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doing without many things,including relatives and friends. . . to live practically alone.”Fiona is “absolutely certain”

that some Irish Palmarianshave givenmoney and inherit-ances to the church. “Myfamily home will be left toPalmar, without doubt,” shesaid. A relative of BridgetCrosbie declined to commenton what would become of herWexford home.ThePalmarian churchoper-

ates behind a veil of secrecy.Formermembers believe it has

real Pope Paul VI died in 1978,Dominguez claimed he hadreceivedaheavenlyinstructionto transfer the Holy See fromRome to Palmar de Troya. Theformer accountant, who hadbeen blinded two years previ-ously in a car accident,appointed himself GregoryXVII.“The Palmarian church is

not a sect of Catholicism, itclaims to be Catholicism,” saidMike Garde of Dialogue Ire-land,ananti-cultorganisation.“[In their minds] the RomanCatholicChurch isaheresyandthey are the true church.”Between 1976 and 1978, 90

bishops were consecratedwithin the church. “Irishpeople made up the greatestsingle group,” said Lundberg.“They were an internationalbunch, but 25% were Irish,whileonly20%wereSpanish.”According toMariaHall, the

majority of nuns were Irish.Hallsaidsheandhercolleagueslived in Seville, rising at6.40am,working, praying andtravelling 45km to Palmar deTroya every day, before goingto bed at 2.30am.“Wewentforweeksatatime

ondriedbread,andanappleforbreakfast and dinner,” saidHall. “We were forced to praywith our arms extended, asthoughonthecross,duringall-night vigils. The only time ourarms came down was duringbenediction. Nobody wasbeating us, but if that’s notphysical abuse I don’t knowwhat is.”While thenuns liveda frugal

existence, money flooded intothe church from wealthydonors. A basilica was con-structed at the apparition site,with nine towers. SomeSpanish news reports sug-gested Dominguez and hisconfidants were living it up ondonations.The “pope” made frequent

visits to Ireland to hold massesin hotel function rooms. How-ever, according to Lundberg,he didn’t feel particularlywel-come here. The antipathy istracedbacktoatripinthemid-1980s when Gregory XVII wasnot greeted upon arrival atDublinairportduetoconfusionover times.InNovember2000, thepope

expelled 18 bishops and sevennuns, accusing them of plot-ting against him. Madre MariaGoretti, an Irish sisterwhowasexpelled, left theordertosetupherowngroupinGranada.Hallhad departed a decade previ-ously after having a nervousbreakdown. “I was halluci-nating. I got to the pointwhereI thought Pope Gregory couldreadmymind,mainly becauseI was so isolated,” she said.After Dominguez died in

2005 and passed the papacy toCorral, the church’s rulesbecame stricter. Since thenbans have been introduced oneverything from organ trans-plants to Christmas trees.Palmerian material states thatAids is a “plague permittedby God”, condoms are“accursed”, while painting,sculpture and music are an“aberration”.

Pope GregoryXVII flung open the doors andstormedintothechurchinAlbade Tormes, near Salamanca inSpain.Gregorymarcheduptheaisle, while his accompanyingbishops denounced women inthe congregation for wearingtrousers. Taking his place atthe pulpit, he demanded thateveryone renounce the hereticJohnPaul II. “I am the one truepope,”hedeclared.But insteadof falling to their knees, theworshippers ranoff togethelp.According to a report in El

Pais on May 18, 1982, theNational Guard eventuallyarrived and had to escort therenegade priests to safety, butnot before the villagers pushedGregory’s car into a river. It’sno wonder a former Irishmember of the Palmarianchurchcomparestheorganisa-tion’s hierarchy to the Key-stone Kops, but behind theoften buffoonish behaviour ofthis splinter Catholic grouplurks amore sinister tale.“The Palmarians belong to

the Noah’s Ark school ofthought: they are theoneswhowill be saved in the end. Theytotally renounce the outsideworld,” saidMagnusLundbergof Uppsala University inSweden, author of a researchpaper on the church. Othercritics suggest that churchmembers are more likely toencounter isolation and aban-donment than salvation.IntheFaytheareaofWexford

town, Paddy Mulligan runs afuneralbusinessnear thehomeof Bridget Crosbie, an84-year-old woman who laydead for two months beforebeing discovered lastNovember. “She wouldn’tanswer the door to anybody,”said Mulligan. “She wouldn’tlet her own family in. Religionhad taken over and preventedher from doing that.”When Maria Hall read

Crosbie’s story, she was sad-dened but not surprised. “Icould see this having beenmy parents if I hadn’t gotthem out of the church,”said Hall, a New Zeal-ander and author ofReparation: A SpiritualJourney, a memoirabout being a Palmariannunfrom1982to1990.“Icould see one of my par-ents dying and the otherdying alone, and nobody inthe family knowing.”Other Irish families are

dealing with similar concerns.Fiona (not her real name),whose three siblings aremem-bers of the church, had notspoken to her brother for 11years when she encounteredhim in Sandymount in 2014. “Idrove up beside him with thepassenger window rolleddown and said, ‘It’s lovely tosee you.’ He just turned on hisheel and went in the oppositedirection.”Isolation isacore tenetof the

church’s philosophy. “Look,dearest children,” reads onepamphlet, “owing to Palma-rian disciplinary norms, so asnot to be contaminated by theworld, you find yourselves

there was a timewhen Palma-rians opened their doors totheworld.It all began on March 30,

1968, when four girls claimedto have witnessed an appari-tion of a “very beautiful lady”in a field near Palmar deTroya, a town in SpanishAndalusia. Later that yearClemente Dominguez yGomez, an accountant, andManuel Alonso Corral, hislawyer, arrived at the site.According to Palmarian hagi-ographies, Dominguez beganto have ecstatic experiences.Corral would record hisfriend’sheavenlycommunica-tionsforthebenefitofpilgrims.In 1970, Dominguez was saidto have received stigmata,although some witnessesaccusedhimof slicinghispalmswith glass.

There was Irishinvolvement from theearliest days of thechurch, according toLundberg. “There weremessages published inEnglish in 1970 destined

for an Irish readership. Ihave heard testimonies fromthe beginning of the 1970s ofmany Irish pilgrims at Palmarde Troya. From around 1974,Palmarian messages werebeing published in NorthernIreland.”In 1974, Dominguez and

Corral purchased the15,000 sq metre field, buildingan elaborate shrine, and put-tingawallaroundthesite.Theyrecruited Ngo Dinh Thuc, anelderly Vietnamese arch-bishop, to ordain them asbishops. The Vatican was notamused. From 1970, the arch-bishop of Seville denouncedthe apparitions. In 1975, thepapal nuncio in Spain excom-municated everyone involvedin theconsecrations.When the

Sergio Maria, aka PopeGregory XVIII, pontiff sinceCorral’s death in 2011, is said tobe a former officer in theSpanisharmy:agood fit for thechurch’smilitaristic teachings.Former members speak of

armed guards patrolling theinner walls of the basilica inPalmar de Troya. “They havepermission from the Spanishauthorities to arm the guards,”said Hall. “There were appar-ently some incidents of

vandalism, intimidation, andharassment of the pilgrims.”The church’s tightening

rules and self-imposedisolation have resulted in adecline in membership.Between 1976 and 2005, morethan 192 Palmarian bishopswere consecrated.About 133 have since left,

been expelled or died.Nevertheless the church hascontinuedto inherit largesumsfrom donors. In 2003, the

Palmarians sold theirbuildingsinSeville for€3.5m.In2014,36yearsafterconstructionbegan,work on the basilica wascompleted. “Finances haveimproved considerably underthe third Palmarian pontifi-cate,” said Lundberg.MariaHall is relieved tohave

left. “I think they’re crazy,totally misguided,” she said.“They’re not being directed byGod. I don’t think for a secondthat their priests or nuns have

any role at all on theplanet. It’svery sad. It is a cult.”Membershipmay be falling,

butstoriesofpeopleaffectedbythe Palmarian church can befound throughout Ireland: afatherwhose children refuse tospeak to him; parents whoshun their children; an airportbaggage handler trying tomake sense of his years as aformer Palmarian bishop; thecurtains drawn across a ter-raced house inWexford town.“It’s a tragedy for such a

lovely woman,” said PaddyMulligan, lookingouthis officewindow at Crosbie’s emptyhome. “She never did hurt norharm to anybody.”

Spain’s Palmarian churchwith its self-appointed popemight seem like a joke but the death of alonely spinster inWexford shows it has a shadowy side formany in Ireland,writesPavel Barter

The Palmarianchurch’s lavishheadquarters in

SpanishAndalusia

THE STRANGE CASEOF BRIDGET CROSBIE

Pope Gregory XVIII, aka Sergio Maria, and, below, Bridget Crosbie

about 300 members in Irelandand has been directed by FrGeronsius, a Canadian mis-sionary. In 1997, the groupbought a property on HaddonRoad, Clontarf, under thename of Manuel Corral, who“succeeded” Gregory XVII asPope Peter II (2005-11). Theproperty was sold last year,havingbeenoffered for€1.4m.David, a former member,believes that they have relo-cated to Lusk.The church in Spain did not

respond to a Sunday Timesrequest for an interview, but