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St.
Malachy
Ireland, 1095-??
Sources
Thomas Germine, Apokalypso
Zoltan (wings@infobahnos.com), "List of Popes with References to
St. Malachy's Prophecy."
The Catholic Encyclopedia, 1911; excerpted by Publius
(CS 75342.125) and published in the CompuServe Encounters Forum,
1995.
A Wikipedia
entry
titled "Prophecy of the Popes," published April 19, 2005. This is
the most carefully analytical piece on St. Malachy that I have seen.
"The
Pope's Funeral and the Malachy Prophecy," by Jon Christian Ryter
— another good summary.
Summary
The following summary of St. Malachy's life and work appeared
on Thomas Germine's Apokalypso
site. I have altered it only slightly, in the section dealing with
Pope John Paul I, where additional information was available that
more clearly explained the "motto" assigned to this Pope by Malachy.
Born early in the early years
of this millennium (1095 A.D.) Malachy O'Morgair was a holy man,
reputed to have had miraculous powers of healing, levitation and
clairvoyance. After being named Archbishop of Armagh in 1137 A.D.,
he embarked upon a difficult pilgrimage from his native Ireland
to Rome to confer with Pope Innocent II. When finally the seven
hills of the Eternal City appeared below him, Malachy fell into
an ecstatic trance, in which he beheld a line of Popes, beginning
with Celestine II, the successor to Innocent II, and extending to
the last of the line, identified as "Peter of Rome". After emerging
from this trance, Malachy recorded a brief "motto" for each of the
Popes he had seen in his vision and presented them to Innocent II
at their meeting. While, after Malachy's death, the Church would
affirm his miraculous works and would canonize him as the first
Irish saint, his prophecies would lie neglected and forgotten in
the Papal archives for over 450 years before being rediscovered
and published — yet they would ultimately be dismissed as spurious
by "official" Vatican scholars.
Nonetheless, St. Malachy's descriptions have proven to be uncannily
appropriate for each of the Popes in the centuries since his death,
with each characterization simultaneously revealing something both
personal and archetypal about the corresponding Pontiff. Thus, the
first Pope of the 20th Century, Leo XIII, was styled "Lumen in Caelo",
or "Light in the Sky", a fitting title for a man whose family crest
featured a comet, as well as for a papacy which inaugurated the
century prophesied to end with the Advent of Christ as a great light
appearing in the clouds of the heavens. Malachy names the first
of the final five Popes "Pastor et Nauta", the "Pastor of the Sea",
which describes Pope John XXIII (1958-1963), both as the former
Patriarch of Venice, and as the Pontiff whose reign would usher
in the Time of Tribulation, in which Daniel and John the Evangelist
envisioned the four apocalyptic beasts emerging from the sea (Dan.
7:3, Rev. 13:1). His successor Pope Paul VI (1963-1978) was dubbed
"Flors Florum", or the "Flower of Flowers", a fitting appellation
in view of both the fleur-de-lys motif of his papal coat-of-arms,
as well as the theme of his historic encyclical Humanae Vitae,
which defined the Church's position on procreation.
To the papacy of John Paul I (1978), which ended in his mysterious
death after only a month, St. Malachy applies the most apt phrase
"De Medietate Lunae," "of the half of the moon." Albino Luciani
was born in the Belluno (beautiful moon) diocese of Canale d'Ogardo.
He was elected pope on August 26, 1978, on the first day of the
final quarter of the moon, which would have appeared as a perfect
half-disk in the sky. The lunar eclipse of the 17th of September
marked the apogee of his reign. He died (according to some, assassinated)
on September 28, again with the moon half-visible.
Malachy denotes Pope John Paul II as "De Labore Solis", which means
"[of] the Eclipse [or labor] of the Sun". While the ominous symbolic
flavor of this descriptive is self-evident in terms of the destiny
of the Holy See, even more incredible is its individual relevance
to Karol Wojtyla, who was born during the solar eclipse of May 18,
1920!
To the Pope who is to follow John Paul
II Malachy assigned the motto "Gloria Olivae" ("Glory of the Olive").
We know now that this Pope is Joseph Ratzinger, who has taken the
papal name Benedict XVI. And yes, the Order of St. Benedict (of
which Ratzinger is not actually a member) does have as one of its
symbols the olive branch, and the Benedictines are known as "Olivetans."
Malachy's original lineup of Popes did not contain the final Pope
now listed, "Petrus Romanus." It appears this Pope was added in
1820 by Olivetan monks. The Order of St. Benedict claims this final
pope will come within the Benedictine Order, and that he was placed
in the secession line because St. Benedict himself prophesied that
before the end of the world, his Order will triumphantly lead the
Catholic Church in its battle against evil (the Battle of Armageddon).
There is no motto for this final Pope;
instead there is this paragraph:
In extreme persecution, the
seat of the Holy Roman Church will be occupied by Peter, the Roman,
who will feed (lead) the sheep through many tribulations, at the
term of which the city of seven hills will be destroyed, and the
formidable Judge will judge his people. The End.
(In persecutione extrema S.R.E. sedebit Petrus Romanus, qui pascet
oues in multis tribulationibus: quibus transactis ciuitas septicollis
diruetur, & Iudex tremêdus iudicabit populum suum. Finis.)
Commentary
"Some, including the Encyclopaedia
Britannica, assert that the prophecy was not written by Malachy
at all. Others theorize that Nostradamus conjured up the list
and, because he did not want to be persecuted for having foretold
the end of the Catholic church, gave the credit to Malachy."
— Zoltan (wings@infobahnos.com), "List of Popes with References
to St. Malachy's Prophecy"
"[The prophecies of Malachy] were
first published by Arnold de Wyon [in 1595], and ever since there
has been much discussion as to whether they are genuine predictions
of St. Malachy or forgeries. The silence of 400 years on the part
of so many learned authors who had written about the popes, and
the silence of St. Bernard especially, who wrote the "Life of
St. Malachy", is strong argument against their authenticity, but
it is not conclusive if we adopt Cucherat's theory that they were
hidden in the Archives during those 400 years."
— The Catholic Encyclopedia, 1911; excerpted by Publius (CS
75342.125) and published in the Prophecy and Earth Changes (now
Apocalypse 2000) section of the CompuServe Encounters Forum, 1995
Jon Ryter presents an argument in favor
of authenticity, in "The
Pope's Funeral and the Malachy Prophecy."
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