Pope Francis: Malachy Prophecy: Connection?

 Pope Francis History's Final Pontiff:  Intriguing article from WND.  Worth a read.  SO far however, the connection between the final pope and the new pope Francis is sketchy at best. 

From the WND:

St. Malachy, an Irish saint and the archbishop of Armagh, who lived from 1094 to 1148, described the “final pope” this way: “In the extreme persecution of the Holy Roman Church, there will sit Peter the Roman, who will nourish the sheep in many tribulations; when they are finished, the City of Seven Hills will be destroyed, and the dreadful judge will judge his peopl

His book examines St. Malachy’s “Prophecy of the Popes,” said to be based on a prophetic vision of the 112 popes following Pope Celestine II, who died in 1144.
Malachy’s prophecies, first published in 1595, culminate with the “final pope,” “Petrus Romanus,” or “Peter the Roman,” whose reign ends with the destruction of Rome and the judgment of Christ.

Horn has said a pope of Italian descent would fulfill the prophecy, noting Bergoglio is the son of Italian parents and a Jesuit.

“Being a Jesuit is a very important aspect of our prediction in our book,” Horn told WND in an email.

Citing his book, Horn said the name “Petrus Romanus” in the prophecy “implies this pope will reaffirm the authority of the Roman Pontiff over the Church and will emphasize the supremacy of the Roman Catholic Faith and the Roman Catholic Church above all other religions and denominations, and its authority over all Christians and all peoples of the world.”

Horn pointed out the Jesuits order was organized “to stop Protestantism from spreading and to preserve communion with Rome and the successor of Peter.”
He also sees significance in Bergoglio naming himself after Francis of Assisi, an Italian, or Roman, priest whose original name was Francesco di Pietro (Peter) di Bernardone, “literally, Peter the Roman.”

As WND reported, Horn and his co-author, Cris Putnam, predicted in their book Benedict would step down, making way for history’s “final pope.”

GK on Gay Marriage: It's not Gay or Marriage. Supreme Court rules on Gay Marriage.

The battle for marriage is the pressing issue of the moment.  The Supreme Court has been debating this week the arguments for and against Proposition 8, which amended the CA constitution to define marriage as one man and one woman, and the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which is a federal act prohibiting same sex couples from receiving marriage benefits.


The marriage issue has gone political, as seemingly most important issues are of the day, and the whole question as to whether homosexuality is in fact normal is lost in the bickering of whether the government should be involved with defining marriage, states rights, or some other issue.  An article below summarizing the old English theologian, GK Chesterton's take on the matter puts things into perspective.  A quote from the article below.

But Chesterton's prophecy remains: We will not be able to destroy the family.  We will merely destroy ourselves by disregarding the family.

Homosexuality, Birth Control, Divorce, State-sponsored education: all these issues are related and attack the basic order of the family.  What is right and what is wrong?  Is that not the question we should be asking?  These issues deal with morality and what determines morality, when God is removed from the equation, is whatever we feel like at the moment.  And at the moment, we live in a culture that is forgetting more and more about God and accepting more and more formally abnormal behaviors as normal. 

Thus, the debate becomes superficial and does not really address the underlying important issue.  As GK points out, just because marriage between gays is legalized, this does not mean it is right or normal.  The culture needs to be changed in order for these laws to be changed as the laws on the books really reflect cultures view on morality, ethics, what's right and wrong.  Ones view on morality ultimately depends on how one sees Truth, ones internal compass, view of God and religion, etc.

Many on the right and in the faith try to defend marriage, but have removed themselves from culture and have allowed Hollywood to the Media to define what is normal behavior, thus their voice is being drowned out of the picture. Society has forgotten God over time and has instituted a self-centered morality, with free love, no-fault divorce, and birth control pills removing any need for love or responsibility from sex. 

Sure the court may rule in favor of homosexuality.  But even if they legalize it, that doesn't mean it is right.  The battle for Truth continues.  Faith in God and responsiveness to faith and virtue will need to take place first before we can expect to see change in our laws.  In the meantime, culture continues to become more and more secular and Christian ethics and norms continue to be eroded and replaced with more secular versions of morality.


From the WSJ:  Court Weighs Gay Marriage

Marriage is between a man and a woman.  That is the order.  And the Catholic Church teaches that it is a sacramental order, with divine implications.  The world has made a mockery of marriage that has now culminated with homosexual unions.  But it was heterosexual men and women who paved the way to this decay.  Divorce, which is an abnormal thing, is now treated as normal.  Contraception, another abnormal thing, is now treated as normal.  Abortion is still not normal, but it is legal.  Making homosexual "marriage" legal will not make it normal, but it will add to the confusion of the times.  And it will add to the downward spiral of our civilization.  But Chesterton's prophecy remains: We will not be able to destroy the family.  We will merely destroy ourselves by disregarding the family.

Good read from CatholicEducation

G.K. Chesterton: It's Not Gay, and It's Not Marriage

DALE AHLQUIST

Chesterton was so consistently right in his pronouncements and prophecies because he understood that anything that attacked the family was bad for society.

G.K. Chesterton 1874-1936

One of the pressing issues of Chesterton's time was "birth control."  He not only objected to the idea, he objected to the very term because it meant the opposite of what it said.  It meant no birth and no control.  I can only imagine he would have the same objections about "gay marriage."  The idea is wrong, but so is the name.  It is not gay and it is not marriage.

Chesterton was so consistently right in his pronouncements and prophecies because he understood that anything that attacked the family was bad for society.  That is why he spoke out against eugenics and contraception, against divorce and "free love" (another term he disliked because of its dishonesty), but also against wage slavery and compulsory state-sponsored education and mothers hiring other people to do what mothers were designed to do themselves.  It is safe to say that Chesterton stood up against every trend and fad that plagues us today because every one of those trends and fads undermines the family.  Big Government tries to replace the family's authority, and Big Business tries to replace the family's autonomy.  There is a constant commercial and cultural pressure on father, mother, and child.  They are minimized and marginalized and, yes, mocked.  But as Chesterton says, "This triangle of truisms, of father, mother and child, cannot be destroyed; it can only destroy those civilizations which disregard it."
This latest attack on the family is neither the latest nor the worst. 

But it has a shock value to it, in spite of the process of de-sensitization that the information and entertainment industries have been putting us through the past several years.  Those who have tried to speak out against the normalization of the abnormal have been met with "either slanging or silence," as Chesterton was when he attempted to argue against the faddish philosophies that were promoted by the major newspapers in his day.  In 1926, he warned, "The next great heresy will be an attack on morality, especially sexual morality."  His warning has gone unheeded, and sexual morality has decayed progressively.  But let us remember that it began with birth control, which is an attempt to create sex for sex's sake, changing the act of love into an act of selfishness.  The promotion and acceptance of lifeless, barren, selfish sex has logically progressed to homosexuality.

Chesterton shows that the problem of homosexuality as an enemy of civilization is quite old.  In The Everlasting Man, he describes the nature-worship and "mere mythology" that produced a perversion among the Greeks.  "Just as they became unnatural by worshipping nature, so they actually became unmanly by worshipping man."  Any young man, he says, "who has the luck to grow up sane and simple" is naturally repulsed by homosexuality because "it is not true to human nature or to common sense."  He argues that if we attempt to act indifferent about it, we are fooling ourselves.  It is "the illusion of familiarity," when "a perversion become[s] a convention."

In Heretics, Chesterton almost makes a prophecy of the misuse of the word "gay."  He writes of "the very powerful and very desolate philosophy of Oscar Wilde.  It is the carpe diem religion."  Carpe diem means "seize the day," do whatever you want and don't think about the consequences, live only for the moment.  "But the carpe diem religion is not the religion of happy people, but of very unhappy people."  There is a hopelessness as well as a haplessness to it.  When sex is only a momentary pleasure, when it offers nothing beyond itself, it brings no fulfillment.  It is literally lifeless.  And as Chesterton writes in his book St. Francis of Assisi, the minute sex ceases to be a servant, it becomes a tyrant.  This is perhaps the most profound analysis of the problem of homosexuals: they are slaves to sex.  They are trying to "pervert the future and unmake the past."  They need to be set free.

Chesterton points out that balance that our truth must not be pitiless, but neither can our pity be untruthful.

Sin has consequences.  Yet Chesterton always maintains that we must condemn the sin and not the sinner.  And no one shows more compassion for the fallen than G.K. Chesterton.  Of Oscar Wilde, whom he calls "the Chief of the Decadents," he says that Wilde committed "a monstrous wrong" but also suffered monstrously for it, going to an awful prison, where he was forgotten by all the people who had earlier toasted his cavalier rebelliousness.  "His was a complete life, in that awful sense in which your life and mine are incomplete; since we have not yet paid for our sins.  In that sense one might call it a perfect life, as one speaks of a perfect equation; it cancels out.  On the one hand we have the healthy horror of the evil; on the other the healthy horror of the punishment."

Chesterton referred to Wilde's homosexual behavior as a "highly civilized" sin, something that was a worse affliction among the wealthy and cultured classes.  It was a sin that was never a temptation for Chesterton, and he says that it is no great virtue for us never to commit a sin for which we are not tempted.  That is another reason we must treat our homosexual brothers and sisters with compassion.  We know our own sins and weaknesses well enough.  Philo of Alexandria said, "Be kind.  Everyone you meet is fighting a terrible battle."  But compassion must never compromise with evil.  Chesterton points out that balance that our truth must not be pitiless, but neither can our pity be untruthful.  Homosexuality is a disorder.  It is contrary to order.  Homosexual acts are sinful, that is, they are contrary to God's order.  They can never be normal.  And worse yet, they can never even be even.  As Chesterton's great detective Father Brown says:  "Men may keep a sort of level of good, but no man has ever been able to keep on one level of evil.  That road goes down and down."

Marriage is between a man and a woman.  That is the order.  And the Catholic Church teaches that it is a sacramental order, with divine implications.  The world has made a mockery of marriage that has now culminated with homosexual unions.  But it was heterosexual men and women who paved the way to this decay.  Divorce, which is an abnormal thing, is now treated as normal.  Contraception, another abnormal thing, is now treated as normal.  Abortion is still not normal, but it is legal.  Making homosexual "marriage" legal will not make it normal, but it will add to the confusion of the times.  And it will add to the downward spiral of our civilization.  But Chesterton's prophecy remains: We will not be able to destroy the family.  We will merely destroy ourselves by disregarding the family.

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Jorge Bergoglio and Malachy Pope Prophecy

It's official.  White smoke and a new pope. The race now to determine how Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina fits into the St. Malachy pope prediction now begins.   More questions than answers right now....

The prophecy can best be summarized as follows:  St. Malachy was visiting Rome in 1139 when he went into a trance and received a vision. Malachy wrote down this extraordinary vision in which he claims to have foreseen all of the popes from the death of Innocent II until the destruction of the church and the return of Christ.  St. Malachy wrote briefly, in Latin, on each succeeding pope of the future, and then gave the document to Pope Innocent II, who had it placed in Vatican archives where it remained for several centuries. It was rediscovered in 1590 and published.

Here is the official wordage of the final prophecy:

In the final persecution of the Holy Roman Church there will reign Peter the Roman, who will feed his flock among many tribulations; after which the seven-hilled city (Rome, the seat of the Vatican) will be destroyed and the dreadful Judge will judge the people. THE END.

Questions:

• He's not from Rome, but Argentina
• He also took the Francis Papal name, not sure how this connects
• He's 76. Speaks spanish, italian, german.  
• First Jesuit pope. 

 Answers:

Not a whole lot.  Here's one hilarious attempt.


Argentina. From the Latin Argentum -- "silver".
Silver is a metal, dug out of rocky mines.
Malachy said that the last Pope would be Peter.
Peter comes from the Latin Petrus -- "rock"
Rock in a mineral.
The man from Argentina is the man from minerals/rocks.

An ongoing blog can be found here at the freerepublic regarding the discussion of what this all means........

Argentine Jorge Bergoglio elected Pope Francis

VATICAN CITY (AP) -- Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina was elected pope Wednesday, becoming the first pontiff from the Americas and the first from outside Europe in more than a millennium. He chose the name Francis, associating himself with the humble 13th-century Italian preacher who lived a life of poverty.

Looking stunned, Francis shyly waved to the crowd of tens of thousands of people who gathered in St. Peter's Square for the announcement, marveling that the cardinals needed to look to "the end of the earth" to find a bishop of Rome.

In choosing a 76-year-old pope, the cardinals clearly decided that they didn't need a vigorous, young pope who would reign for decades but rather a seasoned, popular and humble pastor who would draw followers to the faith. The cardinal electors overcame deep divisions to select the 266th pontiff in a remarkably fast, five-ballot conclave.

Francis asked for prayers for himself, and for retired Pope Benedict XVI, whose surprising resignation paved the way for the conclave that brought the first Jesuit to the papacy. Francis also spoke by phone with Benedict after his election and plans to see him in the coming days, the Vatican said.

"Brothers and sisters, good evening," Francis said to wild cheers in his first public remarks as pontiff from the loggia of St. Peter's Basilica.

"You know that the work of the conclave is to give a bishop to Rome. It seems as if my brother cardinals went to find him from the end of the earth, but here we are. Thank you for the welcome," he said.

Across the planet, Latin Americans burst into tears and jubilation at news that the region, which counts 40 percent of the world's Catholics, finally had a pope to call its own.

"It's a huge gift for all of Latin America. We waited 20 centuries. It was worth the wait," said Jose Antonio Cruz, a Franciscan friar at the St. Francis of Assisi church in the colonial Old San Juan district in Puerto Rico.

Bergoglio had reportedly finished second in the 2005 conclave that produced Benedict - who last month became the first pope to resign in 600 years. The speed with which he was elected pope this time around indicates that - even though he is 76 and has slowed down - he still had the trust of cardinals to do the job.

After announcing `'Habemus Papam" - `'We have a pope!" - a cardinal standing on the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica on Wednesday revealed the identity of the new pontiff, using his Latin name, and announced he would be called Francis.

The longtime archbishop of Buenos Aires is the son of middle-class Italian immigrants and is known as a humble man who denied himself the luxuries that previous Buenos Aires cardinals enjoyed.

He often rode the bus to work, cooked his own meals and regularly visited the slums that ring Argentina's capital. He considers social outreach, rather than doctrinal battles, to be the essential business of the church.

Catholics are still buzzing over his speech last year accusing fellow church officials of hypocrisy for forgetting that Jesus Christ bathed lepers and ate with prostitutes.

Bergoglio has slowed a bit with age and is feeling the effects of having a lung removed due to infection when he was a teenager.

In a lifetime of teaching and leading priests in Latin America, which has the largest share of the world's Catholics, Bergoglio has also shown a keen political sensibility as well as the kind of self-effacing humility that fellow cardinals value highly, according to his official biographer, Sergio Rubin.

He showed that humility on Wednesday, saying that before he blessed the crowd he wanted their prayers for him and then he bowed his head amid the silence from the crowd.

"Good night, and have a good rest," he said before going back into the palace.

In choosing to call himself Francis, the new pope was associating himself with the much-loved Italian saint associated with peace, poverty and simplicity. St. Francis was born to a wealthy family but later renounced his wealth and founded the Franciscan order of friars; he wandered about the countryside preaching to the people in very simple language.

He was so famed for his sanctity that he was canonized just two years after his death in 1226.

Francis will celebrate his first Mass as pope in the Sistine Chapel on Thursday, and will be installed officially as pope on Tuesday, according to the Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi.

Lombardi, also a Jesuit, said he was particularly stunned by the election given that Jesuits typically shun positions of authority in the church, instead offering their work in service to those in power.

But Lombardi said that in accepting the election, Francis must have felt it "a strong call to service," an antidote to all those who speculated that the papacy was about a search for power.

Tens of thousands of people who braved cold rain to watch the smokestack atop the Sistine Chapel jumped in joy when white smoke poured out a few minutes past 7 p.m., many shouting "Habemus Papam!" or "We have a pope!" - as the bells of St. Peter's Basilica and churches across Rome pealed.

They cheered again when the doors to the loggia opened, and again when Bergoglio's name was announced.

"I can't explain how happy I am right now," said Ben Canete, a 32-year-old Filipino, jumping up and down in excitement.

Elected on the fifth ballot, Francis was chosen in one of the fastest conclaves in years, remarkable given there was no clear front-runner going into the vote and that the church had been in turmoil following the upheaval unleashed by Benedict's surprise resignation.

A winner must receive 77 votes, or two-thirds of the 115, to be named pope.

For comparison's sake, Benedict was elected on the fourth ballot in 2005 - but he was the clear front-runner going into the vote. Pope John Paul II was elected on the eighth ballot in 1978 to become the first non-Italian pope in 455 years.

Patrizia Rizzo ran down the main boulevard to the piazza with her two children as soon as she heard the news on the car radio. "I parked the car ... and dashed to the square, she said. "It's so exciting, as Romans we had to come."

Bergoglio's legacy as cardinal includes his efforts to repair the reputation of a church that lost many followers by failing to openly challenge Argentina's murderous 1976-83 dictatorship.

Many Argentines remain angry over the church's acknowledged failure to openly confront a regime that was kidnapping and killing thousands of people as it sought to eliminate "subversive elements" in society. It's one reason why more than two-thirds of Argentines describe themselves as Catholic, but fewer than 10 percent regularly attend mass.

Under Bergoglio's leadership, Argentina's bishops issued a collective apology in October 2012 for the church's failures to protect its flock. But the statement blamed the era's violence in roughly equal measure on both the junta and its enemies.

"Bergoglio has been very critical of human rights violations during the dictatorship, but he has always also criticized the leftist guerrillas; he doesn't forget that side," Rubin said.

Unlike the confusion that reigned during the 2005 conclave, the smoke this time around has been clear: black during the first two rounds of burned ballots, and then a clear white on Wednesday night - thanks to special smoke flares akin to those used in soccer matches or protests that were lit in the chapel ovens.

The Vatican on Wednesday divulged the secret recipe used: potassium perchlorate, anthracene, which is a derivative of coal tar, and sulfur for the black smoke; potassium chlorate, lactose and a pine resin for the white smoke.

The chemicals are contained in five units of a cartridge that is placed inside the stove of the Sistine Chapel. When activated, the five blocks ignite one after another for about a minute apiece, creating the steady stream of smoke that accompanies the natural smoke from the burned ballot papers.

Despite the great plumes of smoke that poured out of the chimney, neither the Sistine frescoes nor the cardinals inside the chapel suffered any smoke damage, Lombardi said.

From St. Malachy's Pope Predictions

111 popes prophetically predicted in succession. What are the odds that one man predicted them all correctly in succession? This man's vision was not serendipitous fantasy, but Spirit inspired revelation.

St. Malachy was a Catholic Archbishop of the 12th century who wrote a startling accurate list of every pope until the end of time. St. Malachy was a bishop who lived in Ireland and on a trip in Rome in 1139 AD he was struck by a vision of the future. In it the long list of illustrious pontiffs who were to rule the Church until the end of time were revealed. His writings of each pope were succinct, spelled out in latin, and written in symbolic representation.

Many of these prophecies are considered to be way too precise to be mere coincidence. Look at these examples: (The prophecy's English translation in parenthesis)

1. Religion Laid Waste (Religio Depopulata). BENEDICT XV. 1914-1922.
During this Pope's reign we saw Communism move into Russia where religious life was laid waste, and World War I with the death of millions of Christians who were carnage in Flanders Field and elsewhere.
2. Pastor Et Nautam (Pastor & Sailor) John XXIII. 28 Oct.1958 – 3 June 1963.
Before becoming Pope in 1958 he was the patriarch of Venice--a marine city.
3. De Laboris Solis (The Sun's Eclipse, the sun's labor) 1978 - 2 April 2005. Amazingly, Pope John Paul II was the only pope who was both born the day of an eclipse of the sun, and entombed the day the sun was eclipsed.

The final pope on the list. 111th: Gloria Olivae. (From the Glory of the Olives) This is the current pope, Benedict XVI

Then, after short latin prophetic sayings throughout his prophecies, he utters an ominous closing latin phrase.

In the final persecution of the Holy Roman Church there will reign Peter the Roman, who will feed his flock among many tribulations; after which the seven-hilled city (Rome, the seat of the Vatican) will be destroyed and the dreadful Judge will judge the people. THE END.

Is it mere coincidence that prophesies from multiple sources: the Bible, Mayans, Nostradamus, and even St. Malachy are all coming together at the same time?

LINKS:
A whole list of the incredible Prophecies about the last 10 popes can be found at this site.
Other good sites include: St Malachy's Prophecy of the Pope and the Last Pope.

"For I know that the Lord is great and our Lord is above all gods. Whatever the Lord pleases He does, in heaven and in earth. In the seas and in all deep places He causes the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth; He makes lightning for the rain; He brings the wind out of His treasuries." Psalm 135: 5-7.