Good Article on Sedevacantism

Someone sent me this article which I thought was a good overview of some of the history and people involved with Sedevacantism. It's difficult to write about this topic in a clear way, but the author of this article seems to make the general concepts understandable.

Some of the names mentioned here have come up several times in my conversations with Bawden, including "Pope Gregory XVII", Archbishop Thuc, and especially Marcel Lefebvre which Bawden had direct contact with while in the Society of Saint Pius X. Some will probably be mentioned in the film.

One note: that's not me filming Bawden in the photo. The crew is from a Dutch television station who did a segment on Bawden sometime in the late 1990's I believe.

Posted in Sedevacantism & Related by adam on 04/28/2009 | 45 Comments

Comments

Usually a post on this blog will get 3-4 comments maximum, but my post called "Smoky Hill" attracted 89! I closed the thread because I didn't anticipate this much comment activity, and the blog platform I'm using doesn't allow people to log in and comment, thus allowing no one to comment using their name which has become a problem. I'll see what I can do to rectify this.

As for the comment thread, it's quite a thread, with multiple people claiming the title of Bishop and several cases of people being ordered to do penance. One thing for sure is, when you open up commenting on a site, things like this come with the terriotory.

Comments are of course welcome on this site, but please keep them at least civil.

I'll try to answer questions that are addressed to me as well:

- There seemed to be some comments about Bawden's attire in the photo from the post. For the record, Bawden is actually wearing a cassock, its just obscured by his coat.

- If you've taken a look at the short film I produced you'll see that Bawden has no shortage of mental faculties and I am not making a video making fun of him.

- My religious positions are not important to this film. However, as is stated several times on this site, I am not a follower of Bawden.

- If you are looking for specific information on Bawden, and answers to religious questions about what he is doing, those are much better answered by him on his website.

- If you want to get in touch with Bawden, you can do so through his website. I am not "his producer" - this project is an independent production.

Posted in General by adam on 04/24/2009 | 8 Comments

Trip III

My third trip to Kansas for this documentary was a successful one. I was able to meet Eli, the new seminarian, travel to Salina to visit a winery, and capture a lot of great things that will no doubt be strong material for the finished product.

On my first trip, in August 2008, we got a look at life before the seminary with just Bawden and Tickie. In October 2008, we took a look at the very early days of the seminary with just Phil. This past week we were able to see the real beginnings of the seminary proper with the arrival of Eli.

That begs the question: where do we go from here? That's the funny thing about making documentaries - sometimes you don't know. All you can do is follow the story.

Posted in Travel by adam on 04/05/2009 | 17 Comments

Smoky Hill

The last thing I thought I'd be doing while filming this documentary is wine tasting, but that's what we were doing today.

We took a trip to Smoky Hill Winery around Salina, Kansas. This included Pope Michael checking out the operation to see if there are wines they create that are appropriate for mass, having lunch, and visiting some second hand bookstores. All I can say is that some great moments were found in some unexpected places.

You probably wouldn't think "Kansas" if I said "Vineyard areas in the US", but Smoky Hill has a very impressive setup, and the man in charge, Norm Jennings, was extremely welcoming and was kind enough to let me film the whole half day activities. You can find his winery on the web here.

On another note, ever since seeing the Wilco documentary "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" I've wanted to do an in-car interview. Dreams were achieved today.

Posted in Travel by adam on 03/31/2009 | 89 Comments

Headed to Delia

It's been a long winter, but Spring is finally starting to get going, and that means a more trips to Delia. The busiest time of filming will most likely be this summer, and my first trip for the season will be early April.

As Bawden has written about on his site, we plan on getting out of Delia and getting on the road.

One stop for sure is a winery somewhere in the vicinity of Kansas or Missouri. One of the things Bawden is teaching his seminarians about is making altar and table wine for mass, so he's scheduling a trip to show them the process in a winery, and I'll be tagging along.

In fact, Bawden bottles his own wine at his home in Delia. Last summer when I was there, he showed us his wine cellar as well as where he makes the wine in the basement. Here are some screen shots.

Bawden in the wine cellar:

The wine cellar is underground and is accessed via a stairway near the front of the house.

This room in underneath the house, where Bawden makes the wine.

It'll be intersting to shoot somewhere outside of Delia, and there are sure to be a few interesting stops to cover, including the spot where the election was held in 1990 in Belvue, Kansas. I'll be updating from the road in April with pictures.

Posted in Travel by adam on 03/08/2009 | 5 Comments

The Documentary Release Email List

I've gotten a lot of messages asking me when the documentary will be out, and unfortunately I don't have a definitive date. There will likely be a lot of production action over the summer and into the fall, and then a final documentary to be released after that.

To make it easy, I've created an email list you can sign up for that I will email when the documentary is coming out. Don't worry, no spam, just one or two emails with its release information.

You can sign up with the form on the right hand side of the page. If you have any trouble, just email me at the email address listed on our contact page and I'll put you on myself.

-Adam

Posted in General by adam on 02/23/2009 | 0 Comments

BetrayedCatholics.com

For  readers following the story, you know of Teresa Benns and others living out in Colorado and who were supporters of Bawden but since have come to believe that Bawden was not elected viably. They have a website you can find at betrayedcatholics.com. Teresa has posted a number of articles related directly to Bawden.

Obviously, this is a part of the Bawden story, and deserves attention. I would like to take this opportunity to mention, however, that this documentary is not meant to promote anyone or anyone's views. Nowhere have I stated that this film is in support of Bawden or in support of anything in particular. If I was making a promotional film, I'd make that very clear.

You can use your good judgement from that to determine if things said about my intentions are correct. I would never, for example, in good conscience go into an interview looking to hold someone accountable for answers for another person in the documentary. I chose the questions, and the questions I chose and material I chose to cover reflect what is relevant, not an agenda.

But for those interested in reading material surrounding the topic of the documentary, there is plenty out there to read through! Also, if you find anything interesting, send it my way!

Posted in General by adam on 02/05/2009 | 3 Comments

Phil's Videos

I'm often asked what PM and Phil are doing on a daily basis in Delia right now based on my time with them. One of the answers is making a lot of videos!

Since moving to Delia, Phil has made around 36 videos, and a new one is added every few days. This is one of their channels for reaching people through the internet.

Most of these videos are instructional or educational, and in a text and still images with music format. One exception is Phil's profession of faith which I wrote about earlier where Phil appears. All others follow his set format though.

Anyone who has visited the YouTube comments section on any video knows that YouTube is where everyone comes to blow off steam by letting it all hang loose in the comment threads. On several of the videos you can read some comment threads which Phil is good about replying in. It is an interesting mix of supportive people, very angry people, and the usual YouTube name callers. It is a rare space where people out there react to PM, Phil, and their ideas though.

Here is a recent video from Phil on chivalry and love set to Leona Lewis' "Bleeding Love":

Another one that is very pertinent to the purposes of this documentary is this comparing Benedict and Pope Michael:

Posted in General by adam on 01/10/2009 | 0 Comments

Deleted Post

Last night I deleted a post - here's why.

I'm very careful about the way I conduct an interview or a segment of the documentary. My intention in this documentary is not to take a stance one way or the other about Bawden (Pope Michael). My job is to tell the story, and while my documentary reflects me, its not in any way about convincing you anyone is right or wrong.

I'm also a filmmaker, not a writer, and a previous post used some language that was pointed out to me to imply that I am a follower of PM. I referred to Teresa Benns' leaving as an "excommunication" by PM and referred to followers as "defecting followers." Typing it out, the word choice never occurs to me to have that much of an impact, but in reality, someone reading that could make assumptions.

So after someone pointing that out, I was too jetlagged from moving to San Francisco from Florida to write an explanation, so I just deleted to post. The gist of it was that Bawden keeps a page of thoughts on the documentary that is worth checking out here. He has a post that theorizes a poster on this site could be Teresa Benns, but that has since been proven false.

Not many documentary makers post a blog, an its an interesting experiment, but the intention is to inform interested people about the progress of the project. I just need to learn watch what I say and keep my intentions clear.

Posted in General by adam on 01/09/2009 | 0 Comments

PM on Google Maps Street View

A reader of the website emailed me today and pointed out an interesting fact: Delia has Google Maps Street View.

For those of you not familiar with it, Street View is a technology where you can place a little marker on a map and see a panoramic view of that area. You can navigate up and down streets and see what they look like.

The thing is, Google does all of this manually. A special car has to drive through the street snapping pictures. As you can imagine, its a time consuming process, and Google has expanded Street View a lot of the past few years. When I lived in Chicago, it made the news when it was released for the city.

There isn't any Google Street view where I lived in West Hartford, but there in in Delia, Kansas. Very cool and unexpected.

Here is a little tour of Delia and Pope Michael's area.

Pope Michael's House:

The Delia Silo Water Tower (Thanks Pope Michael!):

Delia Post Office:

Posted in General by adam on 12/15/2008 | 1 Comments

December Update

Well, wouldn't you know that the month that I had planned to do the most post production on "Pope Michael" is the month that it decides to pick up like crazy at work. I thought the economy would take care of that!

Work has been progressing nicely though, and in the next week I'll be able to expand the video section on the site to give you a look at how bits of the final product might look. I'll also be adding an email list for anyone who wants to get an email when the film is released (until then, you can just email me at adam.fairholm@gmail.com).

But as work goes on here, Pope Michael continues to attract attention. Yesterday, this site received about 30 times the normal traffic due to links from The Remnant Newspaper and AngelQueen.org.

Posted in General by adam on 12/13/2008 | 0 Comments

Interviews and More Interviews

When I first got out of college I worked as an Associate Producer for a TV show called "Sports Action Team." One of the more tedious duties was to transcribe each episode for various internal purposes and closed captioning. After the season ended, I thought my transcribing days were over, but Pope Michael has proven me wrong!

There are a lot of ways to organize a documentary. On past projects, Ive found it helpful to cover a sequence in tags in editing and go through those to put together the story. "Pope Michael" poses a problem though - the subject at hand is at times very complicated, and I've got a lot of interviews with no clear cut structure quite yet. In other words - I have a lot of material so far that doesn't lend itself to immediate and easy classification or organization.

I've decided the best way around this is to transcribe my interviews. It's an alarmingly time consuming task, but its proving to be well worth it. Combing over pages of various interviews and putting together themes and concepts from the written word is infinitely more managable than holding a book's worh of interviews in my head when I cut together a segment.

I've found out a few interesting things. First, while transcribing my questions, I've found that I cannot speak in coherent sentences when asking questions. I've got to work on that. The other thing I've found is whatever line I'm looking for, I've probably got. Pope Michael, Tickie, and Phil have been excellent interview subjects and there is very little material that is not usable or inconsequential.

So at least for now, my nightly routine involves sitting down and cracking open a new digitized interview on my "Pope Michael" hard drive to start listening and typing. In the end, it will be a much more solid product for it.

Posted in General by adam on 11/25/2008 | 2 Comments

Phil Goes Web 2.0

When I was up in Delia last week, Phil told me how he and Pope Michael were bringing their message to the internet. Well, after some searching today I found Phil's YouTube account and checked out what he was up to. Along with a growing library of instructional videos, Phil appears in one making a profession of faith:

For those wondering, Phil is at his computer in his room on the second floor of the house. To the right of the bookshelf in the background is a very interesting nook where Pope Michael has his computer and an assortment of other items. In fact, I have some screenshots from this area of the house of Phil and Pope Michael at their respective computers:

Posted in General, Video by adam on 11/24/2008 | 0 Comments

Hello from Delia

Well, I've been hanging out here in Kansas since Monday and its been a very productive trip resulting in about 11 hours total of footage. I feel like I'm close to exhausting this part of the building of the seminary.

Phil Friedl, the first seminarian to arrive, is a very nice guy. He's very friendly and outgoing, and (luckily for the documentary) very well spoken and articulate on camera, like Pope Michael. It's tought to edit around and include someone in a documentary who has trouble expressing themselves in words, but so far I haven't run into anyone like that on this project.

The atmosphere in the house has its usual calm and quiet attributes, but this time there has been an aspect of excitement and building. I was a fly on the wall for one of the daily classes Pope Michael has with Phil, and during it Pope Michael laid out the big picture reasons behind the seminary project with a heightened sense of excitement and vigor in his voice that comes through nicely on tape. When I was there in March 2007, the seminary and plans for expansion were a distant prospect, and now it seems like the house is focused on the task at hand of getting the seminarians under one roof and starting with the main training.

It's an exciting thing for me to see as someone trying to fit it all into a documentary to see the story progressing.

When I return to Connecticut, I'll begin to compile all the footage and piece together what's there. I'll be posting clips, outtakes, and other insights on the production process in the weeks ahead.

Tomorrow I'll take the dusty road out to Delia and shoot some final things, then its back home. It's been a great trip, and I finally after many months have a lot of pieces to start fitting together.

Posted in Travel by adam on 11/13/2008 | 1 Comments

Election Videotape

Hello from Topeka, Kansas. If you've never been to Topeka, it has a main road called Wanamaker which is like the Las Vegas strip of chains. I have yet to think of a restaurant or store that is not located on this road. One of these chains is a Wal Mart that makes an airplane hanger look like a walk in closet.

But, I digress.

Things have been going incredibly well in Delia for the goals that I've set out for the week. One of these goals was to see if I could get some primary source material from Pope Michael and tickie that deals with the election.

Telling events from the past is one of the hardest things to do when making a documentary, and this documentary happens to have a few segments that focus primarily on the past. You can have people talk about them on camera, but the challenge is to make it come alive in a new way.

One of my favorite documentaries, "The Devil and Daniel Johnston", makes the past come alive with amazing effectiveness. The story is entirely in the past, and the documentary is essentially a collection of interviews and primary source. This wasn't an ordinary pool of materials however - there were hundreds of sketches, videotapes, audio cassettes that Daniel Johnston drew and recorded obsessively.

The real achievement in that documentary is making the story so engaging with essentially just found footage and people talking about it. When events are talked about, chances are that there is videotape to look at or audio to hear from that very event. Even when there was no footage or audio to be used, the filmmakers have an endless stream of tricks up their sleeve to create engaging moments. One of my favorites is a sequence talking about Johnston spending hours in a garage recording music on a little keyboard. The filmmakers recreated the garage painstakingly and took some beautiful shots of the scene while music from those sessions plays in the background.

So the challenge is to make the viewer experience events in the past in a different way then listening to a retelling. I think anything less would be a cop-out. People can see recreations on TV true crime shows, but a long form documentary seems to need to come up with some new answers.

I was delighted then, today, to watch an amazing home video of the immediate aftermath of Pope Michael's election, narrated by Pope Michael's late father. The first thing he says as the camera zooms in a younger Pope Michael is "we have a Pope, Habemus Papam." It's grainy, dark VHS footage, and its perfect.

The whole tape is relatively short, but its essential to the documentary as a whole, and gives a lot of insight into the circumstances and environment in which the election took place.

It's not enough to make the election sequence as memorable as it needs to be, but its a great start, and this won't be the first time I'll look to "The Devil and Daniel Johnston" for inspiration on how to deal with a sequence that needs a memorable element.

Posted in Travel, Production Process by adam on 11/11/2008 | 1 Comments

Headed to Delia Next Week

It's been quiet on the Pope Michael documentary front for several weeks, but I'm getting back into the swing of things by traveling to Kansas next Monday where I'll be for the whole week.

I'll be posting from the trip. In the meantime, below I've included the first still from the film: the Delia silo, just a few blocks away from where Pope Michael lives, taken on a beautiful summer evening.

Posted in Travel by adam on 11/06/2008 | 0 Comments

Spoke Too Soon

After a week's worth of emails, I decided to cancel my trip to Chicago to cover Pope Michael picking up his first seminarian. The trip was never part of the original plan of the film (and I can't be certain if anything from the trip would have ended up in the final mix), but in the end, the future-seminarian's parents were not a fan of me hanging around filmng the whole event. That left my hands tied and reminded me of the important of having willing documentary subjects.

The seminarian's name is Phil, and I've been in email contact with him for several months now. He's been extremely valuable in preparing for the project by giving me a long document he wrote about his life story and conversion to Pope Michael. It's a fascinating story, and a lot of it will be making the cut.

I'll be writing more about Phil when I get to meet him, but in the mean time, he's volunteered himself to answer any questions readers might have about him or about Pope Michael. His email address is phil.penguin@gmail.com.

Posted in General by adam on 10/18/2008 | 0 Comments

Original Documentary Video

I've added a new section to the site: video.

I'll be posting cut clips and behind the scenes footage there, but for now I've just got a clip up of the original Pope Michael short from Notre Dame.

The short was shot in March 2007 over the course of 2 days and takes a different course than this documentary will. It needed to be short (it was done for a class), which makes it a little incoherent about different topics, and a night of driving across the midwest to save on a hotel room took its toll on our production values. Most important, however, is the fact that this documentary was all about what went on in the past, and a good deal of what will be going into the full length documentary is what's currently happening in Pope Michael's world. We'll still be covering the past, however.

In fact, I am on my way to Chicago this Friday morning to cover the first of such current events: Pope Michael will be picking up his first seminarian. I'll be writing more about this later this week, as well as sharing my experience from the road.

Posted in Video by adam on 10/13/2008 | 0 Comments

Back to Delia

This past August 19th, I got up at 4 am and headed to Bradley Airport in Hartford, CT to start a trip that would eventually end in Delia, KS.

The process that had gotten to that point was long: raising the money, communicating with Pope Michael and some of his followers, gathering together resources, and finally setting a date to get out there.

My partner for the first trip was my brother Derek, who is an extremely talented jazz pianist studying at the University of Miami. He barely escaped a hurricane flying up, and I met him in Kansas City. Derek's role for this production is creating the music, and I wanted him to be able to experience things first hand so he would have a leg up when he sat down to come up with musical ideas to go along with the pictures. There really isn't anything like getting a good firsthand experience under your belt before doing anything creative.

Driving from Topeka, roads get dirtier and dirtier as you drive through several small towns until you come to Rossville, where you turn into the countryside. Around 10 minutes driving down paved roads, you come to Delia. After that, you turn onto a dirt road barely wide enough for two cars and 5 minutes later you arrive at Pope Michael's blue farmhouse...

Posted in General by adam on 10/04/2008 | 2 Comments

Square One

Welcome to the website of the documentary film called "Pope Michael."

For those of you wondering, Pope Michael is a man who lives in Delia, Kansas, who believes himself to be the duly elected Pope of the Roman Catholic Church. Over the next year I'll be documenting his past as well as what is going on in the present, and that's where things get interesting.

Very soon, Pope Michael expects to bring three men into his home (which he shares with his mother) and train them to be priests. It constitutes the first major expansion of his church in 18 years, and will no doubt prove to be a fascinating journey that I'll be capturing in a sequence of trips that started in August.

This website is where I'll be posting material from the film and sharing some parts of the production process.

But first, some back story...

Posted in General by adam on 09/20/2008 | 6 Comments