Post by Pacelli on Nov 20, 2018 15:16:43 GMT -5
The following documentary on the so called “Pope” Michael, Mr. David Bawden, is excellent in the sense that it shows where delusion and wishful thinking can lead even apparently rational and intelligent people.
The video covers the life and daily activities of Mr. Bawden, his mother, Clara Bawden, and his associate and “seminarian” Mr. Phillip Friedl. At the time of the documentary, Bawden was not ordained, but since then he has allegedly been ordained by an unnamed Old Catholic Bishop who has allegedly returned to the Church through Bawden.
The key to Bawden’s problem begins with his idea that the Divine Constitution of the Church is fluid, and that in times of crisis, the teaching and Tradition of the Church no longer applies. In the entire documentary, Bawden never makes any serious attempt to justify his idea that a papal election can be conducted by people with no right to elect.
Interestingly enough, it is a Novus Ordo priest who challenges him on this point, but then uses a weak argument that the Pope must assume control of St. John Lateran. Bawden addresses this argument which is easily refuted, but fails to address the real argument that the Pope must be elected by the clergy of Rome, whether this is the Cardinal-electors, or the clerics of Rome in the absence of the Cardinals.
It seems to me that this mentality that has led to “Pope” Michael and other so called “Popes” is a widespread undercurrent throughout traditionalism. Many think, at least implicitly, that the Divine Constitution of the Church is no longer relevant, and Catholics can do as they please in establishing a new and uncommissioned hierarchy or electing a Pope.
The story of “Pope” Michael serves as a warning to Catholics to not embrace the idea that the Church can be non-apostolic, that Catholics can self-create new offices in the Church, that Catholics can create their own new and unTraditional constitution for the Church. Any of these ideas are the intellectual groundwork for the creation of a schismatic sect.
It it is a sad thing to watch such as Bawden, his mother and father, Mr. Friedl, and others that have joined this undeclared sect, and were clearly once good Catholics, fall over this cliff. Sects such as these play on the ignorance of Catholics on how the Church works, and lead people to believe that the Divinely constituted Catholic Church can evolve with the times, which in a strange irony makes these people, so called Traditionalists, into classic modernists.