What Is It with the Antipopes?

I have a very open friending policy over on Facebook. I accept friend requests from almost everyone. The only exceptions are those who seem to be up to no good (e.g., anti-Catholics who want to friend me so they can access my list of friends and spew anti-Catholic stuff; or that Middle Eastern guy with the suicide-bomber-looking stuff on his profile).

But some of the most unusual friend requests I've had are from antipopes. So far I've received friend requests from not one but *two* antipopes.

While I'm not opposed in principle to dialogging with antipopes, FB doesn't really strike me as the place for that, so I turned those down. It seemed like an effort to get in front of my friends to advocate their antipapacies or something.

BTW, I still have about 2800 friend slots of a maximum of 5000 available (so that's 46% of them left).

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

16 thoughts on “What Is It with the Antipopes?”

  1. Jimmy, are you sure these guys were real antipopes?
    I suspect that at least one of them might have been a fake antipope!

  2. Antipopes? For real? I didn’t think those existed anymore.
    FWIW, Wikipedia says that “real” antipopes make a claim to be Pope that is accepted by a large following, while those with very small followings such as modern sedevacantist “antipopes” are not generally classified as such. I assume sedevacantism is what you’re talking about here. More information would be interesting.

  3. It seemed like an effort to get in front of my friends to advocate their antipapacies or something.
    LOL!

  8. I’m glad I’m not alone in this. First it was “Pope” Michael and last week it was “Pope” Pius XIII. They really are poor things. Imagine being elected by your parents, aunt and uncle in the kitchen and the smoke goes up out of your barn.

  10. Proclaiming yourself to be the Pope is a sure sign of a large tear in your marble bag.

    Not quite, because some people are the pope, or have been. Benedict XVI has plenty of marbles left. Proclaiming yourself to be pope when you’re actually not is a sign of a marble problem. Contrary to what some people say, determining whether someone is the pope is generally a quite easy task.

  12. No, because the interaction between a Pope and an Anti-matter Pope would be mutual annihilation. The interaction between a Pope and an anti-Pope would be mutual excommunication.
    The Chicken

  15. FWIW, I see that David “Pope Michael I” Bawden is Facebook “friends” with Al Kresta and Fr. John Zuhlsdorf. I suspect he might be just trying to access the information on their respective Facebook pages.
    In other news, “Pope Pius XIII” (Fr. Lucian Pulvermacher, OFM, Cap.) died about a year ago. Recently, his followers have publicly acknowledged Pulvermacher’s death and are planning a “conclave” by 2013.
    See here:
    http://www.truecatholic.us/zapostolic/index.htm
    (And please note, “only serious minded need apply themselves” to the latter page.)
    Just thought you all would like to know.

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