Rogelio Martinez (antipope)

According to an article he published in The Olive Tree magazine by himself, Martinez was born in Manila in 1972 and was baptized and raised as a Roman Catholic; he and his family later moved to Bulakan in 1983, when he was an elementary school graduate. During elementary school, he had joined a bible study group of the Convention of Philippine Baptist Churches.

In September 1984 he became an acolyte in his parish in Bulakan and in 1987, after graduating from high school, he entered the Immaculate Conception major seminary of the Diocese of Malolos. After graduating from Theology in 1997, he did not submit himself for ordination to the diaconate and remained a layman.

He taught for some years at the Centro Escolar University and later studied law at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines College of Law, graduating in 2004. During that period, he married Lynn Jacinto and the two had a child.

In 2002 he came into contact with an independent Catholic priest from the Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church (ICAB) and resumed his priestly training with such Church: he was ordained on 7 December 2002 and later a priest in 2003 by Bishop Joseph V. Galaroza. He subsequently served as assistant priest at Novaliches and later at Santa Mesa and was installed as parish priest at Our Lady of Fatima Parish Church in San Jose Del Monte, Bulacan in 2004.[2]

Seven years later he was consecrated a bishop by Archbishop Joel Clemente and Bishop Heyward Ewart of the Catholic Charismatic Church (CCC) on 6 February 2010 at the St. Andrews Seminary in Quezon City. In 2012, after Clemente's retirement due to health reason, he was appointed Archbishop by the CCC's Patriarch Augustine I (John Walzer).

In the following years, Martinez became aligned with traditionalist Catholicism and sedevacantism, coming to the conclusion that all Popes following the death of Pope Pius XII were invalid because they had endorsed the "heretical" Second Vatican Council. In 2017 his parish started to celebrate exclusively the Tridentine Mass, rejecting the Mass of Paul VI as "protestant", also adopting the Roman Catechism and the Baltimore Catechism.

In 2019 he came into contact with David Bawden, a conclavist bishop who had claimed to be the real pontiff since 1990 as "Pope Michael". One year later he made his profession of faith to Bawden, formally recognizing him as the legitimate Pope and came into full communion with him and his followers.[3][4]

"Pope Michael" died on 2 August 2022.[5] On July 29, 2023, Martinez was elected as Bawden's successor in a conclave in Vienna, Austria. He took the name Michael II.[5]

Mainstream Roman Catholic Bishop José R. Rojas of Libmanan who is also the chairman of the Episcopal Commission of Doctrine of the Faith of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines advised Catholics not to support Martinez or risk facing excommunication. Rojas says Martinez is not a Catholic priest.[6][7]

Martinez runs a parish in San Jose del Monte in Bulacan and has conducted events including officiating a Mass for his followers.[6] A "coronation ceremony" is scheduled for Martinez in October 2023.[6]