| • Science | • People | • Locations | • Timeline |
The true Catholic Church (tCC) is a small Montana-based Roman Catholic Conclavist (see sedevacantist) movement that argues that Pope John XXIII1 and his successors were all antipopes and that the See of Peter was empty since the death of Pope Pius XII in 1958. In 1998 it held a telephone conclave to elect a valid successor to Pope Pius XII. The Tridentine priest chosen, Reverend Father Earl Lucian Pulvermacher, OFM Cap, proclaimed himself Pope Pius XIII.
The true Catholic Church rejects the reforms within Roman Catholicism of the Second Vatican Council and regards the Council as a Latrocinium or invalid council. While in the Catholic Church in communion with Pope John Paul II the use of the Tridentine Mass needs permission of the local Ordinary (Bishop) and most Masses in Latin are celebrated according to the Roman Missal approved by Pope Paul VI ( Novus Ordo, that is new order), the tCC continues to use the Tridentine liturgy.
While it claims a worldwide membership, all available evidence suggests that this church has a small, largely Montana-based membership. On his election to the tCC papacy, Pope Pius XIII's raising to episcopal office which took place in a hotel ballroom, was attended by just twenty-eight people (Roman Catholic policy says that if someone not already a bishop is elected pope, then he is first consecrated as a bishop before his installation as pope).
1 It argues without much evidence that Pope John when Angelo Roncalli joined the Freemasons in 1935, an act which earned him automatic excommunicationExcommunication is religious censure which is used to deprive or suspend membership in a religious community. The word literally means "out of communion. Catholic Communion Excommunication is the most serious penalty that can be imposed for Catholics., thus invalidating his election as pope. It argues that Pope Paul VI, Pope John Paul IPapabile Cardinals typically enter conclaves carefully groomed in case they are elected. John Paul I ( October 17, 1912— September 28, 1978), born Albino Luciani was elected Pope on August 26, 1978 and died 33 days later on September 28, 1978, after one o and Pope John Paul II were not valid popes because (i) their election followed a death of an invalid predecessor, thus invalidating the conclave, and (ii) that their policies and support for Vatican II broke fundamental beliefs laid down at and since the Council of TrentThe Council of Trent (Italian: Trento was an ecumenical council of the Catholic Church held in discontinuous sessions between 1545 and 1563 in response to the Protestant Reformation. It clearly specified Catholic doctrines on salvation, the sacraments and and thus could only have been performed by an antipope.