A Filipino 'Anti-Pope' Exists, And He's Going to Be Crowned in Bulacan
The leader of a breakaway faction of the Catholic Church is in the Philippines, where he will be crowned pope in a ceremony to be held in the province of Bulacan next month.
Rogelio Martinez, who has begun calling himself Pope Michael II, is the leader of a group known as Vatican in Exile, which was founded in the 1980s by an American man named David Allen Bawden.
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Bawden was a former member of a group called Society of St. Pius X, but left to form his own group and then declared himself pope in 1990. Reports say he was elected pope by six lay people, including himself and his parents.
The main contention of Bawden’s group is their denial of all other popes since the death of Pope Pius XI in 1958. According to Badwen, the succeeding popes were all “modernists, heretics, and apostates.”
In an interview in 2021, Martinez said it was after Pope John XXIII called for the Second Vatican Council in 1962 that caused the split.
“It was a break from the Roman Catholic Church in as much as it drifted from the Roman Catholic faith,” Martinez said. “Examples are Novus Ordo Missae New order of the Mass), New Code of Canon Law, and New Rite of Ordination. All are inspired by semi- Protestantism.”
Bawden died on August 2, 2022 in Kansas City, Missouri, after being in a coma following emergency surgery.
Martinez was then elected “pope” to replace Bawden during a conclave in the U.S. in July 2023. It was then that he took the name Michael II.
According to religious news platform UCA News, Martinez arrived in the Philippines in early August and has since been “visiting Catholics, attending religious gatherings and officiating mass.” He was even welcomed in a motorcade by his followers in San Jose Del Monte.
However, a Catholic bishop has said that anyone supporting Michael II’s group may result in automatic excommunication.
According to Bishop Jose R. Rojas of Libmanan, chairman of the Episcopal Commission of Doctrine of the Faith of the national bishops’ conference, Rogelio Martinez is not a Catholic priest and therefore cannot claim to be a bishop, much less a pope. Thus, any religious celebration officiated by Martinez is “void” and Catholics who support him face “automatic excommunication.”
“They are not in communion with the Catholic Church. He is not a Catholic priest, thus, it is impossible for him to be a bishop, more so, pope,” Rojas told UCA News on September 4.
“The penalty for schematics is automatic excommunication,” Rojas added. “The Code of Canon Law attaches automatic ex-communication to apostates, heretics, and schismatics but of course, the gravity and full consent of the act have to be evaluated on a case-to-case basis.”
