A Celestial View of the Malachy Prophecies

[CVX]

By: ADRIAN GILBERT

By: Author and Phenomena Senior Editor

On April 2nd 2005 Pope John-Paul II, after years of debilitating illness, finally gave up the ghost and made way for a new papacy. Even before his death, which was far from unexpected, people began to speculate on who would be his successor and whether this choice was a matter of destiny.

At the back of many people’s minds was a prophesy made nearly a thousand years ago by an Irish saint called Malachy that between 1143 and the end of the world there would be a total of 112 popes. As Pope John-Paul II was number 110, according to this prophecy there would be but two more. Needless to say this prophecy is contentious both within and without the Roman Catholic Church. Like the Third Prophecy of Fatima it is a matter of debate and some confusion.

Saint Malachy, who was Irish, is said to have visited Rome in 1139-40 and there to have met with Pope Innocent II. While in Rome he went into a trance state and received a vision concerning the future of the papacy. Using cryptic captions, he described the 112 popes who were to follow beginning with Celestine II, who became pope in 1143. Malachy gave his list of popes to Innocent II who either through fear or disapproval put it away in a vault. There it remained for a further four hundred years until its rediscovery in the 16th century.

Needless to say there were some who dismissed it even then as a forgery, claiming that it had been contrived as a justification for the election of Pope Gregory XIV in 1590. This, however, cannot explain how Malachy’s prophecies have continued to be remarkably accurate right up until the present. A dispationate observer would have to say that if the document is a forgery, then it is certainly a very accurate one as it has had a remarkable success rate.

We can see how accurate the prophecies have been when we consider the three popes leading up to and including the late John-Paul II. In Malachy’s list number 108 is termed ‘Flos Florum’ or ‘Flower of the Flowers’. He was Pope Paul VI (1963-78), Giovanni Battista Montini, whose coat of arms included three fleur-de-lys ‘flower of iris’. Number 109 was Pope John-Paul I (1978), Albino Luciani. He is called De Mediatate Lunae, or ‘from the half-moon’ by St Malachy. John-Paul I, famous for his saintly smile, was made pope on August 26, 1978 when the Moon was half-full. He died a month later during another half-moon.

He was succeeded by pope number 110, John-Paul II (1978-2005, Karol Jozef Wojtyla, who Malachy describes as De Labore Solis: ‘out of the solar eclipse’ or, alternatively, ‘toil of the sun’. He was born on May 8, 1920 during a solar eclipse and like the sun spread his light around the world travelling to foreign countries in a way unprecedented for any previous pope. Even when sick with Parkinson’s disease he continued to travel at great toil and exertion to himself.

The way that John-Paul II so obviously filled the prophecy of Malachy has caused commentators to take them more seriously than they might concerning what is to be expected of our new pope, Joseph Ratzinger, who has taken the name Benedict XVI. The Malachy prophecy for him, number 111, is Gloria Olivae. This translates as ‘Glory of the Olive’.

There has been much speculation about the meaning of this description for the new pope. Since the olive branch is a symbol for peace, it has been wondered if he will be a peace-maker between rival churches and nations. Thus it is speculated that he chose the name as a cryptic reference to Benedict XV who sought to bring the warring nations of Europe together in a Peace conference in 1916. Peace-making is obviously an important role for any modern pope, however ‘peace-maker’ does not appear to be the adjective that springs to mind when describing the earlier career of this pope.

As a Cardinal, Josef Ratzinger had the reputation for strict orthodoxy in matters of faith. To the frustration of more liberal elements both inside and outside the Catholic Church, he has pursued a hard-line on issues such as abortion, contraception, the ordination of women and priestly celibacy. As Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith”formerly known as the Inquisition”he earned himself the nick-name of ‘God’s Rottweiler’ because of his hard-line views. It therefore seems unlikely that he will be a liberal pope and relax the rules on matters of Catholic doctrine.

Not only that, but he has also in the past been dismissive to the point of rudeness in denying the authenticity of Anglican Bishops. He has been no less uncompromising in his attitudes towards Islam, which he regards as a serious threat to Christian Europe. Indeed he is one of the few senior churchmen who have gone on the record as saying that Turkey should not be allowed to join the European Europe. Such unbending attitudes do not suggest that he is a natural peace-maker between churches and nations.

That being so, why would Malarchy refer to his papacy as Gloria Olivae?

One suggestion is that Gloria Olivae refers to a connection with the Benedictine movement. It is true that the olivines are a sub-group within the larger order of St Benedict. However, not all Benedictines are olivines. In any case, although Joseph Ratzinger has taken the name Benedict XVI, he himself has never been a monk.

His choice of the name Benedict is more likely an oblique reference to the way St Benedict, who lived in the Dark Ages, brought about a renewal of the Christianity in Europe. There can be no doubt that like any pope Joseph Ratzinger, a devout Catholic, would like to do the same. However this desire, heart-felt as it may be, in no way explains Malachy’s sobriquet Gloriae Olivae. So what could this really

The Mount of Olives

© Adrian Gilbert

mean?

To my way of thinking we have to look away from the olive as a symbol of peace to its more immediate links with the story of Jesus Christ. In the Matthew Gospel we are told that Jesus went with his disciples to the Mount of Olives, a relatively high eminence that overlooks Jerusalem from the east. It was here that just prior to his Crucifixion Jesus gave the prophecies for the end of the age which are to be found in Matthew 24.

In the following chapter, while still sitting on the Mount, he tells his disciples the parable of the wise and foolish virgins who await the coming of a bridegroom. In the parable the groom (for which read the returning Jesus) is delayed. However the wise virgins (i.e. good Christians) who await him bring with them a supply of oil to replenish their lamps. The foolish virgins (i.e. unprepared Christians) fail to bring any extra oil and their lamps go out. As a consequence they have to go back to the shops to buy some more and end up missing the wedding.

Now there is more than one way to understand this parable. The oil would, of course, have been olive oil. More than for cooking, this was used throughout the ancient world for fuelling lamps. The ‘glory of the olive’, then, is surely the light given out by an olive oil fuelled lamp. This leads us back to the Mount of Olives itself which takes its name from the olive groves that grew there in abundance.



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[john8pies]

Fascinating reading (and I LOVE your avatar, too!) Can`t quite understand from the above though, do we actually KNOW the three prophecies of Fatima - I thought they had been hidden away to avoid spreading fear and terror? And , wonderfully accurate that the prophecies of St Malachy may have been, are we not in danger of using them to justify the interpretation, eg, various prophecies of Nostradamus have been said to have foretold the rise of Hitler, assassination of JFK, attack on the Twin Towers, etc, but are we just using what was written and INTEPRETING IT TO JUSTIFY IT?

[john8pies]

(sorry, got cut off) For example, had Nostradamus said, "An evil monster named Hitler will fight in a world war for the Germans between 1939-45 before losing and then committing suicide" nobody could deny that was a 100% accurate prediction. But instead I hear that it`s about HISTER (close, but not 100% close) and that ` he is an evil leader who will be in a war` (as are many other evil leaders!) So, and NOT wishing to disrespect what you say, but merely seeking clarification, is there a possibility that people are doing the same with the prophecies of St Malachy?

[Ted]

Generally these prophesies are so nebulus that one could read anything into them and even make them appear to come out accurately.

Personally, I don't think so.

Shalom

Ted :-6

[Raven]

I've read the malachy prophesies as well. At his age (benedict) I dont think we'll have to wait long for 'peter'.

Isnt it funny how much we want a little gaze into the future, even going so far as to read nostradamus, malachy, fatima, and even our weekly horoscopes, but this is an activity that was expressly forbidden?

We may not even be around tomorrow to worry about it.

Oh BTW.........Native Americans have stimulating prophesies on the end of the age as well. Ever hear of the white buffalo?

[Bronwen]

This thread is several months old, but it caught my eye because it is cross-referenced at the bottom of another thread.

The St. Malachy 'prophecies' are fake. They were written long after Malachy's death by a hoaxter, and this is thoroughly documented. The 'prophecies' can be easily dated since the earlier 'predictions' (that is, the short mottos describing the popes) are very accurate (these were, of course, written after the fact), while the later ones seem to be mostly meaningles, certainly not 'remarkably accurate' as CVX's post claims.

Quite apart from the Malachy prophecies, however, there is indeed a very old legend (definitely NOT Church teaching) that the pope who chooses the name Peter II will be the last pope before THE END.

By the way, all three of the Fatima 'prophecies' or 'secrets' have now been revealed. All three were allegedly given to Lucia dos Santos in 1917, but she did not reveal the first two (which pertained to the first and second world wars) to anyone until the 1940's - once again, after the fact as it were. The third was supposed to have been revealed in 1960, but pope John XXIII did not do so, remarking (my paraphrase), 'This makes no reference to our time.' John Paul II believed the prophecy referred to the attempt on his life, and revealed the full text (which can be easily found on-line) a few years before his death. The entire Fatima phenomenon, which is very interesting from several different angles, might be a good subject for a new thread.

One further point: The name 'Hister' in Nostradamus's quatrains pertains not to a person at all. It is an old name for a part of the Lower Danube, and if you read the quatrains in which this word appears, the meaning is quite obvious.