In his book What’s the Matter with Kansas?, Thomas Frank devotes a chapter to David Bawden of Dalia, Kansas. Bawden claims to be the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church and charges Joseph Ratzinger, aka Pope Benedict XVI with being an impostor. This guy is completely unhinged and like many lunatics, he is as serious as a heart attack about what he does. He was elected by a handful of laymen 20 years ago and lives with his mother in their farmhouse. He seems to have a following of about 30 people, but has attracted a bit of media attention over the years.
To me, this is just one of those insane curious oddities that is irresistible to read about. It shows to what level of insanity some of us can plunge. But when you really think about it, is Bawden really any more insane that Ratzinger? At the end of the day, Ratzinger is just an extremely scaled up version of Bawden. It’s complete bullshit either way.
Recently The Lawrence Journal-World of Lawrence, Kansas published a story about Bawden.