Papal Prophecies

We have all been shocked by the news of Pope Benedict’s resignation. It really was a decision that came with no warning at all. If you even see the pictures of the Holy Father delivering his message to his fellow cardinals, all around him they seem to also have a look of shock on their faces. Truly our Holy Father is a dear and humble man, and did a great job at even out smarting the media on this one!

It’s very sad to know that our dear Holy Father will be retiring. He is one of the greatest theologians in the world and has given the Church so much wonderful and inspiring guidance. His leadership in the Church will be greatly missed, but now we must look forward and pray for our next Pope. Who will he be? What is to come in the Church? I learned a long time ago that we should not worry about what the future may hold, nor involve ourselves with predictions and prophecies of the end times. We must remember what the Bible says about how no one knows when the Apocalypse will occur. However, we must always be ready for the end!

Since the Holy Father’s announcement, many have begun to talk about the St. Malachy prophecy on the last pope and how Pope Benedict XVI sounds a lot like the second to the last pope of the prophecy. At the end of the prophecy it states:

In the extreme persecution of the Holy Roman Church, there will sit ... Peter the Roman, who will pasture his sheep in many tribulations: and when these things are finished, the city of seven hills will be destroyed, and the terrible judge will judge his people. The End.

Cardinal Tarcisio Pietro Evasio Bertone

Who is this “Peter the Roman”? Is he the one who will come after Benedict XVI? Many are beginning to speculate that this could be pointing to Cardinal Tarcisio Pietro Evasio Bertone, S.D.B., who currently holds two important and powerful positions in the Vatican, Secretary of State and Camerlengo. Some of these theorists are saying, Cardinal Bertone was “born in Rome” and because his middle name is Pietro, (Italian for Peter) an interesting case could be made that he could be our next pope. However, Cardinal Bertone was not born in Rome, he was born in the Northern Italian town of Romano Canavese, in the Piedmont region, near the City of Turin. So there are some errors in this speculation already.

Personally, I don’t buy it. The Malachy prophecy of the last popes still sounds a bit sketchy to me, and I wouldn’t place all my eggs in one basket over this one. My guess is that we will all be surprised by the election. For that matter, I’m not fazed by the speculations people are into right now. The Holy Ghost is in charge of this process and will ultimately decide who our next pope will be.

One thing that is interesting to me, and probably a more valid prophecy than all the others is the dream that St. John Bosco had about a future pope who will guide the Catholic Church through a fierce storm of attacks into a respite of calm and peace.

In his dream, Don Bosco saw the Church as a great three-masted ship being moored securely between two towering pillars representing the Holy Eucharist and the Blessed Virgin Mary.  As Patrick Madrid stated in his recent online article addressing this topic, “I think many Catholics today would agree that, however choppy the water may be right now, the Catholic Church seems to be headed straight into a dark and dangerous storm of gale proportions.” He goes on to also point out that “Cardinal Francis George recently said as much when he commented prophetically that he expects to die in his bed, he expects his successor to die in prison, and he expects his successor’s successor to die a martyr’s death.”

Lightening strikes the dome of St. Peter's

This leads me to believe that something truly is moving in the church right now. And how ironic that on the morning that Pope Benedict delivered his announcement, the lightening struck the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica twice! When does lightening strike the same place twice?

There is also talk I have read about the “Worthy Shepherd Prophecy,” attributed to Blessed Tomasuccio de Foligno, which predicted that an Angelic Pope would come and heal the Church of schism and would be elected by "about twelve years shall the millennium have passed":

"One from beyond the mountains shall become the Vicar Of God. Religious and clerics shall take part in this change. Outside the true path, there will be only disreputable men; I shrug my shoulders when the Bark of Peter is in danger and there is no one to lend it help... The schismatic shall fall into the scorn of the Italian faithful... By about twelve years shall the millennium have passed when the resplendent mantle of legitimate power shall emerge from the shadows where it was being kept by the schism. And beyond harm from the one who is blocking the door of salvation, for his deceitful schism shall have come to an end. And the mass of the faithful shall attach itself to the worthy Shepherd, who shall extricate each one from error and restore to the Church its beauty. He shall renew it."  

The first known prophecy of the Angelic Pope, or pastor angelicus, was cited by the English polymath Roger Bacon in the 13th century:

...Forty years ago it was prophesied, and there have been many visions to the same effect, that there will be a pope in these times who will purify Canon Law and the Church of God from the sophistries and deceits of the jurists so that justice will reign over all without the rumbling of lawsuits. Because of the goodness, truth, and justice of this pope the Greeks will return to the obedience of the Roman Church, the greater part of the Tartars will be converted to the faith, and the Saracens will be destroyed. There will be one flock and one shepherd, as the prophet heard (John 10:16)...
(Taken from Roger Bacon's The Third Work. Trans. by B McGinn Visions of the End (New York, Columbia, 1998) p190)

The Angelic Pope of medieval prophecy was foretold to heal the schism with the Eastern Othrodox Church (which echoes the conversion of Russia prophesied at Fatima). Later, the pastor angelicus prophecies would also be connected to the reunfication of the schismatic Protestant churches with Rome, as well as the future conversion of England - such as foretold in the original 1846 Church-approved version of the secrets of La Salette:

The faith will die out in France: three quarters of France will not practice religion anymore, or almost no more, the other part will practice it without really practicing it. Then, after [that], nations will convert, the faith will be rekindled everywhere. A great country, now Protestant, in the north of Europe, will be converted; by the support of this country all the other nations of the world will be converted.
Before all that arrives, great disorders will arrive, in the Church, and everywhere. Then, after [that], our Holy Father the Pope will be persecuted. His successor will be a pontiff that nobody expects.
Then, after [that], a great peace will come, but it will not last a long time. A monster will come to disturb it.

This last prediction sounds very familiar to me, in that is correlates with the prophecies of the “Great King” who will come and help the Pope convert the whole world and bring a time of great peace, which will then be over soon when everyone becomes so fat with happiness, that they forget about God. It is then that the Muslims will move in and a battle will break out in which the Great King will be killed, and the Antichrist will arise. 

Our Lady of Good Success

But is it too much to assume that this is all about to take place? For all I know, and keeping in mind that we do not know the day or hour of the return of Christ, this may all be rushing things a bit too quickly. Maybe what is happening is what Blessed Tomasuccio de Foligno is talking about in his "Worthy Shepherd" prophacy for a return of the Church to her “former beauty” as even Our Lady of Good Success speaks of? Maybe since some of the great movements recently in the Church by the Holy Ghost through Pope Benedict XVI and even Pope John Paul II, have been a return to the traditional, we are more likely to see a "worthy shepherd" be elected. A worthy shepherd who will go into a deep review of the documents of Vatican II, and revive the Church to her beautiful and gorgeous state when saints and martyrs were born, and the strength and faith of the Church was rich and overflowing with followers is about to come.

Regardless of anything, there is something happening in the Church I feel. And it is a feeling that gives me hope and a bit of “excited fear”. Whatever is happening, I know is going to be big! Nothing but good things are ahead of us I believe.