The correct title of this article is true Catholic Church. The initial letter is capitalized due to technical restrictions.

The true Catholic Church (tCC) is a small Roman Catholic Conclavist (see sedevacantism) group based in Kalispell, Montana, United States. Its adherents believe that the papacy was vacant between the death of Pope Pius XII in October 1958 and their election of Fr. Lucian Pulvermacher, a Traditionalist priest, as Pope in a telephone election in October 1998. Fr. Pulvermacher has adopted the papal name Pius XIII. The tCC uses the lower-case "t" in its name because its small number of adherents believe it to be the remnant of the Catholic Church, which they claim to have "wandered in the wilderness" for 40 years from Pius XII's death to Pius XIII's election.

Election of pope

Pulvermacher's purported election as Pope was the third such consecutive conclavist election, the first being that of David Bawden (Pope Michael) in Kansas, U.S.A., 1990 and of Fr. Victor von Pentz (Linus II) in Assisi, Italy, 1994. Neither "Linus II" nor the later

Sedevacantists and Conclavists claim that Pope John XXIII incurred automatic excommunication for publicly holding heresy from his early years as a priest. The "true Catholic Church" specifically claims that he had become a Freemason in 1935 while serving as papal nuncio to Turkey; such an act would have earned him automatic excommunication, and therefore, according to the provisions of Pope Paul IV's 1556 legislation, Cum ex Apostolatus Officio invalidated his subsequent election as Pope. The response has also been made, by a Fr. Brian Harrison (), basing himself on Pope Pius XII's legislation Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis (December 8, 1945) governing the election of his successors, that even an excommunicated cardinal can be validly elected to and validly exercise the papal office.

The tCC maintains that none of John XXIII's successors (Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II and Benedict XVI) has been a true Catholic, and that all have hence been ineligible for the papacy. In 2002, it was revealed that Pius XIII had practiced divination since his time as a seminarian, and it was subsequently suggested that he had thereby incurred excommunication and was accordingly, on his own logic, ineligible for the Papacy. One of his cardinals, Gordon Bateman, his one-time principal collaborator, dissociated himself from the tCC as a result.

Beliefs of the tCC

The tCC

Criticism

The tCC's critics claim that the tCC has no bishops, and hence no connection to the historic episcopate and no means of transmitting holy orders to future generations of its membership. While a non-bishop such as Fr. Pulvermacher can be validly elected to the papacy under Catholic canon law, it is normal practice in such cases for the new Pope to be consecrated to the episcopate before being formally installed as pontiff. No bishop was willing to consecrate Pius XIII, but the latter granted himself authority to consecrate Gordon Bateman, and Bateman subsequently consecrated Pius. Catholic doctrine holds that only a bishop can carry out episcopal consecrations, and Pius' claim that a Pope can grant authority to a simple priest to consecrate men to the episcopate has been strongly disputed.

The tCC claims a worldwide membership, though the available evidence suggests that its adherents are few in number. As of February, 2005, the tCC had two priests (Pius XIII and a married American named Robert Lyons whom he ordained in June 2000, in contradiction with Catholic disciplinary laws prohibiting married clerics of higher rank than deacon, although it is acknowledged that Clerical celibacy is merely Church Law, not Divine Law, and therefore can be dispensed by the Pope, as John-Paul II has done for Anglican ministers converting), and an unknown number of lay members. The number of people who participated in the 1998 papal election has never been disclosed, but the tCC states that more electors voted for Fr. Pulvermacher than had voted for Pius XII in the 1938 conclave in Rome; according to some reports, 61 cardinals cast their ballots for Pius XII. Pius XIII's (alleged) consecration to the episcopate was attended by 28 people.

True Catholic Church True Catholic Church