Yes, it's very familiar not just b/c it reflects a similar belief by J and C, but also b/c it is one among hundreds of human theories that MANY fall prey to. You can find it among the religious as well as the secular. It's pervasive not unlike animism. Must be a HUMAN tendency.

> I was reading about the
> "sedevacantist" groups in
> Catholicism, who long to return to the
> "pure" (pre-Vatican II) teachings
> of the Church. According to one article,
> sedevacantists ("vacant seat")
> believe that "See of Peter" is
> technically vacant; that all popes since
> Paul VI have been impostors.

> Different groups have set up their own
> provisional papacies, one of the most
> important of which, since 1968, has been set
> up in Palmar de Troya, Spain, with Clemente
> Dominguez y Gomez serving as "Pope
> Gregory XVII". He has plenty of
> "prophecies" against the official
> Catholic Church. The overall message is that
> "Pope Paul VI was being kept a drugged
> prisoner in the Vatican. The real rulers of
> the Church were a clique of Freemasons and
> Communists who were playing havoc with the
> doctrine and worship of the Church."

> Doesn't this sound like Joel and Carmel's
> theory that Berg is still alive, kept
> prisoner somewhere by Peter and Maria?