Today, December 23, 2025, marks the 50th anniversary of the Order of the Carmelites of the Holy Face, the congregation that today forms part of the Palmarian Catholic Church, based at El Palmar de Troya, an apparition site in Spanish Andalusia. The Church was founded in 1978, when the superior of the Orden, Clemente Domínguez y Gómez (1946-2005) proclaimed that he was true pope of the Catholic Church and the Holy See was transferred to El Palmar de Troya/Seville. Still, the foundation of the Order was an important step.
Throughout the last decade, I have published much about the Palmarian Church, and the following is an extract from my book A Pope of their Own: El Palmar de Troya and the Palmarian Church (1st edition 2017, 2nd edition 2020)
1975 and 1976 were eventful years at El Palmar de Troya, and December 1975 and January 1976 were particularly eventful. During this time, the Palmarian movement would take dramatic steps towards much greater institutionalisation. In a vision to Clemente Domínguez y Gómez on November 30, 1975, ten days after the death of General Franco, the Virgin Mary and Christ announced the forthcoming foundation of a new religious order at El Palmar de Troya that would replace all the existing ones, providing a synthesis. The idea of founding a new order had been present in the heavenly messages, at least since the year before, but the death of the Generalissimo, who was so much praised by the Palmarians, must have been a catalyst. The members of the new order would be the Apostles of the Last Times, an expression used in the eighteenth-century Mariological works of Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort.
The new religious order, called the Order of the Carmelites of the Holy Face (Orden de los Carmelitas de la Santa Faz), later the Carmelites of the Holy Face in Company with Jesus and Mary (Orden de los Carmelitas de la Santa Faz en Compañía de Jesús y María) was indeed founded on December 22, 1975–or December 23 according to some text editions. It included four classes of members: priests, brothers, sisters, and tertiaries, all wearing a brown habit and the large scapular featuring images of the Holy Face of Christ and Our Lady of Palmar. Not surprisingly, Clemente Domínguez became the General of the Order.
At its foundation, the group of female religious numbered ten; a month later, they were fifteen. Initially, the community was led by an Asturian former nun, though she was soon expelled from El Palmar. As the growing group of friars, the community of female religious was international, including women from Spain, Ireland, Canada, Great Britain, West Germany, and the United States.
Ordinations and Consecrations
The Palmarians, however, had relatively few ordained priests among them, and the Roman Catholic Archbishop Bueno of Seville would, of course, not ordain any. In any case, they would probably not have accepted the post-Vatican II ordination ritual. They also wanted bishops of their own, who would be faithful to traditional teachings in the End times. To claim apostolic succession, a group like theirs needed to be consecrated by a Roman Catholic bishop. Therefore, a traditionalist willing to make consecrations had to be found.
The solution to the problems came with Vietnamese Archbishop Pierre-Martin Ngô-dinh-Thuc (1897–1984), by then living in Italian exile. After one of the Vatican II sessions, he had been unable to return to his home country, where his brother, South Vietnamese president Ngô-dinh-Diem, had been killed, as was another brother, an influential provincial leader. The whole family, including the prelate, had significant economic interests in the country. After a solid education in Europe, including triple doctorates, Thuc was consecrated in 1938. In 1960, he became archbishop of Hue. While in exile, he was replaced and instead made titular archbishop of Bulla Regia. Still, he served as an assistant pastor both in and outside Rome, obviously bewildered by the changes in the post-conciliar Church.
While Thuc was very reluctant towards the new Mass order, like Lefèbvre, he had used it. Apart from that, if there was one thing that characterised Thuc’s actions during Vatican II, it was undoubtedly not general traditionalism. In one of his few interventions, he asked for more non-Christian observers to be invited to the Council. In another statement, he pledged for the ordination of women, speaking against the discrimination of women in the Catholic Church. This must have been regarded as highly revolutionary to the conciliar fathers. Overall, however, Thuc opposed many of the changes made at the Council.
Though the Palmarian leaders at the time claimed that the Vietnamese prelate’s arrival in El Palmar was ‘unexpected, mysterious and providential’, he certainly did not come there by chance, and the Carmelites of the Holy Face was not founded until he was on his way. In fact, he came there through the mediation of Maurice Revaz, a canon of the Swiss Abbey of Grand-Saint-Bernard, who was teaching at the SSPX seminary in Ecône. Revaz managed to convince Thuc that he had been elected by the Virgin to save the Catholic Church from destruction amid general apostasy. With short notice, the Vietnamese prelate travelled to Seville and El Palmar de Troya, arriving at Christmas 1975.
In his autobiographical notes, written towards the end of 1976, Thuc claims that Maurice Revaz suddenly appeared at his home, saying: ‘Excellency, the Holy Virgin sends me in order for me to send you to central Spain immediately to render her a service. My car is ready for you at the presbytery’s door, and we will depart immediately in order to be there for Christmas.’ According to his own testimony, Thuc then answered, ‘If it is a service that the Holy Virgin required, I am ready to follow you to the end of the world, but I must inform the priest because of the Christmas Mass and must pack my bag.’ On the journey, Revaz and Thuc were accompanied by the McElligotts, a married Irish couple who lived in Switzerland.
It was not the first time Thuc and Revaz met; they had talked during the archbishop’s visit to Ecône about a year earlier. In the meantime, Revaz’s interest in El Palmar de Troya was wakened by the McElligotts, who, apart from their Swiss home, owned a property on the Andalusian coast, close to the apparition site. A more concrete reason for Revaz’s interest in El Palmar and his active role in assisting them was related by Thomas W. Case in a series of articles published in the Fidelity journal. The author sought to establish a connection between SSPX and groups he regarded as clearly heretical, such as the Palmarians. In the article, Case wrote about a ‘dwarf … who claimed she heard “voices” and the Blessed Virgin told her that Thuc should begin a line of bishops through the seer Clemente.’ She was the McElligotts’ daughter. According to Case, Revaz believed in her messages and used them to convince Thuc.
Fr. A, who was a Palmarian bishop between 1976 and 1990, claims that the daughter’s assertions influenced Revaz, but stresses that Thuc was not convinced by them.
[She] told people she was the Blessed Virgin Mary and intelligent human beings believed this. They believed she was in a wheelchair because Our Lady could not walk on the ground. One of her principal supporters was Canon Revaz. No doubt, she did make comments (she was fluent in French) to Bishop Thuc regarding consecrations but the idea was born between himself and Lefèbvre. There is one thing that I cannot stress enough and that is that on agreeing to perform the Consecrations he specifically stated that Revaz was not to be one of them. Obviously, he was aware of his strange belief regarding the dwarf.
Though Revaz’s belief in her claims contributed to his interest in Palmar, it is essential not to see it as the only reason. Revaz appears to have been a very committed ‘marvelist’, attracted by reports of heavenly messages, stigmata, and Eucharistic miracles that indicated the End time was nigh. For him, people like André Althoffer and Josef Leuttenegger, former adherents of Clément XV, were essential contacts. Just as the Palmarians were, Revaz was convinced that Paul VI was being held hostage in the Vatican, trying to persuade Marcel Lefèbvre to help him organise a rescue expedition. As he did not get any support from the archbishop, who did not believe in it at all, Revaz contacted the group at El Palmar de Troya and travelled there. He concluded that El Palmar was the hope of the Catholic Church.
Apart from the case of Maurice Revaz, it is interesting to investigate the relationship that was between the Palmarians and the SSPX at the time. Individual members of the Society seem to have been attracted by the antimodernist messages from Palmar, going there, and an Argentinean editorial connected to the Society printed extensive collections of messages from El Palmar. This, however, does not prove a clear connection on a more organisational level.
Still, there are indications of a more indirect contact between Lefèbvre and El Palmar de Troya, which is alluded to by Fr. A. According to Noël Barbara, a French sedevacantist priest who reportedly talked to the archbishop about the matter, towards the end of 1975, Maurice Revaz had returned to Ecône from El Palmar de Troya, together with the McElligott couple, to speak to him. They asked whether the prelate was willing to go to El Palmar, where the Virgin awaited him, and whether he could consecrate several episcopal candidates she had chosen. Lefèbvre did not want to go but suggested that they should approach Archbishop Thuc, saying ‘He is orthodox and he is not at present occupied. Go and seek him out. He will most certainly agree with your request.’ Thus, according to this testimony, Lefèbvre pointed the Palmarians toward the Vietnamese prelate, though it does not prove that the French archbishop was in favour of the Palmarian cause; rather, it suggests that he did not want to be involved directly.
The drive from Thuc’s home in Italy to Andalusia took three days, but by Christmas Eve 1975, he was in Seville and El Palmar de Troya, celebrating pontifical Masses, while Clemente received many heavenly messages pointing to the great need for priests and bishops. Archbishop Bueno of Seville was aware of Thuc’s presence and intentions and tried to contact him, hoping to convince him not to ordain, much less consecrate, any Palmarians, but without any result. On New Year’s night, 1976, Thuc ordained Clemente Dominguez, Manuel Alonso, and two other men to the priesthood.
The priestly ordinations, however, was just the prelude. Clemente claimed to have received various messages from the Virgin telling him that the Church had an urgent need for traditionalist bishops. The communication was once interrupted when the Virgin through Clemente gave Archbishop Thuc the Jesus Child to hold in his arms. On January 11, the Virgin appeared again to Clemente bringing messages to Thuc:
Dearest children: The archbishop, my beloved son Peter [Thuc], ought to meditate and reflect on the transcendence for the universal Church, of the episcopal consecration, in this sacred place. Look at my image: La Divina Pastora, with a staff in her left hand, giving instructions with the right hand, and standing on the globe. If you recognize me as Divine Shepherdess, I am the one who has the authority given by God, to instruct you and to tell you that it is necessary to make episcopal consecration in this sacred place. And not in private, as you planned. It is very important for our mission in the Church and in the world that there be eyewitnesses to your episcopal consecration. – – – Dearest children: The solemn hour of the Palmar of Troya has arrived, to follow the Church, to lead it, and to restore the authentic doctrine.
In a middle-of-the-night five-hour ceremony at El Palmar on January 11, Thuc consecrated five Palmarians as bishops, once again including Clemente and Manuel. The other three were Roman Catholic priests: the Spaniard Camilo Estevez Puga (1924–1997)–later known as Fr. Leandro María; an Irishman who was expelled from Palmar only a couple of months later; and Francis Bernard Sandler (1917–1992)–later known as Fr. Fulgencio María. The latter was a U.S. Benedictine who had been a parish priest in Sweden for almost twenty years, followed by a few years in Great Britain.
Within the next two years the Palmarians would consecrate some 90 bishops of their own.
Magnus Lundberg 