Puppet Pope - new event suggestion

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Hmm...surely the best way to approach the problem would be to mimic the ways that the Papacy was challenged historically?

Appointing an anti-pope happened a couple of times and, inevitably, the anti-pope was immediately excommunicated by the legitimate pope (go figure...). The only legitimacy the anti-pope had was with whoever was the secular backing behind his appointment (generally the HRE) and unless the real Pope had been deposed, the anti-pope installed and the entire Catholic community didn't rise up in violent disgust, then nothing would have come of it.

Total number of anti-popes who became pope? Nil.

Nope -- there was the Papal Schism 1378-1414, which was triggered by events falling out from the return of the Papacy from Avignon (where the curia had moved in 1305 to escape local Roman politics) to Rome. The Wiki article is pretty good, but a little biased ... it was my impression that the Catholic Church has never decided on which branch of the papacy was the correct one, which is why it took 500+ years to get another Pope John.

Wiki on Papal Schism

BTW, one possiblity (which never occured) would be a reversal of the Great Schism -- as late as 1054 the Greek and Roman churches were one.

 

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Another possibility would be a perminant scism of a different nature than seen with Protestantism.