The Alternative Pope Project I initiated in 2015 analyzes twentieth and twenty-first-century papal claimants. My focus is on persons who have claimed that they, not the vastly more recognized Roman pontiff, are the Catholic Church’s leader. For example, I don’t include the leaders of the Coptic Church, often called popes, as they do not claim to be successors of St. Peter. Neither do I include the Caodaist popes. Caodaism is a Vietnamese religion led by a pontiff and a college of cardinals. Though Catholic practices influence Caodaism, it is closer to Buddhist, Daoist, and Western Spiritist teachings.

Reformer Jean Calvin and Evangelist Billy Graham have sometimes more or less ironically been called the Protestant Pope, but of course, they did refer to themselves as such. However, leaders of a few groups of Protestant origin in the broadest sense of the word have declared themselves popes. One example is Guyanese Philbert London, televangelist and the leader of the Beacon Ministries and the House of Majesty, an independent Christian community influenced by prosperity theology. He claimed that God elected him pope and was publicly installed in 2016, taking Emanuel as his papal name. Another example is South African Tsietsi Makiti, leader of the Gabola Church.

Continue reading “Pope Tsietsi Makiti and the Gabola Church” →

In February 2023, I wrote a substantial piece on Pope Michael for the World Religions and Spirituality Project. Pope Michael (David Bawden, 1959-2022) was an alternative pope, elected in a small conclave in Kansas in 1990 and for the last decade based in Topeka. He claimed the papacy until his death on 2 August 2022. From the time of his passing away, his group of adherents declared the Holy See vacant and began planning for a new conclave. Until recently, no date was fixed, but in the June 2023 issue of the Vatican in Exile’s newsletter: The Olive Tree the group makes an official announcement on the conclave. It will be held in late July. Surprisingly, the electors will not gather in the United States but in Vienna.

“On Conclave
It’s almost a year ago when His Holiness Pope Michael of happy memory met his Creator. We are dilapidated by his passing away but we are grateful to the Lord for giving him to us. Pope Michael has left us a legacy that is priceless. That is from mere sedevacantism to conclavism. He did not mind the persecution, what matters is the good of the Church. His reputation was maligned yet what matters to him is ” sentire cum ecclesiae ” i.e.thinking with the mind of the Church.

Continue reading “Upcoming Conclave: A Successor of Pope Michael Will be Elected” →

On Pentecost, 5 June 1995, Maurice Archieri (1923–2016), a retired car mechanic living in the Parisian suburb of Le Perreux-sur-Marne, received an intellectual vision where the Holy Ghost made him the Vicar of Christ.  Archieri took the name Pierre II–Peter II–but clarified that he was not the pope.  According to his understanding, John Paul II materially occupied the Holy See.  However, he was not a valid–formal–pope but the leader of a new non-Catholic religion.  Based on private revelations and apocalyptical writings, Archieri claimed that there could be no pope in the current era and that he, as the Vicar of Christ, was the leader of the Catholic remnant in the age of general apostasy.

See the Alternative Pope Project Working Paper “Maurice Archieri (1923-2016): The Vicar of Christ in Le Perreux-sur-Marne”, which also includes a collection of texts written by Pierre II.