EL PALMAR DE TROYA, Spain (Reuters) - Pope John Paul II has a challenger. Papal pretender "Gregorio XVII" is leader of a self-styled church in Spain who says God crowned him after Pope Paul VI's 1978 death, that Satan controls the Vatican and that the devil will crucify him at the start of an apocalyptic end of an era. There were some 300 worshipers attending services on a recent Reuters visit to Gregorio's church in El Palmar de Troya, a vast cathedral-like complex of domes, columns and arches perched on a hill in Spain's dusty southern Andalusia region. Church members say followers number several thousand and come from as far away as the Americas. But membership is clearly dwarfed by the 1 billion Roman Catholics around the world who recognize John Paul as head of the church. "Rome ... is no longer the capital of Christianity; the new Rome is the Sacred Place of El Palmar de Troya," a booklet from Gregorio's church quotes God as telling him. Gregorio's church has conferred sainthood on former Spanish dictator Francisco Franco for defending Catholicism in Spain's Civil War and four subsequent decades of fascist rule.
