Pope Benedict’s
renouncement of the
papal office this week has
spurred a rash of
questions about the
purported prophecies of
St. Malachy. “Will
Benedict’s successor be
the last pope?” “Are we
headed into a period of
great tribulation?” “Will
the world end soon?”
The last time we fielded
so many such questions at
Catholic Answers was
about eight years ago
shortly after the death of
Blessed John Paul II. This
makes sense because the prophecies in
question concern the identities of popes
from the twelfth century to the end of
time. This time around it is a little
different though because there is only
one more pope identified after Benedict
XVI: “Petrus Romanus” (Latin for “Peter
the Roman”).
St. Malachy was an Irish bishop who lived
in the twelfth century. He died in 1148
and his close friend St. Bernard of
Clairvaux wrote his biography shortly
afterward. St. Malachy was canonized in
1190 by Pope Clement III. Throughout
this entire period there was never any
mention of St. Malachy’s prophecies
concerning the identities of future popes.
In fact, not until the year 1590–four
hundred years after St. Malachy’s
canonization–did his prophecies surface.
Interestingly, 1590 was the same year
Pope Sixtus V died and his successor was
elected. At the time, every pope who had
reigned during the prior four hundred
forty seven years had been correctly
identified by St. Malachy. Sixtus V’s
successor, Urban VII, ended that. There
was another candidate for the papacy that
year who did fit St. Malachy’s prophetic
identification but he was not elected.
Since that time, interpreters have had to
perform contorted acrobatics with St.
Malachy’s cryptic prophetic phrases in
order to somehow vaguely relate them to
the identities of the successive popes. In
many cases it just cannot be done. In
other cases, doing so is a stretch, at best.
For example, the Latin phrase identifying
our current pope is “Gloria
olivioe” (“Glory of olives”). To make this
fit Pope Benedict, many interpreters
follow a train of thought something like
this: Joseph Ratzinger chose the name
Benedict; St. Benedict founded the
Benedictines; formally affiliated with the
Benedictines since 1960 is the Order of
Our Lady of Mt. Olivet (the Olivetans);
thus Pope Benedict XVI is the “Glory of
the olives”. It’s something akin to Kevin
Bacon’s “six degrees of separation”.
Considering all these facts, most
historians have concluded that the
purported prophecies were a sixteenth
century forgery that failed to sway the
electorate of 1590. Nevertheless, the
prophecies were published in 1595 and
they have continued to be an item of
curiosity and speculation ever since,
especially whenever a new pope is
elected.
In regard to people who still choose to
believe in the authenticity of the
prophecies today, it is important to note
that the prophecies do not actually
predict the timing of tribulation or of the
end of the world. The Catholic
Encyclopedia, published over 100 years
ago, explains:
It has been noticed concerning Petrus
Romanus, who according to St. Malachy's
list is to be the last pope, that the
prophecy does not say that no popes shall
intervene between him and his
predecessor designated Gloria olivioe. It
merely says that he is to be the last, so
that we may suppose as many popes as
we please before "Peter the Roman".
St. Malachy, pray for us.