VIDEO: "Peter the Roman" ready to take over from Pope Francis

Sunday is my day to catch up on my reading on topics religious, especially the parlous state of Holy Mother Church. First on my list today was "Curia Stories: The Comeback of the Cardinal Secretary of State", by noted Vaticanista Sandro Magister, in his blog, Settimo Cielo, 14/1/18. [Kudos to Matthew Sherry, who does the English translation, for coming up with the excellent pun in the headline! Ed.]

The article is about Pietro Cardinal Parolin, the Vatican Secretary of State, or, in political language, the No. 2 man in Rome, after Pope Francis. Of Cardinal Parolin, Sig. Magister writes, "He flies high. So high as to be now the only candidate for succeeding Francis with a serious chance of being elected pope."

If Pope Francis was validly elected -- a matter of considerable debate for many reasons -- he is the 111th pope to have headed the Roman Catholic Church. If he dies or purports to resign, and Cardinal Parolin is chosen to succeed him, he (Parolin) would be No. 112. "Pietro" is Italian for "Peter". And Cardinal Parolin is a Roman. Is he, then, "Peter the Roman"?

"Peter the Roman" is the last pope mentioned in the Prophecy of Saint Malachy (1094-1148), renowned as a great prophet. In 1139, while on his way to the Vatican to assume the post of papal legate for Ireland, he fell into a trance and saw a line of papal reigns stretching from the successor to Innocent II and extending through the centuries to the last of the line, identified as "Peter of Rome" or "Peter the Roman".

When he committed his vision to paper, Saint Malachy assigned short Latin descriptions to each pope. These mottoes usually refer to a family name, birthplace, coat-of-arms, or office held before election to the papacy. Some of the phrases are multiple prophecies, written with ingenious word play. According to his prophecy, John Paul II was No. 110. Benedict XVI is No. 111. The motto given for him is "Glory of the olive". To explain this, those who believe in the Prophecy draw a connection between Benedict and the Olivetan order. Benedict chose his papal name after Saint Benedict of Nursia, founder of the Benedictine Order, of which the Olivetans are one branch.

The next line in the Prophecy is "In persecutione extrema S.R.E. sedebit." which means "In the final persecution of the Holy Roman Church, there will sit." forms a separate sentence and paragraph of its own. While often read as part of the "Peter the Roman" prophecy, some interpreters view it as a separate, incomplete sentence explicitly referring to additional popes between "glory of the olive" and "Peter the Roman". Whether it refers to Benedict or Francis or Peter the Roman, there can be no doubt that Holy Mother Church is today being persecuted as never before. Every year of this century has seen hundreds, even thousands of Catholic Christians imprisoned, tortured and martyred for the Faith.

We come now to the last lines of the Prophecy of Saint Malachy. "Petrus Romanus, qui pascet oues in multis tribulationibus: quibus transactis ciuitas septicollis diruetur, & Iudex tremẽdus iudicabit populum suum. Finis."



Peter the Roman, [who] will pasture his sheep in many tribulations, and when these things are finished, the city of seven hills [Rome] will be destroyed, and the dreadful judge will judge his people. The End.

The final pope, Peter the Roman, will likely be the Antichrist whom students of prophecy have long foretold. Satan, taking the form of a man named Peter, will gain worldwide allegiance and adoration. Even the very elect -- the leaders of the Church and all but a small remnant of the faithful -- will be deceived. And then will come the destruction of Rome, something like the vision attributed to Sister Lucia in what the Vatican alleges is the Third Secret of Fatima. And then will come "the dreadful Judge" who will judge the people. Let us not say we were not warned.

Judgment Day - 19 September 2016 ???

3 portents of the coming Armageddon, published here a week ago, is drawing considerable interest. And why not? End-of-the-world questions and prophecies have been on people's minds and lips since about 90 seconds after Our Lord's Resurrection.

When is Jesus going to return in glory? How much longer will God tolerate the wickedness and perversity of His people? When will be the awful day of judgment? How long do we have to get ready?

These questions were perhaps even more real, more urgent to the people of the mid-14th century than they are to us, six-and-a-half centuries later. The 14th century was a time of terrible turmoil, with people from kings to commoners suffering from the Black Death and constant wars and pillage. The Church was even more corrupt and dissolute than it is today, held captive in "Babylon" (Avignon, France), then torn in the latter part of the century by the Great Schism.

In her monumental work A Distant Mirror: the Calamitous 14th Century (Ballantine, 1978), historian Barbara Tuchman tells us that the people of that time were fascinated and entertained by liturgical plays (such as the Passion Play, which survived in parts of Europe until the end of the 20th century) and "miracle plays and mysteries", whose subject matter was religious, but scripts and presentation more like secular drama.

She goes on to describe "The Day of Judgment" and "The Harrowing of Hell", which may have been performed at the historic entertainment in Paris of Charles IV, the Holy Roman Emperor, by Charles V, King of France. Read carefully her synopsis of these plays of prophecy.

"Apocalypse...was enacted in the Day of Judgment and the Harrowing of Hell, when Christ goes down to lead Adam and the prophets out to Paradise. Anti-Christ appears at his appointed time, traditionally fixed at three and half years before the Last Judgment. Born of Satan's seduction of a woman of Babylon, and instructed in all the demonic arts, he gains such power that kinds and cardinals pay him homage until he is overthrown at Armageddon in the triumph of good over evil. The saved are separated from the damned, and angels empty the vials of wrath." [My emphasis. Walt]

Now let us suppose, just for the sake of the argument, that Pope Francis is the Antichrist, the devil wrapped in a cloak of gentleness and humility. Francis was "inaugurated" -- the Church doesn't "consecrate", "crown" or "enthrone" popes any more -- on 19 March 2013. Add the "traditional" three years and six months and you get 19 September 2016. That's the date. Don't say Walt didn't warn you!

I'll give you that it's hard to see in Pope Francis the "Peter the Roman" named in the prophecy of St. Malachy as the last pope. But hold on. Francis has been rumored for some time to be in poor health. Since being "installed", he has cancelled several audiences and appearances, and the Vatican has press office has denied he is sick, which means he probably is. Suppose he dies? Then all bets are off and we will look for some "Petrine connection" in his successor.

What about "the woman of Babylon"? Ask any evangelical Protestant preacher and he'll tell you the Church of Rome is the "whore of Babylon" spoken of in the 17th and 18th chapters of the Apocalypse of St. John the Divine (or Revelation).
"I will shew thee the condemnation of the great harlot, who sitteth upon many waters (17:1)... on her forehead a name was written: A mystery; Babylon the great, the mother of the fornications, and the abominations of the earth. (17:5)"

The mystery plays speak of "Satan's seduction of a woman of Babylon". Has the devil seduced and perverted the Church of Rome, founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ when He walked among us? Don't take Walt's word for it. Heed the words of Pope Paul VI, who, following Vatican II and towards the end of reign, said publicly that "the smoke of Satan has entered the Church". He knew it full well, having been the pope who held open the window.

So there you have it. 19 September 2016. Walt isn't about to paint a placard saying "The end of the world is nigh" and go stand in front of the cathedral. Not just yet. But neither would I recommend turning a blind eye to the signs and portents.

What I do recommend, if this talk of Judgment Day is making you a bit nervous, is that you read Crucial Truths to Save Your Soul, by Father Nicholas Gruner, reviewed here last month.

The "liquid" message of Pope Francis; will he be the last supreme pontiff?

Even mainstream Catholic theologians are tiring of Pope Francis. His rambling, apparently off-the-cuff speeches tha frequently contradict traditional, even dogmatic Catholic teaching, are leaving them astonished and bewildered. How much more so is it for your average parish priest and us humble laymen ["laypersons", surely! Ed.]

Sandro Magister's studious and highly informed newsletter, Chiesa, brings us today a lengthy commentary -- over 2500 words -- by Professor Pietro De Marco, a teacher at the University of Florence and the Faculty of Theology of Central Italy. Its title is "A 'liquid' message". And to call it critical is the grossest understatement.

Prof. De Marco analyses recent public statements by the Pope -- Sr Magister calls them "encyclicals by interview" -- and points out the flawed reasoning and heresies into which Francis seems to have fallen. Notice I didn't say "unwittingly". Neither does Dr. De Marco. It is his contention that the Pope knows full well the import of what he's saying, when he says things like "Who am I to judge [homosexuals]?" and has fallen into serious error.

Walt and Len said the same thing, albeit not with such eloquence or at such length, back in July. Here's an excerpt from Prof. De Marco's commentary on this point.

No one is exempt, in daily and private conversation among a few, from approximations and distortions, But there is no person who has responsibility in regard to many - who teaches, for example - who will not adopt another register in public and seek to avoid improvisation.

Now, instead, we have a pope who exclaims: “Who am I to judge?" as one can emphatically say at the table or even in preaching spiritual exercises. But before the press and the world a “who am I to judge?” spoken by a pope objectively jars with the entire history and profound nature of the Petrine function, moreover giving the distasteful sensation of an uncontrolled outburst. Because of his function as a vicar with respect to Christ, not as an individual, the pope judges. [Walt's emphasis. Ed.]

The good doctor goes on to excoriate the Pope's slighting references to "religion" -- as if it were something bad or something of the past -- and his reversal of his predecessor's efforts to correct the abuses of the liturgy which are the bitter fruits of Vatican II.

Walt is tempted to reproduce the entire commentary here, for the sake of its comprehensive criticism of the Pope's utterances and the profound damage being done to the Faith. (Dr. De Marco didn't say anything about placing a soccer ball and t-shirt on the altar. Perhaps words failed him as they fail me.) Sadly, constraints of space prevent posting the whole thing here. You can read it on the Chiesa site, or, if you wish, we'll send it to you as a .doc file. Just e-mail your request to Ed. Here's the closing paragraph:

The expressive model chosen by Bergoglio cannot be pushed to the limit of knocking down the ordinary magisterium and making it hardly or not at all obligatory. The powers of a pope do not extend to the very nature of his own "munus," which transcends him and imposes limits on him. I do not approve of the traditionalist extremists, but there is no doubt that tradition is the norm and the power of the successor of Peter.

And a closing thought from Walt... well, actually from Saint Malachy, known as a great prophet. While in Rome in 1139 he received a vision showing him all the Popes from his day to the end of time. According to his prophecies, only two Popes would come after John Paul II.

The 111th prophecy, describing the second-last pope, is "Gloria Olivae" (The Glory of the Olive). The Order of Saint Benedict claimed that this pope would come from their ranks. The 111th pope was, sure enough, Benedict XVI.

St. Malachy refers to the last pope in his vision as "Peter the Roman". It is hard to relate this title to Pope Francis, who was born "Jorge Mario Bergoglio" in Argentina, half a world away from Rome. But that's the maddening thing about prophesies -- it's almost impossible to understand them until after the predicted event occurs.

Anyway, many believe that the final pope will likely be Satan, taking the form of a man who will gain a worldwide allegiance and adoration. Ah yes, a crowd-pleaser, a very "humble" man of the people, deceiving even the elect! He will be the Antichrist which students of prophecy have long awaited.

The 112th prophesy states: "In the final persecution of the Holy Roman Church there will reign Petrus Romanus, who will feed his flock amid many tribulations; after which the seven-hilled city will be destroyed and the dreadful Judge will judge the people. The End."