Some Objections To Pope Michael

©Lucio Mascarenhas. April 9th., 2004.

Before I had come to accept Pope Michael, someone had written me a letter mocking Pope Michael and his claim to be Pope on certain grounds.

These were that he, Pope Michael, featured on his website, photographs of himself standing next to certain landmark rock features in Colorado, USA, and that other photographs had him in civilian clothes, etc. It was objected that the Pope should not demean himself as a tourist, and that he should be always in his official dress.

[See pictures of Quote Pope Michael at Mushroom Rock State Park, Carneiro, Kansas, the home of his Great Grandparents Unquote: 1 & 2]

Others have objected to Pope Michael styling himself Pope Michael the First. It has been claimed that when a Pope takes a name not previously held by any previous pope, he is called merely by that name, and no number is added to his name. However, subsequent popes with the same name are numbered in order to distinguish them, and it is usual to subsequently style that first pope as being "the first" with that name.

Yet others objected because, of the seven who participated in the election in which he was elected, three participants belonged to the same family — Mr. David Allen Bawden, later Pope Michael, his father and his mother. Thereby, it has been claimed, that this was no election at all, but merely a family affair, with Mr. David Bawden being guaranteed election.

It is a misunderstanding that the Pope has an official dress. For centuries, popes dressed as other clerics, however, with something or the other to distinguish his status from others. There was never any prescribed uniform. Pope St. Pius V however, even after becoming Pope, continued to wear the habit of his religious order, and subsequent popes thereafter continued this as a tradition.

However, it needs to be pointed out that this tradition is purely a human tradition; that no pope is bound by it, and that a pope can choose to change it.

When one looks at the photographs that Pope Michael sports on his website, one notes that these are captioned. The photographs are taken at the Mushroom Rock Park near the Community of Carneiro from where his grandparents had originated.

It would seem, prima facie, that Pope Michael, in taking these photographs, was motivated by filial affections — which is a virtue, not a vice!

Again, Pope Michael has violated no law of Christianity or committed any heresy, sacrilege, blasphemy, by having these photographs taken. He is not worshipping along with Druids or other non-Christians, as the Lying Pole has been doing.

The situation concerning Papal regnal names is the same. For a very long time, Popes reigned in their baptismal names - Clement, Linus, Liberius, etc. At one point of time, a man who bore the name Peter was elected pope, and out of reverence for the original Peter, who holds a unique position, he choose to innovate by adopting a regnal name different from his baptismal name.

Subsequent popes have chosen to continue this as a tradition. However, this is, again, merely a human tradition. Popes are not obliged by faith to conform to this tradition, and may choose not to, or to alter it.

By styling himself Pope Michael the First, instead of merely, Pope Michael, he has not committed any transgression against the faith. This is, in fact, a non issue, and it reflects badly, not on Pope Michael, but on those who make and further this infantile and puerile objection, which is, moreover, evidence of their Pharisaical hypocrisy!

Speak of clutching at straws in a desperate effort to deny and negate Pope Michael!

The last objection, that of his election being entirely a family affair, seems to be the most formidable.

Teresa Stanfill-Benns, Mr. Bawden, Sr., and Mr. David Bawden went to great lengths to get other people to come to the election, including many letters, several overnight packages overseas (about 75 to Russia alone!) and a phone call to Belgium to get a potential elector to come. As in the Gospels they all began to make excuses why they would not come and some simply broke off communications.

Let us assume that in a community, due to, perhaps, continuous emigration, merely one family has been left behind to constitute that community. Therefore, when electing the mayor or sheriff or any other authority for that community, the election would be, in fact, reduced to being merely an intra-familial affair.

So: Does this mean that the officer elected has been irregularly elected? Does this make his election null and void? Of course not! It is nonsensical to even make the allegation!

Let us take a hypothetical situation. Suppose that at one point of time, a Pope finds that the members of one particular family are the most staunch champions of the faith, and makes several members, four or five brothers for example, of that one family, Cardinals. I ask: Is this scenario so impossible? Is there any thing in the faith that forbids members of one family being made Cardinals?

Suppose further that for various reasons, such as that terrorists have seized most of the Cardinals, except those of this family, or that the number of Cardinals is so small that the Cardinals of this one family dominate the College of Cardinals. (Let us remember that some times, Popes have been elected by as few as seven Cardinals). Let us suppose further that a member of the same family is elected pope in such a conclave. I ask: Would such an election be doubtful? Would it be null and void? The answer is obvious: NO!

When members of the same family act in a Church election, they do not act as members of the same family, but as individual Christians. As individual Christians, they have the full right to vote and to elect, and that they are related to each other is absolutely irrelevant.

So much should be evident at first glance to any sane person. We, however, are dealing with malefactors and hypocrites. These are men who have become enamoured with their "liberty" in the absence of the pope, and who are loath to see a pope reigning once again, and take away their liberty to dispense themselves and to act as their own individual popes.

Need I say more?

Pope Michael's website is: http://www.VaticanInExile.com
©Lucio Mascarenhas. April 9th., 2004.
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