Editing Palmarian Catholic Church (section)

====''The Sacred History'' and the Great Expulsion====
[[Image:El profeta Elías en el desierto confortado por un ángel, de Felipe Gil de Mena (Museo Nacional de Escultura de Valladolid).jpg|thumb|right|230px|Pope Gregory XVII claimed in 1997 to have a vision of the [[Prophet Elias]], who told him that errors had been introduced into the Bible over centuries and needed to be "purified."]]
The Church leadership was shaken in 1997, as the number three and four in the Palmarian hierarchy: the Vice-Secretary, Fr. Elias María (Carmelo Pacheco Sánchez) and Fr. Leandro María (Camilo Estévez Puga) had died within two months of each other (Pacheco died in an automobile incident, hit by a truck). With this the Pope lost two of his stalwart supporters and most trusted advisors, which affected him deeply.{{sfn|Lundberg|2020|p=94}} Fr. Sergio María ([[Ginés Jesús Hernández]]), another Spaniard, who had been an [[electrician]] became the number three in the Church. Pope Gregory XVII reported a vision in 1997 where the [[Prophet Elias]] allegedly appeared to him and said that the enemies of God (elsewhere described as "Jews and Masons"){{sfn|Lundberg|2020|p=124}} had at various historical junctures, distorted the pure word of God, which had originally been announced in the world by his Holy Prophets and that these groups had instead introduced adulterations, simulations and falsifications, which had distorted the original texts of sacred scripture (including in what would become the ''[[Latin Vulgate]]'', traditionally favoured by the Catholic Church) and that its contents must thus be purified to "remove errors" and allow the doctrinally infallible, "purified Bible, full of light" to be accessible to mankind for the Last Times.{{sfn|Lundberg|2020|p=123}} The process in which this "purified" Bible, later to be called the ''[[Sacred History or Holy Palmarian Bible]]'' (2001), would be brought forward, was known as the Second Palmarian Council and it ran from between 1995 and 2002.

As part of this reviewing process, members of the Palmarian Church, including the clergy, were asked to hand in their old Catholic bibles based on the ''Vulgate'' or the ''[[Septuagint]]'' to be destroyed (which some opposed, saying that if they did so they could not even study ''Treatise of the Mass'', which references it throughout).<ref>{{cite web |title=Palmarian History or Palmarian Bible! |url=http://geocities.com/palmardetroyaarchidona2/cartas/Carta4b.htm|publisher=El Palmar de Troya en Archidona|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090829024145/http://geocities.com/palmardetroyaarchidona2/cartas/Carta4b.htm |archive-date=29 August 2009 }} Retrieved on 9 November 2023.</ref>{{sfn|Lundberg|2020|p=125}} During this time, there had been a decline in numbers in the Palmarian Church and even among those who remained a significant number of believers, both religious (bishops and nuns) and sympathetic laymen, began to quietly doubt the Pope's [[mental health]] and conduct, questioning in particular the orthodoxy of the proposals of the Second Palmarian Council on the Bible (to be "purified" with "''[[The Sacred History or Holy Palmarian Bible]]''") and other aspects, considering them rash changes.{{sfn|Lundberg|2020|p=124}}<ref>{{cite web |title=A Guide of Reference to Some of the Errors in the Heretical Palmarian Bible or Palmarian History|url=http://geocities.com/palmardetroyaarchidona2/cartas/Carta24.htm|publisher=El Palmar de Troya en Archidona|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090829040506/http://geocities.com/palmardetroyaarchidona2/cartas/Carta24.htm |archive-date=29 August 2009 }} Retrieved on 9 November 2023.</ref> This group also raised concerns about the more intense application of the Palmarian Moral Code (also known as "The Norms"), which they accused of moving the Palmarian Church away from the traditional moral and pastoral Catholic theology to a coercive rigorism, which induced extreme [[scrupulosity]] and forced family members to cut off all communications (i.e. - social [[shunning]]) with those who had been "legitimately excommunicated", rather than seeking their reconciliation through dialogue with those who had fallen away.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Pope is Sick? Unbalanced? The Possibility Objectively Considered in the Light of Events Since 1995|url=http://www.geocities.com/palmardetroyaarchidona2/cartas/Carta8.htm|publisher=El Palmar de Troya en Archidona|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070712225122/http://www.geocities.com/palmardetroyaarchidona2/cartas/Carta8.htm |archive-date=12 July 2007 }} Retrieved on 9 November 2023.</ref><ref name="believe"/>

[[Image:Baldung%2C_Hans_-_Deluge_-_1516.jpg|thumb|left|230px|Pope Gregory XVII in his later reign called himself the "Apocalyptic [[Noah]]" and compared the numerically reduced, but defiant remnant, the Palmarian Church, to the [[Noah's Ark|Ark of Salvation]].]]
As the Palmarian Catholic Church had moved toward the new millennium, the first signs of an internal issue had begun to emerge on 30 March 1995, as the Palmarian Cardinalate was suppressed, meaning there would not be a [[conclave]] after the Pope's death.{{sfn|Lundberg|2020|p=125}} As the decade wore on, the dissident Palmarians began to discuss their concerns secretly among themselves, with [[burner phones]] and the like to hide their communications, though control over members had increased by this time, with strict rules on personal conduct beginning to be brought in.{{sfn|Lundberg|2020|p=126}} Indiscreet communications led to the Palmarian leadership uncovering the dissident network. Fr. Sergio (Ginés Jesús Hernández) made his mark by playing a role in their "unmasking". A knife that was discovered in one of the rooms of the dissidents was presented to the Pope as part of a [[conspiracy to murder]] him. Fearful of a "[[coup]]", the Pope proclaimed on 24 October 2000, that Fr. Isidore (Corral) was to be his Papal successor.{{sfn|Lundberg|2020|p=131}}

Finally, on 5 November 2000, the matter of the dissidents came to a head: eighteen Palmarian bishops and seven Palmarian nuns were anathematised and excommunicated, expelled from the property and declared ex-Palmarian.{{sfn|Lundberg|2020|p=127}} Ex-Fr. Isaac María (José Antonio Perales Salvatella), the former confessor to the Pope{{sfn|Lundberg|2020|p=126}} was declared as the heresiarch in chief, a new [[Martin Luther]],{{sfn|Lundberg|2020|p=131}} as a "founder of an anti-church or tenebrous sect", leader of a conspiracy to overthrow the Pope.{{sfn|Lundberg|2020|p=127}} Many members of this group moved to [[Archidona]], near [[Málaga]] and continued to proclaim themselves as Palmarians, but now [[sedevacantist]], claiming that the Pope had fallen into error and lost the Chair of St. Peter.<ref name="believe">{{cite web |title=What We Believe|url=http://www.geocities.com/palmardetroyaarchidona/believe.htm|publisher=El Palmar de Troya en Archidona|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070321090010/http://www.geocities.com/palmardetroyaarchidona/believe.htm |archive-date=21 March 2007 }} Retrieved on 9 November 2023.</ref>{{sfn|Lundberg|2020|p=128}} Some even set up in [[Paraguay]] for a while.{{sfn|Lundberg|2020|p=129}} Others, such as, Ex-Fr. Guido María (Robert McCormack) and Ex-Fr. Dámaso María (Juan Marquez), moved away from Palmarianism completely, declaring it a fraud and accusing the Church of perpetuating psychological abuse, with the dawning of the [[internet]] became vocal anti-Palmarian activists.{{sfn|Lundberg|2020|p=130}}<ref>{{cite web |title=Un ex Cardenal de El Palmar habla de estafa, abuso psicológico y sexo en la secta|date=24 June 2018 |url=http://confidencialandaluz.com/palmar-troya-ex-cardenal-testimonio-secta-abusos/|publisher=Confidencial Andaluz}} Retrieved on 9 November 2023.</ref>