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A news item involving David Bawden was featured on Misplaced Pages's Main Page in the In the news section on 10 August 2022.

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H.H. Pope Michael was ordained and consecrated by a bishop with valid orders from the Duarte Costa lineage, and so the quote attributed by "John L. Allen Jr." is fatheaded and nonsensical, besides being incompetent as Allen is no authority at all.... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.249.115.244 (talk) 08:20, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

It would be great if you could give His apostolic lineage, or a link, and the date of His consecration. Perhaps Mr Allen wrote before H.H. was ordained. The Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church does not recognize most ordinations of the Duarte Costa lineage. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Richardson mcphillips (talk • contribs) 21:29, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

The information was provided on the page before it was butchered into its present caricature first by a miscreant than by Wikipedians who have locked this page. H.H. Pope Michael was ordained and consecrated by Robert Biarnessen who was consecrated by John Parnell. Whether the "Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church" recognizes or not the ordinations and consecrations of the Duarte Costa lineage is not relevant. 115.249.115.244 (talk) 12:54, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

First, you are replying to a 10 year old comment. Second, the article states, in its current form, "...he had been ordained a priest and then consecrated a bishop on December 11, 2011, by an Independent Catholic episcopus vagans, Bishop Robert Biarnesen of the Duarte-Costa and Old Catholic episcopal lineages." It appears what you want is a dissertation on the actual claim to papacy, like you did in 10 years ago. Your addition to that edit regarding ordination, "He was ordained December 9th, 2011, and consecrated the following day by Bishop Robert Biarnesen, a bishop in the lineage of the Brazilian Duarte Costa" is in the current article, with citations. P37307 (talk) 15:55, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

OK, I feel silly now. I got this edit notification for a photograph request and missed that all together and plowed through to reply to a 10-year-old reply myself. P37307 (talk) 14:38, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

'antipope'?

the article states that Mr Bawden is considered an antipope, but the definition of antipope at the (Misplaced Pages) link provided denies it: "An antipope ... is a person who makes a widely accepted claim to be the lawful pope, in opposition to the pope recognized by the Roman Catholic Church. In the past antipopes were typically those supported by a fairly significant faction of cardinals .... Persons who claim to be the pope but have few followers, such as the modern sedevacantist antipopes, are not generally counted as antipopes, and therefore are ignored for regnal numbering." I presume Mr Bawden does not consider himself to be an antipope. --Richardson mcphillips (talk) 21:11, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

H.H. Pope Michael I is not an antipope anymore than Innocent II was one. 115.249.115.244 (talk) 12:54, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

In view of this, should David Bawden be listed as a 'modern sedevacantist antipope'? (ArnoldTrotter (talk) 07:08, 20 May 2012 (UTC))

Edit request on 15 June 2012

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Would like to update page as David Bawdens website now claims that he has been ordained and consecrated

Rkretowi (talk) 11:32, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Not done: requests for changes to the page protection level should be made at Misplaced Pages:Requests for page protection. Mdann52 (talk) 16:15, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Title change to "Pope Michael"

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was not moved. --BDD (talk) 16:40, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

David Bawden → Pope Michael – Please put your reason for moving here. Canon Law Junkie §§§ Talk 03:23, 3 July 2013 (UTC) should the title be "Pope Michael"? clearly this is his most popular name. i don't think many people know him as "David Bawden", and per Misplaced Pages:Article titles#Use commonly recognizable names. For example, on the page it says to use "Lady Gaga" and not "Stefani Germanotta". it seems to be the same situation here. David Bawden is notable because he claims to be pope with the name Michael. i think the article title should reflect the most common name, which is certainly not David Bawden. Canon Law Junkie §§§ Talk 09:06, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Difficult question. The comparison with Lady Gaga is not exact, because "Lady Gaga", "Mark Twain", "Elton John", "Marilyn Monroe", etc. are stage names. Nobody could say to Elton John, "You're not really Elton John!", because he is. On the other hand, the title "Pope Michael" (as you say) is a title that by its very nature includes a claim to an office that is not recognized by 99.999+% of the planet.

It would be different if he took the title "Pope" to signify that he was the leader of a church of twenty people, but he claims to be the rightful pope of a billion Catholics.

On the other hand, Misplaced Pages does list Joshua Abraham Norton, self-proclaimed "Emperor of the United States", under the title Emperor Norton. That's a very close analogy. And many, many people recognize the name "Emperor Norton", even if they can only identify it as referring to "that crazy guy from San Francisco".

So I would support a move of this page to Pope Michael if you can substantiate your claim that more people (or, if you prefer, more Americans, or if you prefer, more reliable non-Wiki sources) recognize the name "Pope Michael" than those who recognize the name "David Bawden". I myself am familiar with both names, but as you pointed out, we need to follow the WP:COMMONNAME policy, which says we should "use the name that is most frequently used to refer to the subject in English-language reliable sources". — Lawrence King 15:48, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

The hour-long documentary produced by independent filmmakers uses the term "Pope Michael". This story by Sarah Henning also uses the term "Pope Michael" as its main term, although it does mention "David Bawden". What appears to be his personal facebook does use the name "David Bawden", but that's a primary source anyway. This website refers to him as "David Bawden, better known as Pope Michael I", but I'm not sure it's a reliable source. Most of the media coverage that came up on Google mentioned both names, but used "Pope Michael" as the primary story name. I could not find any reliable sources which used the term "David Bawden", and I have not found any conclusive data that says that more people/sources use "Pope Michael", but it does seem to be the case. Canon Law Junkie §§§ Talk 18:28, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Seems persuasive to me. If you like, we could wait a day or two to see if anyone else chimes in, but this does seem to justify an article that begins with the words Pope Michael.

There are, of course, two more questions to answer. First, should the page title refer to Pope Michael or Pope Michael I? Folks have debated this question in other settings, but my impression is that the common Western convention is to omit "I" until there's a "II". In the East, this rule might not apply. In the West, John Paul I was the only pope to use the number "I" during his own lifetime.

The second question is this: Currently, both Pope Michael and Pope Michael I are disambiguation pages, since there have been several Coptic Pope Michaels. If we were to actually give David Bawden the unadorned Pope Michael page, we would have to create a Pope Michael (disambiguation) page as well. However, in my opinion, Bawden's fame, although real, is primarily based on the fact that most Americans find him funny (as in your Eye-of-the-Tiber link), and so I don't think it's realistic to claim he's more notable than an actual Coptic Pope who reigned for 24 years in the 8th century. So what would you say to keeping the Pope Michael article as a disambiguoation page, and moving Bawden to, say, Pope Michael (David Bawden) or Pope Michael I (David Bawden) or Pope Michael (conclavist) or something like that? — Lawrence King 20:22, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

1. Good! But I do think we should wait a day, in the name of "consensus", for any last comments.

2. I think that the title should be "Pope Michael", not "Pope Michael I", since he is more commonly referred to as "Pope Michael" and the whole point of the namechange is to conform to the common name policy.

3. I agree that he is not, at least from a scholarly, religious, or historical point-of-view, more notable than the Coptic pope. However, as you mentioned, the Coptic pope reigned in the 700s, whereas the American conclavist is a contemporary figure. I think it's fair to say that he is more notable to the average person than the Coptic pope of the 700s (the Coptic gets about 7 pageviews per day, while the American gets about 60). Therefore, I actually do think that we should "bestow" the Pope Michael page upon David Bawden, and create a new Pope Michael (disambiguation) page. Canon Law Junkie §§§ Talk 21:11, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose per Misplaced Pages:Five pillars #1 & 2. In ictu oculi (talk) 04:56, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. Pope is a very specific title that can not just be taken by anyone who wants to call themself pope. There have been others like this too, and there is no reason for an encyclopedia to pretend this. "elected by 6 people to be pope" "30 followers" Why do they even have an article? Apteva (talk) 05:13, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose: Unless I get my own article titled "Dalek Supreme Dominus Vobisdu, Emperor of the Known Universe etc., etc." Can you imagine what the Napoleon disambig page would look like if we mentioned every silly claimant? Nor does it belong on the Pope Michael disambig page, or mentioned in parentheses. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 05:39, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose: There is a big difference between recognizing him under the name Pope Michael "as-that-guy-who-claims-to-be-pope", and recognizing him "as-the-same-guy-whom-a-billion-Catholics-accept-as-their-pope". Ideally, "Pope Michael" should redirect to page "David Bawden" (though I too wonder why Bawden is notable enough for a page). But we've got six legitimate Coptic Popes of that name to disambiguate already, and there's just a cognitive dissonance in attaching Bawden's name to that list. Somehow, it's in the interest of WP to separate fantasy from reality, even when we report on both. While we're at it, I'd say it's a similar mistake to have that page "Emperor Norton", which instead should automatically redirect to page "Joshua Abraham Norton". That allows WP browsers the convenience of finding what they're looking for directly, but without WP's subscription to the fantasy. Evenssteven (talk) 08:44, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose: David Bawden probably fails to meet the criteria for notability and inclusion in Misplaced Pages (See the first of the five pillars and WP:NOTABILITY). For the purposes of this discussion, assuming he were to qualify as notable, the appeal to WP:COMMONNAME is weak in that basically this lays down guidelines as to the most suitable version of an individual's name to use for an article title (e.g. Bill Clinton rather than William Clinton)or famous "stage name" as opposed to what is found on an artist's birth-certificate. However, "Pope Michael" is not a simple name but a title or style and in this case implies a claim which is recognised by a tiny handful of people. Objectively (see the second of the five pillars the individual who is the subject of the article is "David Bawden" and people searching for "Pope Michael" should be redirected to that page. This principle might complicate some disambiguation pages but neither of the two in question here should cause any difficulty. Jpacobb (talk) 03:41, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

From what everyone has said, it seems that the current disambiguation pages Pope Michael and Pope Michael I are probably acceptable to most of you? — Lawrence King 16:22, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

I see no reason to not nominate both for deletion at WP:RfD as misleading. If this page was deleted though, the entries there for this page could also be removed. Not all six billion people on the planet have something somewhere about them, even those with as many as thirty close friends or admirers is highly unlikely to warrant any mention anywhere. Apteva (talk) 03:13, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

I would strongly oppose such a deletion. Pope Michael disambiguates seven different individuals, and regardless of what you feel about David Bawden, the other six individuals are indisputably notable. — Lawrence King 03:19, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose moving/renaming this page to "Pope Michael", but strong keep for the page under its current name. In my comments above I had tentatively supported the move/rename, but the arguments from the folks above have persuaded me otherwise. However, two of the voters above raised the possibility of deleting the David Bawden page entirely. In this case, I think a strong argument exists for keeping it. If Dominus Vobisdu were to give himself the awesome title he proposed, and then he was mentioned in academic books and national newspapers for twenty-three years (and counting), I most certainly would support him having an article on Misplaced Pages -- albeit under his real name. Of course, one can argue that press coverage alone doesn't prove notability, but Bawden is an example of conclavism, a very tiny movement within the quasi-Catholic world which nevertheless has theological and academic ramifications. Conclavism is the most extreme version of traditionalism -- more extreme than the Society of St. Pius X, sedeprivationism, and sedevacantism -- but it's nonetheless a natural progression from one to the next. There are always people who interpret their opponents as maximally extreme (conservatives who think all liberals are communists, people who think all environmentalists are Earth-Firsters, etc.), and in the same way there are Catholic ecclesiologists who tend to equate all traditionalists with conclavism. (This is my explanation of why there has been so much attention given to them -- but even if this explanation is wrong, the attention they get is a fact nonetheless.) — Lawrence King 03:38, 5 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Now I no longer wonder why the page exists. I'm afraid I still have my personal distaste for attention-getting devices, and for the fact that they get attention. Imo, "theological and academic ramifications" are basically null: too tiny a movement, no notable content. There's a difference between notability and notoriety, and no need to chase the merely notorious. Where I draw the line is just my opinion, but there you have it. Evenssteven (talk) 08:43, 5 July 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose While neutral reliable sources mention the "Pope Michael" bit, usually in quotes, they end up referring to him as "Bawden" more often than "Pope Michael." First Light (talk) 15:47, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose - Given the existence of the Coptic pope, or is it popes?, of the same name, who are I imagine more notable than the current claimant. I can see no particular reason for the deletion of the article, and I can also see him being included in a disambiguation page. But I am far from convinced that this individual is the person most frequently referred to as "Pope Michael". John Carter (talk) 21:15, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
• Strong oppose Pope Michael is a disambiguation page, and overwriting it with this article is a bad idea -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 05:56, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

the name he uses

In light of Wiki policy that has appeared around Caitlyn Jenner, which seems to be that he has the right to be called Caitlyn Jenner in Wiki simply because he is alive and he chooses to be called that, what reason would we have to call David Bawden anything other than what he chooses to be called? I hope there is a good reason, because I disagree with the Wiki policy with regards to Bruce Jenner, but there it is. --Richardson mcphillips (talk) 02:33, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

You already know the answer but for other people reading this, the answer is in WP:MOS:IDENTITY: In this case we "should use the term that is most commonly used by reliable sources". -- haminoon (talk) 01:13, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

This comment on a talk page does not conflict with the Wiki policy cited by Haminoon, in particular "The Arbitration Committee has authorised discretionary sanctions to be used for pages regarding transgender issues and paraphilia classification (e.g. hebephilia), a topic which you have edited." First, I did not "edit", I added a comment on a talk page. Second, the article that the talk page is related to is not a pge regarding transgender issues". I suggest that instead of censoring talk pages, Haminoon make his complaint here. Richardson mcphillips (talk) 16:30, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Do you use he/his for everyone? -- haminoon (talk) 01:13, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

a) I appreciate the fact that you commented here instead of deleting my post. b) Thanks, I see that the MOS states what you quote, and then provides an exception for language regarding gender identity. I had not read that far in the MOS when I posted. c) Now that the talk page on Caitlyn Jenner clearly places the talk page under the rules of the MOS, I would of course respect those rules if I were to post there again, regardless of what I think of those rules. Richardson mcphillips (talk) 22:34, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

He has also used the name "Michael Hennessy" as his non-pope name, at least in his interview with Liz and Christian. ORHN (talk) 05:07, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

That interview is pretty obviously a parody or hoax, as "Hennessy" sounds nothing like Bawden in voice or manner. --Finngall 00:17, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

References

1. Development, PodBean. "Is the Pope Catholic?". lizandchristianpresent.podbean.com. Retrieved 2019-08-19.

Notability zero

In what conceivable way is this guy notable? There’d be dozens, hundreds or thousands of people who firmly believe that they’re Albert Einstein, the Queen of England, the reincarnation of Napoleon, or whatever. Some of those people would undoubtedly have dozens, hundreds or thousands of followers. Should all those people get a page as well? TC 14:21, 25 May 2021 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1.124.105.16 (talk)

We make no judgement on the validity of his claim to the papacy. He is notable (in Misplaced Pages's sense of the term) because multiple independent reliable sources have written about him and that claim. Obviously, far fewer than the other guy in Rome, but enough to meet the standards here. --Finngall 16:46, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Infobox

The honorifics, papal name & the papal reign, should all be deleted from the infobox per WP:DUE & WP:WEIGHT. Come on, he's got only a tiny handful of followers. This isn't anything close to the Avignon & Pisan anti-popes of the Western Schism 1378 to 1417. PS - I can promise you, an RM to have his article renamed Pope Michael or Anti-pope Michael, would never pass. GoodDay (talk) 01:00, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• David Allen Bawden (Pope Michael I).jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 22:22, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

Book reference by Allen

@Genericusername57: you recently added a reference to a book on papal conclaves by John L. Allen, Jr. and you specified pp. 1-3. I could not verify that Allen's book supports any statement in the article, because pp. 1-3 do not mention him. I am unable to access the full text for free; can you supply quotes, please? The statements regard Bawden's birth and the validity or liceity of Bawden's holy orders. Elizium23 (talk) 01:05, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

Since I was unable to find a non-self-published source on Bawden's canonical status or validity of his ordination, I've written that into the article. The fact that I have found no sources is unsourced... but that's the point; if anyone finds a source from a Catholic canonist who weighs in, then you're welcome to update that statement and the others related to it. Elizium23 (talk) 01:20, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

@Dcheney: is this in your orbit at all? I mean, it'd be nice if the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas put out an advisory or decree at some point? Elizium23 (talk) 01:27, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that he claimed he found someone to "consecrate" him many years after his "election". I'm not aware of it being recognized by anybody. I'll keep an eye out in the local Catholic paper to see if there is any mention of his death. Dcheney (talk) 05:43, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

The Allen book covers Bawden in the preface. The information regarding holy orders is on page 3:

His biggest problem is that he is not a priest, and thus he cannot celebrate a papal high mass. He wants to find a dissident bishop somewhere in the world willing to impose hands in the sacramentally prescribed fashion, but until that happens, the pews with leopard-print cushions in his private chapel remain empty

. The 2005 Brisendine source cited in the article states:

He has never been ordained a priest and hasn't been to Mass since 1989. ... Bawden can't celebrate Mass, because he hasn't been ordained.

Please note that both sources predate Bawden's 2011 claims. (It occurs to me now that "never" is misleading; I meant "not at any time before claiming the papacy".)Allen does not mention the date or location of Bawden's birth. I previously cited Allen for the names of Bawden's parents, but removed the reference when I noticed that Allen had erroneously spelled "Kennett" as "Kenneth". Several other sources confirm the proper spelling. Cheers, gnu57 01:33, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

Anything on a possible succession?

Is there going to be another conclave? 82.36.70.45 (talk) 14:17, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

A conclave was held on July 29, 2023 and Rogelio Del Rosario Martinez (Michael II) was elected as his successor. Skyline2023 (talk) 16:06, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

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