And as such there is no basis for excluding women.
If we were to admit your assertion that women could not attend one such assembly, then by extension we must understand that they cannot be present and participate in assemblies celebrating the Holy Mass either. The same rationale holds in both cases.
Women cannot preside at the Mass, or over the reading of the Scriptures, or preach, as part of the official liturgy of the Church. Yet, since participation in the Holy Mass is necessary for the salvation of the soul, and woman have souls as much as men, women are required to participate in the Holy Mass and other official liturgies of the Church.
The Extra-Ordinary Election of the Pope by the Church-in-General, was a part of Catholic Action, and Catholic Action is open to all members of the Church without discrimination.
It is true that the Church Law prescribes, for example, that when a man is available, lay baptism be performed by him, rather than by a woman. However, this is true only if the man is a Catholic. Again, this is because of the hierarchy of the Church, which rightly places men above women. By this, the Church does not claim or countenance that women are inferior human beings or intellects, but it is merely stating the hierarchical relationship of men and women. However, this prescription cannot be invoked in this particular case.
Finally, I lay down this challenge: If anyone knows of any canonical reason why women could not have participated, and that because of their participation, the election was nullified, is required to cite the exact prescriptions of the Church.
The Principles, Not The Man!
Your real problem is that the lot of you
"Traditionalists" are obsessed with the man, and care nothing for the principles, which you are totally negligent of, disregard and ignorant of.
You are obsessed with your own private, personal and subjective criteria, which "finds" Bawden to be unworthy as an "insignificant" person.
But Catholic Theology never makes a song and dance about the man who is pope, but of the fact that some man is the Pope.
We never had, for example, a cultus of John Mario Mastai-Ferretti, Pope Pius IX, or of Joachim Pecci (Pope Leo XIII) or of Joseph Melchior Sarto (Pope Pius X) or of Della Chiesa, Ratti or Pacelli, the Popes Benedict XV, Pius XI and Pius XII.
Rather, we have revered them as the Popes and under the titles that they had assumed.
Their identity as popes had subsumed their personal identities, which were no longer regarded.
All that is required as qualifications to be Pope is that the candidate be a male Catholic.
It is certain that if other men had done their duties, more well-known men could have ended being elected Pope instead of Mr. Bawden. As I have stressed already, it is not the man that matters; what matters is that he is Pope. Therefore, Siri, Tadeschi, Ottaviani, Lefebvre, Thuc himself, or Carmora or Hernandez or a lot of others could have been elected Pope, if they only had believed and had cooperated with the stimuli of Divine Providence� with the effort at organising an election, if only they had the faith and had not vacillated� if only they were men, and not pussycats.
The only men who are not covered with this collective failing, this collective ignominy are the Jesuit Frs. Saenz y Arriaga and Burton Frasier, who both died before they could do anything about their beliefs.
Even Francis Schuckhardt could have been validly elected pope, despite his numerous latter sins� for, certainly, a legitimate pope cannot be deposed for even gross immoralities, no more than Alexander Borgia!
1 Cor. 1: 25fl.:
So much wiser than men is God's foolishness; so much stronger than men is God's weaknesses. Consider, brethren, the circumstances of your own calling; not many of you are wise, in the world's fashion, not many powerful, not many well born. No, God has chosen what the world holds foolish, so as to abash the wise, God has chosen what the world holds weak, so as to abash the strong. God has chosen what the world holds base and contemptible, nay, has chosen what is nothing, so as to bring to nothing what is now in being; no human creature was to have any ground for boasting, in the presence of God. It is from him that you take your origin, through Christ Jesus, whom God gave us to be all our wisdom, our justification, our sanctific ation, and our atonement; so that the scriptures might be fulfilled, If anyone boasts, let him make his boast in the Lord.
For you "Traditionalists" to get a proper appreciation of the facts, you should sit down and write a hundred times, nay, a thousand times, even a hundred thousand times, till it has seeped into your brains and is deeply etched in there:
"It is the Principles that are important, not the man!
It is the Principles that are important, not the man!
It is the Principles that are important, not the man!
It is the Principles that are important, not the man!
It is the Principles that are important, not the man!
It is the Principles that are important, not the man!
It is the Principles that are important, not the man�."
Legal Value Of Bawden's Election
The Next Question is:
But is this election valid and does it bind in conscience on every soul?
The answer is:
YES! Even if all the electors were members of the same family, yes! Because, the election was not (fraudulently) restricted merely to the members of that one family, but was advertised feverishly all over the world, to most prominent Traditionalists, and all invited to participate, therefore, even though nobody from outside the circle which had proposed the election participated, the election, even if we assume that it was posted only by the members of one family, was certainly legally valid and is binding.
This is Catholic Theology. To deny this is heresy.
I stress once again: It is not the man who matters, but that he is the Pope. Therefore, I do not make a cult of Mr. Bawden. I would have happily enough have accepted any other man if he had been validly elected before Bawden. I would have accepted Thuc, Carmora, Hernandez, Schuckhardt, even Dolan, etc. I would have even have accepted you or Mr. Robert F. Hess�. But you did not have the faith, and so God passed over you.
Catholics believe, and rightly, that while they ought not to make a song and dance, or rather, a cult, of the man who would be, or is, Pope, nevertheless, that a man is, or was elected, Pope, is / was due to a direct part played by Divine Providence. That is, in the wisdom of God, that man was the best person to be elected Pope.
It is obvious that this is and was true of David Bawden. God sent away the rich and the haughty empty-handed, and has cast them down, and has exalted the humble.
But in Bawden, more than mere humility, it was the willingness to merit the contempt of sinful men by "rashfully" pushing forward the urgency of electing the Pope. When Israel was seduced, at the instigation of Balaam Ben-Beor, by the Moabitess and Madianitess women, to worshiping their Ba�als and fornicating with them, it was the "rash" act of one man, Phinees, who seized his lance and slew Cozbi, even as the rest of Israel merely stood by and watched, like a bunch of impotent eunuchs. It was this "rash" act by Phinees which is why God relented from destroying all Israel, and even rewarded Phinees by reserving the High Priesthood in his line�. Very evidently, the apostate Jews (
Anti-Israel, ref. Acts 7:42-43) hate Phinees even to this day, and make him the type for Christ Jesus (ref.
http://www.geocities.com/prakashjm45/phinees.html). Bawden is the Phinees of our day. The Bible tells us (Numbers 25: 10-13 - Confraternity of St. Joseph Version):
10 Then the Lord said to Moses, 11 "Phinees, son of Eleazar, son of A'aron the priest, has turned my anger from the Israelites by his zeal for my honour among them; that is why I did not put an end to the Israelites for the offense to my honour. 12 Announce, therefore, that I hereby give him my pledge of friendship, 13 which shall be for him and for his descendants after him the pledge of an everlasting priesthood, because he was zealous on behalf of his God and thus made amends for the Israelites."
[Would you contemn this announcement and its results, on the part of Moses, in favor of his brother�s grandson, as being "all within the family" and therefore null and void, if not nepotistic? And how do you relate to the long-standing institution of
Cardinal-Nephew?]
You Traditionalists loudly proclaim that you desire to see the restoration of the Church as it was, and you make a cultus of the Church as it was, and of the Papacy and of its necessity for the salvation of souls. But you live in an unspoken dread of the restoration being accomplished.
Ah! If only Bawden had been content to become a priest or bishop of some fashion among us! Certainly, then, we would have opened our ranks to admit him, to make place for him in our communions.
Our Old Boys Network would have accommodated him� if only he had procured ordination or consecration and become yet another Traditionalist circuit priest or bishop among us, partaking of our
loving, uncritical, ecumenical communion, presiding over his own little chapel and flock as his own self-constituted Pope of his own happily self-contained
Petite Eglise!
But no! Bawden had to be so presumptuous as to seek to impose himself upon us—
all of us!—as our Pope!
Our Pope! What need do we have for a Pope? We are comfortable enough as it is.
We have built, with the pouring forth of our blood and tears, and with great exertions and sacrifices, a comfortable system for ourselves; we cater to a great host of souls; we have built up chapels and communities and seminaries and orders. Our chapels are teeming with devotees; our flocks flourish. What need have we for a Pope?
We have built up a working relationship among ourselves; we have Epikeia to supply us what we need from the Pope. What need then have we for a Pope?
We have fashioned unto ourselves a working democracy; what need do we have for the arbitrary, personal, paternalistic government of a Pope, a galling dictatorship?
Our cultus of the Pope and of the Papacy is for children, for those who are addicted to their childhood. For us it is lip-service.
Imagine the impudence and insolence of childish and immature folks such as Bawden and Mrs. Benns in proceeding to elect a Pope!
Imagine their impudence and insolence in seeking to burden and encumber us with a Pope!
Why do we need this embarrassing encumbrance of a Pope?
They would not even heed our cries for caution, for going to sleep on this, for putting this work away in the storeroom, high up on some obscure shelf�.
More than the impudence and insolence, imagine the folly, the utter folly, of those who seek the Pope, who seek to restore the childish reliance on the arbitrary, personal, paternalistic government of a Pope, a galling dictatorship!
What need have we of this foolishness? This childishness? Why, for heaven�s sake, do we need a Pope? We are comfortable enough as we are! We have accomplished all that we need to accomplish, all that we sought to accomplish. What need have we of a Pope?
Tell me: You call yourselves Sedevacantists. Are you Sedevacantists because of the accident of the Sede being
vacant, or are you Sedevacantists because you prefer and desire and work to keep that Sede
vacant?
Listen to Pope Leo XIII (
Satis cognitum, Denz. 1960):
"The Episcopal order is considered to be in proper union with Peter, as Christ commanded, if it is subordinate to Peter and obeys him. Otherwise it necessarily degenerates into a disorganized and confused group. To preserve correct union of faith and communion, it is not enough merely to have a priority of honor nor even to exercise watchfulness. Rather it is absolutely necessary to have true and supreme authority which the whole community obeys."
I waste my breath. But I will waste it no more. It would be a great wonder indeed if you or any of the Traditionalists should admit the facts and acknowledge Mr. Bawden as Pope. You are intransigent. You have hardened your hearts. You have blinded your eyes, so that you will not see.
It was our duty to witness first to you, Traditionalists, but our obligations to you are finished and done. From now on, we will leave you severely alone.
You Traditionalists delude yourselves that we need you, that only you can supply us with valid orders. You are deluded. There are many more bishops in the World, who also possess valid orders, and, from now on, we will seek these out, and leave you well alone.
You Traditionalists are all and collectively conceited and have made yourselves stiff-necked and haughty, and give yourselves airs, and mock Christ�s Vicar. Well, no more.
We dust off the dust from our shoes that has stuck on from cozy, self-contained little
Tradistan—your Traditionalist
Bantustan. No more will we witness here among you, but we will go out among others more amenable to us and to the Gospel of Christ.
Lúcio Mascarenhas
©Lúcio Mascarenhas (formerly "Prakash").
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