Seeking The Pope

From Teresa Benns

Date Fri, 27 Sep 2002 12:03:30 EDT
Dear Mr. Prakash,

I trust this will answer most of your questions and provide you with some insights. I hope it will prompt you to modify some of the statements about us on your website accordingly. Please let me know your thoughts on this.

Yours in Christ,

Teresa L. Benns
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Dear Mr. Prakash,

Thank you for your gracious response. I will try my best to explain a few things and answer questions forwarded to me by Pope Michael and those I addressed in my letter.

From the beginning there was misinformation that circulated concerning the book and the election. For openers, I began putting out feelers for support to start exploring the possibility of a papal election before I ever met David Bawden. This I began with an article entitled On Unity in John Beauclair's Francinta Messenger (Boise, Idaho), in the spring of 1983. I had spoken briefly with David on other matters before this but we had never met in person and did not until 1985. I don't remember if we discussed the possibility of an election or not, but if we did it was only superficially because we didn't know one another very well, being connected only through mutual friends.

Partly because of Martin Gwynne's strong criticism of the Unity article, I began corresponding with Gwynne and his associate John Daly shortly after the article came out. Both David and I were pulled into Gwynne's "cult" for a brief time, David in London and my family and I in Australia. After we escaped Gwynne's clutches and returned to the U.S., David and his mother came to stay for awhile with our family to compare notes and work something up in way of a circular to warn others against becoming involved with Gwynne. This was in the summer of 1985.

At that time David and I realized we had a common desire to promote the faith and help solve the crisis in the Church, but we did not know how this should be done. So we both continued studying the faith and comparing notes. (David began studying theology on his own shortly after his departure from Lefevbre's seminary in Michigan in 1978.) We were appalled at the confusion that existed in the Traditional world over major points of doctrine and the overall ignorance that plagued the faithful.

And we were dumbfounded that so many priests seemed totally indifferent to the need for unity and instruction of the faithful on a massive scale. For this reason, I once again took up the cause of a papal election, discussing it in correspondence with people all over the world. Some were for it, some against it, and many had mixed feelings.

Until 1987, David himself was totally against a papal election. And when he finally did see the need for one, it was through discussion and correspondence with another like-minded Catholic.

We began writing the book in 1989 solely to get the truth out to people, not to serve our own interests. We spent our own money and did the book entirely ourselves, paying only for someone to edit it and typeset it when we were done. We deliberately geared it to priests, not the laity, because we felt certain that at least some of them would see the need as we did. When the book was released in the winter of 1990, it soon became apparent that scarcely any priests intended to involve themselves in such a project. This despite the fact that we spent our own money sending the book all over the world, (and continued to do so even after the election). At that point, I still held out hope that clergy and other lay people would come forward at the last moment, even miraculously, if necessary. But it was not to be. Only in the last weeks prior to the election did it become clear that we would be pretty much on our own.

We elected David (there were six of us) because he was the only one among us who had any knowledge of Canon Law, Sacramental, Pastoral and Moral Theology and doctrinal matters. None of us ever promoted him for the papacy and he most certainly never promoted himself.

On election David declared he accepted the office "as a terrible cross," and that it has been. All of us including his parents were surprised when he chose the name Michael. I expected him to choose Pius XIII or perhaps even Thomas, because he has such a great devotion to St. Thomas Aquinas. But the decision to choose Michael was one he made himself and kept to himself. Since the election, there have been several other election attempts, all among those who had copies of the book or knowledge of Pope Michael's election.

Several Traditionalists have demanded Pope Michael resign, and at least one group even falsely reported he had resigned. But we have struggled along with all our original members and a few more for the past 12 years, keeping the faith as best we can. We have been a laughingstock among Traditionalists and have been treated like pariahs all those years, but this is something we expected.

Questions On The Book
St. Michael fighting - I notice on your website that you criticize my comparison of St. Michael fighting the dragon in heaven to the battle for the Church here on earth. Commentators on the Douay-Rheims Bible interpret "heaven" as the Church on earth symbolically, the dragon as Antichrist's system and I added the allusion to St. Michael fighting, referring to the long St. Michael's prayer in the book Pope Leo XIII ordered priests to recite privately. This is not a matter of doctrine, only a private opinion on the symbolism of the text. Private opinions can be disputed, but cannot truly be described as actual errors unless some particular is not in keeping with the more common opinion of theologians.

Destruction of Rome - This can be taken literally and/or spiritually as many of the commentators on Apocalypse explain. Anything of this nature mentioned in the book was based on several different commentaries consulted on the matter. Again, it is only a private opinion. To the best of my knowledge, however, there is no common opinion among theologians that Rome will never be physically destroyed, and if there is proof of this and I am wrong, please forward it to me.

The Great King - Actually I believe a Great Monarch will come forward, only because Our Lady has so stated in her message to the La Salette children. I referred in the book to certain Catholic prophecies on this Monarch, because I also believe the Enemy will try to lead Catholics astray with a false Monarch. I found evidence of possible planted prophecies issuing from certain political groups active at the same time the prophecies appeared. Also there is a long tradition in pagan literature concerning the appearance of a great priest-king, so I believe caution is necessary in this regard.

The Stuart line - I used this simply for purposes of comparison, citing what actually was versus what should have been. Although some historians question the lineage of Bonnie Prince Charlie, I agree that the true line of English royalty lies on the Catholic, not the Protestant side. It may be an offshoot of this very line that the Great Monarch issues from. Too bad that the Gunpowder Plot muddied the waters on this matter, historically speaking.

Eagles in Apocalypse - Again this is a matter of symbolism and private opinion. The eagle was the symbol of Imperial Rome, and is also a symbol of the Holy Ghost, according to the commentators. Often in history, we can see pagan symbolism prefiguring events in the history of the Church, good replacing evil that prophecy might be fulfilled. Pagan Rome became the seat of the papacy, and it is not impossible that (pagan) America could also be transformed into a truly Catholic nation, offering shelter to a pope in exile.

A layman as pope - As Pope Michael wrote, this is legislated in Canon Law. Pope Pius XII did comment on this possibility in his "The Lay Apostolate," an address to the Second World Congress for the Lay Apostolate delivered Oct. 5, 1957. This is recorded in "The Pope Speaks," Vol. IV. I can forward a copy of the actual address, if you like.

In his speech, Pope Pius XII said: "Even if a layman were elected pope, he could accept the election only if he were fit for ordination and willing to be ordained."

Because David had attended the seminary and continued his studies for several years, and also because he had held sacred Thomistic theology as Pope Pius XI bade seminarians to do, we judged that he was far more fit than the "priests" who ignored Thomism and denied the necessity of jurisdiction, which Canon 196 states is "of Divine institution." Certainly no so-called priest can be fit for election if he denies the necessity of something the Church declares to be Divine Law.

This is the quote you questioned as doubtful I was referring to in my letter.

Although we did not always go into detail on some of the points mentioned in the book, mainly owing to space limitations, we did not make those points without solid backing of some sort. This is something responsible writers, especially Catholic writers, simply cannot do. In many places on your website you mention grave errors in the book, giving the impression, without ever expressly stating it or explaining, that these errors are doctrinal. The errors above are not even truly errors, only differences of opinions or matters not explained as fully, perhaps, as they should be. But this is why we begged people to write us with questions and objections.

It is amazing to me that so many commented how helpful the book was as a reference source, used it as the basis for subsequent elections, yet never accepted our offer to sit down, go through it, and pull books off the shelves of our libraries to confirm it or disprove it. If I truly felt someone was in error or misleading the faithful, I would at least make the effort to so advise such a person and set him or her straight. These "priests" who care so much for the salvation of souls owed us that much. So where were they? It was their responsibility according to Catholic moral teaching to resolve any doubts raised by the book and settle the matter.

But there is no need to go into this now. There is still time for those of good will to ask questions and offer proofs of any doctrinal errors made in the book. We are lay people and we are human, so we can make mistakes. But as eager as Traditionalists were to discredit us at the time, I find it hard to believe any major errors would not have been broadcast by now to the world.

I would ask that you take this letter under advisement and respond at your earliest convenience. I will say that there are many things we did not include in the book that need to be addressed now, and many things we have discovered since that should be brought out in the open, especially concerning the status of Traditional priests and their followers.

More on this as the debate continues.

Yours in Christ,

Teresa L. Benns