Does the Pope shit in the woods? …Is a very, very rude example of a malaphor
- a mixing of two idioms with the same meaning to make a brand-new idiom, usually for comedic
purposes. In this case, the original idioms are ‘Is
the Pope Catholic?’ and ‘Does a Bear Shit in the Woods?’, with the answer to both
questions being a resounding ‘yes’. But what, I wonder, is the answer to the malaphor
these idioms create? Does the Pope shit in the woods? No, probably not. But then, according to the Palmarian Church,
he doesn’t relieve himself in a plush marble-lined toilet in the Vatican, either. OK, this is one of the weirder intros to a
topic I’ve ever come up with. So before this video is derailed completely,
maybe we should put this question to one side, just for now and start at the beginning, which,
in this case, is the Spring of 1968 near the sleepy town of El Palmar de Troya in Spanish
Andalusia. It was 30th March, to be exact, on a stretch
of farmland where four Spanish schoolgirls were picking flowers when a beautiful lady
appeared to them in a vision. Now, we all know that children have very active
imaginations, but the local adults decided to take this particular bit of make-believe
seriously. Why? Well, Spain is, on the whole, a deeply religious
country, with around 70% of the population considering themselves Catholic. And if you say the words ‘visions’ and
‘beautiful lady’ to a Catholic, they’re only going to come to one conclusion - the
schoolgirls had been visited by an apparition of the Virgin Mary herself. This was understandably big news for the local
Catholics, and a large group of them flocked to the site in the hope of getting themselves
a big old slice of the divine-hallucination pie. And they were in luck - the Virgin Mary was
to show up several more times in the coming weeks and months, appearing to various different
people in the area around El Palmar de Troya. If you’re wondering exactly what the mother
of Christ was up to wandering around the Spanish countryside, intermittently revealing herself
to the local faithful, it seemed she had come to deliver a message: she felt that modern
Catholicism was becoming too soft, and good Catholics should return to the religion’s
earlier, stricter traditions. The timing of this guidance was particularly
apt, coming as it did just a few years after the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council
in 1965 - which was basically a three year discussion that eventually saw the Catholic
Church relax some of its stricter rules in favour of what was considered a more progressive
approach. It was seen as a positive step forward by
many. But, at least according to the visions coming
out of El Palmar de Troya at the time, the Virgin Mary did not approve. One man who appeared in the Andalusian countryside
in the aftermath of these visions was a Roman Catholic by the name of Clemente Domínguez
y Gómez, an insurance broker from Seville. If rumours are to be believed, Clemente was
known in the local Seville gay scene as la volito - the she-volt - suggesting he hadn’t
exactly been following his religion to the letter up till that point. But all that was about to change when Clemente
had his own divine visitation - a vision of Jesus Christ and Saint Pio of Pietrelcina. This vision came a full year after Clemente
first made his pilgrimage to the site, but from that point on it seems like he really
got the hang of it, and his second vision, which involved the Virgin Mary, came just
two months later. Clemente claimed these visions revealed to
him that both Freemasons and Communists were in the process of infiltrating the Catholic
Church, and that the Pope at the time, Paul the VI, was no longer running the show in
the Vatican, but was in fact being held hostage by corrupt cardinals. It was also around this time that Clemente
reported - and very publicly displayed - stigmata, wounds on his body mirroring those suffered
by Jesus during the crucifixion - bloodied palms and feet, a wide gash in his side, and
even scratches on his forehead from the crown of thorns. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was at this point
the Catholic Church started to feel like things were getting a little out of hand. The Archbishop of Seville came out to formally
denounce the visions in El Palmar de Troya, suggesting they were a form of collective
hysteria and advising that they were not to be taken seriously. He even went so far as to forbid Roman Catholics
from visiting the area and banning all acts of worship there. It’s all fun and apparitions until people
start bleeding to death. But the site continued to attract tens of
thousands of pilgrims both from Spain and far beyond in the years that followed, during
which time Clemente successfully styled himself as the principle seer of visions there. In 1975, following instructions he claimed
to have received in visions from both Jesus and Mary - who I’m assuming by now he was
on first name terms with - Clemente Domínguez y Gómez officially founded a brand-new schismatic
Catholic group called the Order of Carmelites of the Holy Face. But there was one small problem. Clemente, remember, was an insurance broker,
which kind of undermined the validity of the new austere Catholicism he was peddling – the
good old Catholics amongst you will of course know that usury is a sin. But it didn’t take him long to find a solution
to this little issue in the form of Roman Catholic Archbishop Ngo Dinh Thuc (no-din-toe),
older brother of the former President of South Vietnam who had been assassinated in the run-up
to the Vietnam war a few years earlier. Convinced by the righteousness of Clemente’s
cause, Ngo Dinh Thuc officially ordained him, an act that would get the Archbishop excommunicated
by the Vatican. A year later, this strange tale took a turn
for the even stranger. In a twist of fate so ironic it kinda makes
you wonder whether he might have found himself on the wrong end of some bona fide divine
retribution, the self-styled mystical seer lost his non-mystical eyesight in a car accident. And he wasn’t just blinded - his injuries
were so severe his eyeballs had to be removed. After recovering from his wounds Clemente
refused to wear eyepatches of any kind, and would appear in public for the rest of his
days, empty eye sockets gazing out across his congregation. A few years later on the 6th August, 1978,
Pope Paul VI died. It isn’t entirely clear whether Clemente
still thought the Pope was locked in a cupboard as a hostage somewhere in the Vatican at this
point, but either way, it was the trigger he had been waiting for - he was finally ready
to execute his plans for religious domination. In a formal announcement, he explained he
was no longer to be known as Clemente Domínguez y Gómez, former insurance broker from Seville,
but as Pope Gregory XVII, one true ruler not just of the Order of Carmelites of the Holy
Face, but of the entire Catholic Church. It turned out Jesus Christ himself, along
with Saints Peter and Paul, had personally popped down to crown him as Pope in yet another
handy vision. The Order of Carmelites of the Holy Face became
the Palmarian Church which, according to Clemente - sorry, Pope Gregory XVII – had now replaced
the power and might of the Vatican and the imposter pope who resided there. You hear that Francis you tiny old fraudster. The Catholic Church took this news about as
well as you would expect, denouncing the Palmarian church and its leaders, seeing it for what
it was: the blind leading the clueless – there’s another malaphor for you. But in his new position as ‘antipope’,
Gregory XVII realised that two could play at that game. Keen to wield his new-found popey powers,
he set about excommunicating pretty much everyone he could think of. The actual Pope, newly appointed John Paul
II, was up first of course, and next came those mischievous cardinals responsible for
all that hostage business. Then there was the Spanish Royal Family, all
socialists and communists, all believers of false religions… you get the picture. Basically, as far as the antipope formerly
known as Clemente Domínguez y Gómez was concerned, if you weren’t part of the Palmarian
Church, you could go fuck yourself. Getting the hang of his new job, Gregory XVII
made himself 24 new cardinals in the space of a single day, then set about making a list
of all his favourite people from history and canonising them as saints. First up was Christopher Columbus - if you
want to learn more about how he didn’t quite discover the New World then check out my video
on the subject, linked in the description. And then came Francisco Franco, who you probably
know as General Franco, the Fascist Dictator who led Spain through one of its darkest periods
between 1939 and 75. There were even rumours Hitler had made the
shortlist, but it seems even antipope Gregory XVII drew the line somewhere, even if that
somewhere was way, way off in the distance. Now, we’ve all heard plenty of stories about
fringe religious sects and strange cults that get up to all sorts, from a bit of basement
buggery to the odd ritualistic murder. I’ve told you about a few of them on the
channel myself. Most of the time these groups are led by deluded
crackpots and megalomaniacs. Outside of their followers, who are typically
lost, desperate, and vulnerable individuals, they have no real power or influence. But not only did the Palmarian Church amass
several thousand followers both in Spain and around the world, they also managed to get
their hands on one hell of a lot of cash while they were at it. And I mean, a lot of cash. Enough to build a mini-Vatican City on the
site where the original visions of the Virgin Mary had taken place, for starters. The Cathedral-Basilica of Our Crowned Mother
of Palmar is a colossal structure complete with huge domes and no fewer than eight towers,
and it’s thought to have cost upwards of sixteen million euros to build. No expense was spared elsewhere, either - Palmarian
church cardinals and bishops deck themselves out in enough bling to make P Diddy jealous,
senior members of the church get around in top of the line BMWs, and the grand interior
of the cathedral looks like King Midas himself came home drunk one night and crashed into
pretty much everything while looking for somewhere to throw up. Truth be told, nobody knows exactly where
the cash for all these extravagances came from to this day, but it’s thought the antipope
managed to secure some seriously hefty donations from wealthy supporters during extensive travels
around the world. Whether you’re a believer or not, you’d
probably have to admit that modern religions are, by and large, really rather welcoming
to outsiders, often doing important work in the community and just generally trying to
be nice to people. Not so the Palmarian Church. If you were to visit the Cathedral-Basilica
of Our Crowned Mother of Palmar, you would not be met by a friendly church representative
offering you brochures and a cup of tea, but by a five metre concrete fence barred by a
giant iron door and topped with CCTV cameras. Rumour has it there isn’t even a doorbell. Rules within the compound are incredibly strict,
dictating what the people within can eat, wear, watch, say, do, think, and feel. There are stories of brutal self-flagellation
and severe punishment for misdemeanours. Members of the Church aren’t even allowed
to talk to non-Palmarians who break any of the myriad rules, and those who choose to
leave the church are immediately excommunicated. You won’t be surprised to hear that plenty
of controversy has come to light about the cult - I mean ‘religion’ - over the years. To name but a few we have abuse - psychological
and physical - money laundering, intimidation, and even the odd mysterious death that’s
occurred behind those high walls. Clemente, that is, Pope Gregory XVII himself,
was accused of sexual misconduct by several of his priests and nuns in the 90s - charges
which he would later admit to. You might think revelations like these would
be the end of a fringe sect like the Palmarians, but somehow, they are still going strong,
well, maybe not strong, but they’re still going, at least. When their founder and leader Antipope Gregory
XVII died in 2005, the group didn’t disintegrate as so many have before. No, Clemente had lined up his best mate, Manuel
Corral, to rule over the Catholic world in his stead as Pope Peter II. No doubt as a thank you, Antipope Peter II’s
first task was to canonise his old pal Clemente as a saint, naming him as Pope Saint Gregory
XVII the Very Great. The ‘very’ was overkill if you ask me,
but hey. These guys don’t do things by halves. Peter II was somewhat more reserved than his
predecessor and never did claim to have any divine visions. He did, however, bring his own brand of batshit
crazy to the job, announcing that the antichrist had been born in the year 2000 and would make
his first public appearance at the age of 12 when he would mock Christ, before becoming
the antichrist proper at the age of 30. I suppose you need a bit of experience under
your belt if you’re going to take on such a senior role in the destruction of all mankind. Personally, if I was going to publicly make
some grand prediction, I’d have picked something a good few thousand years in the future to
eliminate any chance of looking like a wally when it didn’t come true, but I guess antipope
Peter II was just that confident on this one. Out of interest I did a quick internet search
for famous people born in the year 2000 who made their first public appearance at the
age of 12. I found two possible candidates. American actor Jace Lee Norman, born in March
2000 and known for playing the main character in Nickelodeon’s Henry Danger - he got his
big break at age 12 in Disney Series Jessie. The second candidate - the Neville Longbottom
of this prophetic pair, if you will - is Samuel Sevian, a chess prodigy who became the youngest
American ever to earn the title International Master at the age of 12 years and 10 months. So far as I know, neither of these two has
ever publicly dissed Christ, but it’s probably worth keeping an eye on them just in case. You never can be too careful when it comes
to the end of days. There have been two further Antipopes since
Peter II passed away back in 2011. Despite coming up with an undeniably inventive
new religion, the Palmarians apparently aren’t the most imaginative bunch when it comes to
names. Peter II was followed by Gregory XVIII, and
after him came Peter III. It feels a bit like one of those maths series
you used to get in school - I guess we can look forward to Gregory XIX next, right? Incidentally, Gregory XVIII was the first
and only Palmarian Pope so far to resign from his position, rather than relinquish it on
his death. The reason for hanging up his Mitre once and
for all? He’d lost his faith, having come to the
startling conclusion that the Palmarian Church was one big scam. Who’d have thought it. Somehow, Peter III rules over all of Catholicism
to this day from his very own little Vatican in El Palmar de Troya, Andalusia, and while
the number of Palmarians has dwindled over the last forty years, there are a fair few
faithful who swear their allegiance to him even now. Which is why, the next time someone asks you
‘does the pope shit in the woods’, you know exactly how to answer:
Which Pope? Thanks for watching.
