Moratorium on moderation/censorship/general whines.-give it up for lent eh?

[Leo Mauler]

--- Luke -Jr <luke at dashjr.org> 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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