An antipope is a person who claims to be Bishop of Rome and leader of the Roman Catholic Church in opposition to the legitimately elected pope. Between the 3rd and mid-15th centuries, antipopes were supported by factions within the Church itself and secular rulers.
Sedevacantism is a traditionalist Catholic movement which holds that since the death of Pius XII the occupiers of the Holy See are not valid popes due to their espousal of one or more heresies and that, for lack of a valid pope, the See of Rome is vacant. Sedevacantism owes its origins to the rejection of the theological and disciplinary changes implemented following the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965).
Pope Gregory XVII, also known by the religious name Fernando María de la Santa Faz, was the 1st Pope of the Palmarian Catholic Church, who in this capacity, claimed to be the 263rd Pope of the Catholic Church from 6 August 1978 until his death on 21 March 2005. He was a visionary, seer and mystic, who, following the apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary as Our Crowned Mother of Palmar, founded a religious order which claimed to continue the work of the Carmelites, known as the Carmelites of the Holy Face; after 1978, this order became synonymous with the Palmarian Church.
Lucian Pulvermacher was a traditionalist schismatic Roman Catholic priest and a modern-day antipope. He was the head of the True Catholic Church, a small conclavist group that elected him Pope Pius XIII in Montana in October 1998. At the time of his death, he lived in Springdale, Washington, United States.
Traditionalist Catholicism is a movement that emphasizes beliefs, practices, customs, traditions, liturgical forms, devotions and presentations of teaching associated with the Catholic Church before the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965). Traditionalist Catholics particularly emphasize the Tridentine Mass, the Roman Rite liturgy largely replaced in general use by the post-Second Vatican Council Mass of Paul VI.
Papabile is an unofficial Italian term first coined by Vaticanologists and now used internationally in many languages to describe a Catholic man, in practice always a cardinal, who is thought a likely or possible candidate to be elected pope.
The Western Schism, also known as the Papal Schism, the Great Occidental Schism, the Schism of 1378, or the Great Schism, was a split within the Roman Catholic Church lasting from 20 September 1378 to 11 November 1417, in which bishops residing in Rome and Avignon simultaneously claimed to be the true pope, and were eventually joined by a third line of Pisan claimants in 1409. The event was driven by international rivalries, personalities and political allegiances, with the Avignon Papacy in particular being closely tied to the French monarchy.
David Allen Bawden, who took the name Pope Michael I, was an American conclavist claimant to the papacy. Bawden believed that the Catholic Church had apostatized from the Catholic faith since Vatican II, and that there had been no legitimate popes elected since the death of Pope Pius XII in 1958. In 1990 he was elected pope by a group of six laypeople, including himself and his parents. In 2011, he was ordained a priest and consecrated a bishop by an Independent Catholic bishop.
A papal conclave is a gathering of the College of Cardinals convened to elect a bishop of Rome, also known as the pope. Catholics consider the pope to be the apostolic successor of Saint Peter and the earthly head of the Catholic Church.
The Palmarian Church, officially registered as the Palmarian Christian Church and also known as the Palmarian Catholic Church, is a Christian church with an episcopal see in El Palmar de Troya, Andalusia, Spain. The Palmarian Church claims to be the exclusive One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church founded by Jesus Christ. It claims that the Holy See, the institution of the Papacy and the headquarters of the Catholic Church was moved to El Palmar de Troya at the Cathedral-Basilica of Our Crowned Mother of Palmar, under the auspices of the Patriarchate of El Palmar de Troya, in 1978, due to the alleged apostasy of the Roman Catholic Church from the Catholic faith.
A conclavist was a personal aide of a cardinal present in a papal conclave. The term is sometimes used to refer to all present with a conclave, including the cardinal-electors, but is more properly applied only to the non-cardinals. Conclavists played an important historical role in the negotiations of papal elections and in the evolution of secrecy, writing many of the extant accounts of papal elections.
A papal conclave took place from 25 to 28 October following the death of Pope Pius XII on 9 October 1958. On the eleventh ballot, the College of Cardinals elected Cardinal Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli as the new pope. He accepted the election and took the name John XXIII. He was the second patriarch of Venice to be elected pontiff in the 20th century after Pius X.
The papal conclave held from 2 to 28 September 1823 ended with the election of Annibale della Genga to succeed the death recently deceased Pius VII as pope. Della Genga took the name Leo XII.
Sedeprivationism is a doctrinal position within Traditionalist Catholicism which holds that the current occupant of the Holy See is a duly-elected pope, but lacks the authority and ability to teach or to govern unless he recants the changes brought by the Second Vatican Council. The doctrine asserts that since this council, occupants of the See of Peter are popes materialiter sed non formaliter, that is "materially but not formally". As such, sedeprivationists teach that Pope John XXIII, Pope Paul VI, Pope John Paul I, Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI, and Pope Francis have not attained fullness of the papacy.
According to Roman Catholicism, the history of the papacy, the office held by the pope as head of the Catholic Church, spans from the time of Peter to the present day.
Some hold the conspiracy theory which asserts that the conservative Cardinal Giuseppe Siri, then the Archbishop of Genoa, was elected pope in the 1958 papal conclave, taking the name Pope Gregory XVII, but that his election was suppressed. Siri did not associate himself with this idea.
The 1458 papal conclave, convened after the death of Pope Callixtus III, elected as his successor Cardinal Enea Silvio Piccolomini who took the name Pius II.
The March–April 1605 papal conclave was convened on the death of Pope Clement VIII and ended with the election of Cardinal Alessandro Ottaviano de' Medici as Pope Leo XI. It was the first of two papal conclaves in 1605; Leo died on 27 April 1605, twenty-six days after he was elected. The conclave was dominated by conflict over whether Cesare Baronius should be elected pope, and Philip III of Spain excluded both Baronius and the eventually successful candidate, Medici.
The papal conclave of March–April 1605 was convened on the death of Pope Clement VIII and ended with the election of Alessandro Ottaviano de' Medici as Pope Leo XI on 1 April 1605. It was the first of two papal conclaves in 1605, with Leo dying on 27 April 1605, twenty-six days after he was elected, and the conclave to elect his successor being held in May. The conclave saw conflict regarding whether Cesare Baronius should be elected pope, and Philip III of Spain, the Spanish king, excluded both Baronius and the eventually successful candidate, Medici. Philip's exclusion of Medici was announced by Cardinal Ávila after his election to the papacy, and the other cardinals did not view it as valid since Medici had already been elected pope.
Rogelio del Rosario Martinez Jr., who took the name Pope Michael II, is a Filipino conclavist bishop claimant to the papacy. He was elected by lot at a conclave held in Vienna, Austria, in July 2023.
