Now that Pope Francis has gone to face his reckoning, the international prophecy rumor mill is kicking into high gear. The main text they have to work with is St. Malachy’s much-disputed Prophecies of the Popes. Most interpreters who go for that sort of thing generally agree that Pope Benedict XVI was number 111 on Malachy’s list of 112. But nobody can agree whether Francis was actually 112, “Petrus Romanus — “Peter the Roman”, the last pope before Rome is destroyed and the world is judged, or if there could there could be others sandwiched in between. (And it must be said that any and all of the prophets’ universal failure to reference the resignation of Benedict, probably the most momentous act of his reign, casts them all into doubt.)
Thousand-year-old prophecy predicts next Pope after Francis dies… and issues a chilling warning for humanity
People have put in considerable effort trying to make an Argentinian named “Jorge” into “Peter the Roman”, but without much success. Some think the prophecies, first published in 1595, mention a halfway point in its span of predictions taking place in 1585, which would mean that the end will come in 2027.
Nostradamus’s eerie 16th century prediction about the Pope makes stark warning as 88-year-old Pontiff dies
And of course, a quatrain was found in Nostradamus which seemed to criticize Francis as a “do nothing” pontiff:
Through the death of a very old Pontiff
A Roman of good age will be elected
Of him it will be said that he weakens his seat
But long will he sit and in mordant activity.
Nostradamus also supposedly hinted at details of Francis’ successor, writing, ‘A young man of dark skin with the help of the great king will deliver the purse to another of red color.’ Which makes it sound like the Catholic Church will again reach out beyond Europe, and hints at lack of reform. Some think this refers to Cardinal Robert Sarah of Guinea, a current front runner. But at 79, he can hardly be called “young” even by papal standards.
Anyway, this is all minor. The French seer is believed to have thought that after Francis there would be a great change in the religious structure of the world that would lead to the end of an era (disclosure, perhaps?) And Nostradamus is said to have predicted other disasters in 2025, including plague, a European war, and most worrying, a fireball from outer space to devastate the planet next year.
Fear over Baba Vanga’s prophecy after Pope Francis’ death: a change in the world’s religious structures and the end of an era
The forecasts of Baba Vanga, another perennially popular favorite doomsayer from Bulgaria, have also been consulted. She is said to have predicted the pope’s death during a global crisis caused by natural disasters, including climate change and African famine. Oh, and that contact with extraterrestrials would happen along with important advances in medicine and technology.
It will be interesting to see what happens, to say the least. As for the next pontiff, Francis had plenty of time and opportunity to game the conclave, putting in 180 of the 350 current electors. But cardinals are such consummate politicians that one can never be sure what one will actually do until he’s given the opportunity — Francis himself defied most expectations to the despair of many. This is why the Italians have a saying, “Nobody is as dead as a dead pope”.
The most important thing to watch for is the length of the conclave. The longer it lasts, the greater the internal disputes are and the more intransigent the positions. The reason for the conclave is that one papal election went on for nearly 3 years — so long the cardinals’ rations were ultimately reduced to bread and water and officials had the roof torn off the building to speed their deliberations. That’s why they’re all locked into one room with no outside access until the job’s done.
But it’s all up to the princes of the Church — and the unpredictable humor of the Holy Spirit. And probably not even the Spirit knows what tricks they may have up their sleeves.
