Meet Pope Michael

What do you do if you think that over the last century the Vatican has become too modern? Well, if you’re a small group of Catholics from Kansas, you elect your own Pope.

Such is the story of David Bawden, a man from Delia, Kansas who since July of 1990 has been known as Pope Michael I. According to Pope Michael and his followers, Pope Pius X condemned modernism and as such all modernist Popes are heretics. Amongst Michael’s claims against the Roman Popes is a performance by “immodestly clad acrobats” for Pope John Paul II.

In 1990 Kansas resident Teresa Stanfill-Benns wrote an article in a small Traditionalist Catholic newsletter calling for all Catholics to come together to elect a new Pope. When the vote was held, there were only six voters, including Bawden and his parents. After a very brief conclave, Bawden was elected Pope.

Interestingly, in the years following Bawden’s election as Pope, Stanfill-Benns has since distanced herself from Pope Michael and has written about the illegitimacy of his papacy.

If you have any interest in further information about Pope Michael, he has a blog called The Vatican in Exile.