An Attack on Pope Michael

True Saint : Pope Michael (David Bawden) Beliefs, Heresies and Practices Exposed (vaticaninexile.com)
http://www.trusaint.com/pope-michael-david-bawden/

I will deal only with the list of three impediments here.

David Bawden (aka Pope Michael) pre-election impediments

• Denied the necessity of apostolic succession for valid election; was not a priest at all prior to election (and is not a licit priest after his ordination). Remember, Bawden claimed his Papacy began on July 16, 1990; and he was never ordained priest during all this time. It is claimed that he was ordained valid priest first on December 9th, 2011, and consecrated the following day by an Old Catholic bishop, whom Bawden claimed to have reconciled to the Church [his own Church?].
  
  
• Denied the Church’s Divine law teaching that valid election can not be effected without the approval of lawful “ecclesiastical and canonical authority” (Council of Trent, Session 23, Canon 7, Denzinger 967).
  
  
• Denied the teaching of Pope Pius XII's "Six ans se sont" concerning the inability of laymen elected pope (by the proper ecclesiastical authority) to accept the election unless and until they are determined by positive proofs to be fit for ordination and free of any impediments.

Let's take them one by one.

Denied the necessity of apostolic succession for valid election; was not a priest at all prior to election (and is not a licit priest after his ordination).

It is not necessary. See here :

Φιλολoγικά / Philologica : Popes elected while not yet bishops :
https://filolohika.blogspot.com/2015/08/popes-elected-while-not-yet-bishops.html

Remember, Bawden claimed his Papacy began on July 16, 1990; and he was never ordained priest during all this time. It is claimed that he was ordained valid priest first on December 9th, 2011, and consecrated the following day by an Old Catholic bishop, whom Bawden claimed to have reconciled to the Church [his own Church?].

Yes. A record long waiting time for ordination and consecreation after Papal election.

Denied the Church’s Divine law teaching that valid election can not be effected without the approval of lawful “ecclesiastical and canonical authority” (Council of Trent, Session 23, Canon 7, Denzinger 967).

Here is the actual canon:

Can. 7. If anyone says that the bishops are not superior to priests; or that they do not have the power to confirm and to ordain, or, that the power which they have is common to them and to the priests; or that orders conferred by them without the consent or call of the people or of the secular power are invalid, or, that those who have been neither rightly ordained nor sent by ecclesiastical and canonical authority, but come from a different source, are lawful ministers of the word and of the sacraments: let him be anathema [cf. n. 960].

I see it as number 6 here:

THE TRUE AND CATHOLIC DOCTRINE, TOUCHING THE SACRAMENT OF ORDER, DECREED AND PUBLISHED BY THE HOLY SYNOD OF TRENT, IN THE SEVENTH SESSION, IN CONDEMNATION OF THE ERRORS OF OUR TIME (Session 23)
http://www.thecounciloftrent.com/ch23.htm

The canon says that you cannot have preachers and sacramental ministers outside a) the ordained or b) those otherwise sent by ecclesiastical authority. It doesn't say all the ordained have to be sent by ecclesiastical authority - as in the case of a Pope getting ordained after election, that's not the case. Now, why the thing about "sent" if so? Well, sometimes the ecclesial authorities allow someone to preach or administer some sacraments in some ways (pronounce marriages, distribute Communion from hosts consecrated by a priest) who are not clergy.

It doesn't say how ecclesiastical authority is restored on the papal level after a somewhat longer interregnum. So, this legislation doesn't say what Ville Hietanen thinks it says.

Denied the teaching of Pope Pius XII's "Six ans se sont" concerning the inability of laymen elected pope (by the proper ecclesiastical authority) to accept the election unless and until they are determined by positive proofs to be fit for ordination and free of any impediments.

Here is the actual reference:

Les premiers (Pape, Évêques et prêtres) appartiennent nécessairement au clergé ; si un laïc était élu Pape, il ne pourrait accepter l'élection qu'à condition d'être apte à recevoir l'ordination et disposé à se faire ordonner ; le pouvoir d'enseigner et de gouverner, ainsi que le charisme de l'infaillibilité, lui seraient accordés dès l'instant de son acceptation, même avant son ordination.

DISCOURS DU PAPE PIE XII AUX PARTICIPANTS AU IIe CONGRÈS MONDIAL DE L'APOSTOLAT DES LAÏCS*
Samedi 5 octobre 1957 (Discours de Pie XII)
https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/fr/speeches/1957/documents/hf_p-xii_spe_19571005_apostolato-laici.html

My translation, since there is no English official version: The former (Pope, Bishops and Priests) necessarily belong to the clergy; if a layman were elected Pope, he could not accept the election other than if he were apt to receive ordination and disposed to get ordained; the power to teach and to govern, like the charism of infallibility, would fall on him from the moment he accepted, even before his ordination.

It doesn't say in the least that he would need to go through a vetting process about aptness, it says he would need to be apt (canonic age and unmarried) and willing (which Pope Michael was). As to more specific scrutinies about aptness, piety and so on, the fact of election by itself would be such a scrutinity. But if the layman either was, unknown to the electors, married or under 25, or intended to get married rather than to receive episcopal consecration, he could not accept the papacy.

I could (for the latter reason) not accept papacy if the heirs of Pope Michael elected me, but Pope Michael had no such impediments of disposition when accepting.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Sts Perpetua and Felicitas
6.III.2023