--- Luke -Jr [email protected] wrote:
On Saturday 22 March 2008, Leo Mauler wrote:
*Pope John Paul II*, wasn't a Pope? This may come as a surprise to the Roman Catholic Church, since they generally keep very good track of who is or is not the Pope.
John Paul II was an antipope and is recognized as such by at least the majority of Catholic bishops.
Which is an interesting statement, since most fringe Catholic groups which claim that Pope John Paul II (and everyone else elected Pope since Vatican II) was an antipope (especially the sedevacantists), also claim that the great majority of the bishops listed in the Holy See's "Annuario Pontificio" are in reality laymen.
Thanks to the rule in Canon Law that someone only gets ordained a Bishop with a permission slip from the current Pope in the Vatican (this rule predates Vatican II and thus is still a part of "traditional" Catholicism), any other "list of Bishops" is therefore also invalid and all the Bishops listed on such lists are also "laymen". Canon Law lists no alternative method to the "papal permission slip" of officially ordaining a Catholic Bishop.
So it would appear that "a majority of Catholic Bishops recognize that Pope John Paul II was an antipope" is a statement arrived at by fudging the data, since if you think that it is true, then you also think that "a majority of Catholic Bishops" aren't really Bishops. If 90 of 100 Bishops support Pope Benedict XVI, and you artificially delete those Bishops from the registry because "they're not really Bishops", naturally you'll hit a majority of 10 out of 10 who think he's an "antipope".
These numbers are, however, more like a survey about Linux where you only call Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates: "100% of computer professionals surveyed think Linux sucks."
There are about ten people today who claim to be pope of the Catholic Church.
Well its a pity there is such a small supply (the real number is still like 17), otherwise I'd suggest that the Catholic Church go into quantum physics and develop a new, clean energy source from crashing popes into antipopes.
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