The Palmarian Catholic ChurchPalmarian Church. (2023). Who Are We?. Palmarian Church (), officially registered as the Palmarian Christian Church and also known as the Palmarian Church, is a Christian churchMinistry of Justice (2025). Iglesia Cristiana Palmariana de los Carmelitas de la Santa Faz. Búsqueda de Entidades Religiosas - Ministerio de Justicia with an episcopal see in El Palmar de Troya, Andalusia, Spain. The Palmarian Church claims to be the exclusive One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church founded by Jesus Christ. It claims that the Holy See, the institution of the papacy and the headquarters of the Catholic Church was moved to El Palmar de Troya at the Cathedral-Basilica of Our Crowned Mother of Palmar, under the auspices of the Patriarchate of El Palmar de Troya, in 1978, due to the alleged apostasy of the Catholic Church from the Catholic faith.
The origins of the Palmarians as a distinct body can be traced back to the alleged Marian apparitions of Our Lady of Palmar, which took place in Andalusia, Spain, from 1968 onward. Two men became particularly associated with this movement as time went on, Clemente Domínguez y Gómez and Manuel Alonso Corral. The former was known as a charismatic visionary and seer, while the latter the intellectual éminence grise. The messages of these visions were favourable to a traditionalist Catholic pushback to what some Catholics considered liberalising changes introduced by the Second Vatican Council; and an alleged Masonic infiltration of the Catholic Church. In 1975, the Palmarians founded a religious order known as the Carmelites of the Holy Face and had a number of priests ordained, then consecrated as bishops by Archbishop Ngô Đình Thục, giving them holy orders. After the death of Pope Paul VI in 1978, Clemente Domínguez claimed that he had been mystically crowned pope of the Catholic Church by Jesus Christ and was to reign as Pope Gregory XVII from El Palmar de Troya.
Four subsequent Palmarian popes have reigned. Its current head since 2016 is Pope Peter III. Critical scholars, journalists and former followers often describe the organization as a religious cult. Members of the church are required to comply with a wide range of compulsory moral and behavioural standards known as the Norms, from strict modesty in dress, to restricted media consumption and limitations on social interaction with non-Palmarians, among many other rules. Non-compliance can lead to excommunication for members, which has led some Palmarians to engage in shunning of those who have either been expelled or apostatized from the Palmarian Church.
Name
The official name of the Palmarian Church in the register of religious entities in the Kingdom of Spain is the Iglesia Cristiana Palmariana de los Carmelitas de la Santa Faz (English: Palmarian Christian Church of the Carmelites of the Holy Face). This is due to a legal process which began in 1980, when the church applied to the Spanish Ministry of Justice for the status of a recognised religion under the name Iglesia Católica, Apostólica y Palmariana, Orden Religiosa de los Carmelitas de la Santa Faz en Compañía de Jesús y María (English: Catholic, Apostolic and Palmarian Church, Religious Order of the Carmelites of the Holy Face in Company of Jesus and Mary). This was initially rejected in 1982 by the Director-General of Religious Affairs who said that the terms "Catholic", pope" and "cardinal" as used by the Palmarians bore "excessive resemblance" to those still used by the Catholic Church; in addition, the Palmarians simply claimed that they were the Catholic Church. A few months later, they made a fresh application using the current official name with "Christian" instead of Catholic, while continuing to use terms such as the Holy Catholic Palmarian Church, the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic and Palmarian Church, the Palmarian Catholic Church and other variations in internal documents. The director-general again rejected the registration due to the changes only being "semantic", but the Palmarians finally pushed through their registration through the Supreme Court of Spain in 1987 using the current official name.
History Background Marian apparitions, Spain and the Second Vatican Council
A series of Marian apparitions starting in the 19th century have led to what Magnus Lundberg calls Marian Apocalyptic Movements. These apparitions typically feature the Virgin Mary bearing an important eschatological message that warns humanity of a coming chastisement from God for its sinful behaviour and apostasy which will be followed by a period of peace and virtue for the faithful. When humanity then returns to its sinful ways, a more fearsome chastisement culminates in a final world war that marks the end of the world. Some of these apparitions have been investigated by the Catholic Church and declared worthy of belief and veneration. Palmarians regard several as important steps on the way to the appearance of Our Lady of Palmar, specifically those of La Salette (1846), Fátima (1917), Ezkioga (1931), Heroldsbach (1949), Ladeira do Pinheiro (1960), San Damiano (1961), and Garabandal (1961).
The apparitions of El Palmar de Troya took place in Spain at a time of religious and political upheaval, during the final decade that Francisco Franco was Caudillo of the Spanish State. The government had been established in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War and during the war the nationalists identified themselves as engaged in a "Crusade against the Second Spanish Republic 1919-1939, international communism and freemasonry." Before and during the Spanish Civil War, many Catholic clerics were killed by the republican side and in some places the Catholic Church had to go underground. After victory, under Franco, National Catholicism was adopted in Spain, whereby Spanishness and Catholicism were presented as being inseparable. In the worldview of Francoism, Spain was a "providential nation, being a faithful Catholic bulwark against liberalism, Freemasonry, Protestantism and communism". Spain was a confessional state and this broadly had the support of the church; however, by the 1940s, there was some concerns about the power of the state subordinating the church and after the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, the high episcopacy, particularly Cardinal Vicente Enrique y Tarancón began to push against Franco for "reforms" and the creation of a more modern state. This was not unanimous and some Spanish priests belonging to the Hermandad Sacerdotal Española backed Francoists against the new liberal-leaning line of the Spanish Episcopal Conference and the Vatican.
Following the Second Vatican Council, which took place between 1962 and 1965, there emerged a new openness to religious liberty, ecumenism, interreligious dialogue and on the back of it, introduced in 1969, a New Order of Mass. These changes scandalised traditionalists within the Catholic Church and an insurgent traditionalist Catholic movement emerged pushing back against this. Prominent early figures included Frenchmen such as Georges de Nantes, who founded the Ligue de la contre-réforme catholique and Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre who founded the Society of St. Pius X (which became by far the most prominent). The early Palmarian themes were a part of this milleu, with direct and indirect relationships with the traditionalist Catholic resistance worldwide, including the SSPX. According to Lundberg, traditionalists refused to believe that "a true Catholic hierarchy would make such changes, and saw modernist, masonic and communist conspiracies". A common traditionalist theme of decrying "infiltration", raised questions about the complicity of the Pope himself: Lefebvre diplomatically criticised Pope Paul VI, but still considered him a true Pope. At the opposite end, by 1971, sedevacantists emerged who claimed that Paul VI was a non-Catholic antipope leading a new heretical religion, an early example of which is Joaquín Sáenz y Arriaga.
Apparitions of Our Lady of Palmar and Devotion to the Holy Face
On 30 March 1968, four Spanish Catholic girls, aged 12 and 13—Ana García, Rafaela Gordo, Ana Aguilera and Josefa Guzmán—reported that the Virgin Mary had appeared to them in the field of La Alcaparroa farm, close to the village of El Palmar de Troya, which at that time was a district of the municipality of Utrera, in the province of Seville, Andalusia, Spain. On 11 April 1968, a devout Catholic woman named Rosario Arenillas reported seeing the Virgin Mary with the mantle of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in the same place. On 20 May 1968 a neighbor from Utrera named María Marín also said she had seen the Virgin in the same place. On 6 June 1968, María Luisa Vila from Seville went to the farm and said she had a mystical ecstasy in which Jesus Christ administered communion to her and, according to witnesses, when she opened her mouth there was a bloody host inside. In the summer of 1968, Antonio Romero, Manuel Fernández, José Navarro, Antonio Anillos and Arsenia Llanos also said they suffered mystical ecstasies there.
On 15 October 1968, Clemente Domínguez and Manuel Alonso Corral visited the site for the first time. Manuel "Manolo" Corral worked in an insurance brokerage that Serafín Madrid used to finance his charitable works. When Corral became involved in the situation at Palmar de Troya he was expelled from the insurance company (belief in the apparitions were strongly opposed by José Bueno y Monreal, Archbishop of Seville, who refused to examine the seers or even open up any enquiries).Hall, Maria. (2016). The Palmarian Church: New Rome or Fanatical Sect?. Patheos On 15 August 1969, the two men attended a Holy Mass celebrated by a Jesuit priest there and during it María Luisa Vila said she had a vision of the Virgin (Josemaría Escrivá, founder of Opus Dei, drawn to mystical phenomenon, held a long interview with Vila who he had met previously at Jerez de la Frontera, Cádiz).Infante, Jésus. (2002). Turbosantidad del Fundador del Opus Dei. Opus Libros Later they ran into María Marín and Nectario María who said they had a vision of Jesus Christ. After this point, Domínguez and Corral visited far more frequently. There they talked with the visionaries and witnessed their ecstasies and on 14 September 1969, both declared that they had an appearance of a luminous cross.
On 30 September 1969, Rosario Arenillas and Domínguez said they had a vision of Jesus Christ and Padre Pio. A few days later María Luisa Vila declared that she had the same vision. On 8 December 1969, Domínguez claimed to have a vision in which the Virgin and the angels gave him a Dominican habit and on 10 December 1969, Domínguez said that Dominic de Guzmán had appeared to him to recommend praying the Rosary and the Pater Noster. On 10 December 1969 he also said that Joseph appeared to him. On 12 December 1969, Domínguez said he had another vision of Dominic and next to him he said he saw the Holy Face of Jesus. Then he said that Dominic had given him the message that he should expand devotion to the Holy Face, the Stations of the Cross and the reparative communion on the first Thursday of each month, to repair the outrages to the divine face of the Lord. Domínguez and Corral began to carry a portrait of the Holy Face for prayers in which ecstasy occurred.