POPE MICHAEL TIMELINE
1958 (October 9): Pope Pius XII died.
1959 (January 25): The new pope, John XXIII, announced his intention to summon a general council in Rome.
1959 (September 2). David Bawden was born in Oklahoma City.
1962–1965: The Second Vatican Council was held in Rome.
1969 (April 5): Pope Paul VI promulgated a new Roman Order of the Mass, colloquially known as the Novus Ordo.
1970: French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre founded the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X (SSPX).
1970–1973: The new Roman Missal, translated into the vernacular, was gradually implemented throughout the Catholic world, drastically limiting the possibility of using the pre-conciliar Order of the Mass.
1972: The Bawden family stopped attending Novus Ordo parishes and sought Masses, said by traditionalist priests, including priests from SSPX.
1973: Excommunicated Mexican Jesuit Joaquín Sáenz y Arriaga published Sede Vacante, arguing that Paul VI was not a valid pope and that a new conclave should be held.
1976 (May22): Sáenz y Arriaga met with Archbishop Lefebvre in Stafford, Texas, to discuss the possibility of a new conclave.
1976 (May 22): Archbishop Lefebvre confirmed David Bawden in Stafford, Texas.
1977 (September): Bawden was admitted to SSPX’s seminary in Ecône, Switzerland.
1978 (January): Bawden was transferred from Ecône to the SSPX seminary in Armada, Michigan.
1978 (December): Bawden was dismissed from the seminary.
1979: The Bawden family moved to St Marys, Kansas, where David Bawden worked at the SSPX-run school.
1981 (March): Bawden resigned from his work at the school and left SSPX.
1981–1983: Vietnamese Archbishop Pierre Martin Ngo-Dinh Thuc consecrated sedevacantist bishops who, in their turn, consecrated other bishops for work in the United States.
1983 (26 December): David Bawden signed an open letter arguing that none of the traditionalist groups conferred valid sacraments as they lacked proper jurisdiction.
1985: Bawden wrote “Jurisdiction during the Great Apostasy,” developing his ideas about the lack of sacramental validity in the traditionalist movement.
1987: Bawden began to be convinced that a new conclave would be possible.
1988: Bawden examined, and for some time believed in, the claim that Cardinal Giuseppe Siri was elected pope in the 1963 conclave but was forced to decline.
1989 (March 25): Bawden took a wow to work towards the election of a pope.
1989 (May): Mainly based on earlier writings, Teresa Stanfill Benns and David Bawden started preparing a book where the case for the conclave was expounded.
1990 (January): Benns and Bawden published Will the Catholic Church Survive the Twentieth Century? It was distributed to sedevacantist clergy and laypeople calling for a papal election.
1990 (16 July): A conclave with six electors was held in Belvue, Kansas. Bawden was elected pope, taking Michael I as his papal name. The Vatican in Exile was established.
1993: The Bawden family moved to Delia, Kansas.
2000: Pope Michael initiated an active online ministry.
2006: The group planned the ordination and consecration of Pope Michael, but the ceremonies were canceled shortly before the event should take place.
2007: Teresa Benns and two others who had participated in the 1990 conclave left, denouncing the validity of the election and, consequently, Bawden’s papal claims.
2011 (December 9-10): Independent Catholic bishop Robert Biarnesen ordained Pope Michael, a priest, consecrated him a bishop, and crowned him pope.
2013: Pope Michael moved to Topeka, Kansas.
2022: (August 2): Pope Michael died in Kansas City.
