Prophecy of the Popes
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The Prophecy of the Popes is a list of 112 short Latin phrases purported to describe each of the Roman Catholic popes (as well as a few antipopes), beginning with Pope Celestine II (elected in 1143) and concluding with a future pope described in the prophecy as \"Peter the Roman,\" whose pontificate will end in the destruction of the city of Rome and the Last Judgment.
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Authenticity
The prophecy is purportedly based on a revelation experienced by Saint Malachy, a 12th century bishop of Armagh in Ireland. According to those who support the prophecy\'s authenticity, Malachy was summoned to Rome in 1139 by Pope Innocent II. While there, he experienced a vision of all future popes, which he recorded in a sequence of cryptic phrases. This manuscript was allegedly deposited in the Roman Archive by Innocent, and thereafter forgotten.
Bernard of Clairvaux\'s biography of Malachy makes no mention of the prophecies, nor are they mentioned in any record until they were discovered in the Roman Archives in 1590. This has led to the theory that they are a late 16th century forgery. Those who doubt the prophecy\'s authenticity claim that the prophecy\'s mottos fit the earlier popes much better than they do the popes elected after the document\'s discovery, and that whatever similarities exist between the later popes and their mottos are a product of coincidence and the mottos\' vagueness; that is to say, the later prophecies are susceptible to a confirmation bias. Skeptics argue the prophecies would be much more meaningful if the phrases were to be much more specific about the prophesized attributes... i.e, for the next pope, instead of just \"The Glory of the Olive\", the prophecy should be nailed down ahead of time to mean something to the effect of, \"He will be a layman and a formerly successful olive gardener.\" To the skeptics, such specific wording prevents believers from doing retroactive clairvoyance.
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Interpretation
Interpretation of the mottos has generally relied on finding correspondences between the mottos and the popes\' birthplaces, their personal arms, and the events of their pontificates. For example, the first motto, Ex castro Tiberis (From a castle on the Tiber), fits Pope Celestine II\'s birthplace in Citta di Castello, on the Tiber. Pope Clement XIII, whose used a rose as his personal emblem, is called in the prophecy Rosa Umbriae, the rose of Umbria.
In recent times, some interpreters of prophetic literature have drawn attention to the prophecies, both because of their success in finding correspondences between the prophecies and recent popes, and because of the prophecies\' imminent conclusion. Pope Paul VI, who reigned from 1963 - 1978, is described in the prophecies as Flos florum (flower of flowers). His personal arms bore three fleurs-de-lis. However, this disregards all the other papal arms that had flowers on them as well. His successor, Pope John Paul I, corresponds to the prophetic motto De medietate Lunae (Of the half-moon). He was elected on August 26, 1978, the day after the moon reached its last quarter (Note: the moon at this point was waning, it was not a half moon), and reigned for just over one calendar month (33 days... where a lunar cycle is 28 days). At the death of Pope John Paul I, it was the day before the new moon. The last reigning pontiff, Pope John Paul II, was born on May 18, 1920, the day of a solar eclipse. His prophetic motto is De labore Solis (Of the labor of the sun).
Following John Paul II, only two popes remain in the prophecy. The next motto is Gloria Olivae, the glory of the olive. This motto has led to speculation that the next pontiff will be from the Order of Saint Benedict or will at least choose Benedict as his papal name. Alternatively, less specific interpreters have predicted that the next pope will promote world peace. The self-proclaimed Pope Clemente Dom
