Pope Francis’ death ‘could fulfil Saint’s 900-year-old prophecy’ – and spark armageddon

A 900-year-old prophecy could be fulfilled if Pope Francis’ health deteriorates further and spark armageddon, according to an 900-year-old prophecy

The current pope is currently in after being admitted to Rome’s Gemelli Hospital on February 14. He is being treated for double pneumonia and chronic bronchitis.

And while Catholics across the world are praying for his good health, one chilling conspiracy theory suggests everyone on the planet could be concerned.

It stems from an apocryphal book called Prophecy of the Popes, written in 1139 by St Malachy. During his trip to Rome, he claimed that he received a vision of the future, including the name of every pope from that moment until the end of days, which became the basis of the ancient text.

In it, he shared details of 109 future popes, and of the last one, he wrote: “In the final persecution of the Holy Roman Church there will reign Peter the Roman, 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.” And who is the 109th pope since St Malachy’s book? Pope Francis.

The Irish holyman’s predictions have proved to be eerily accurate – but author claims there is room for interpretation. He has spent years investigating the secrets and conspiracies of the Catholic church. In one of his books, The Last Pope, Howells delves deeply into St. Malachy’s prophetic visions, and explores the theory that the current head of the Catholic church will witness its downfall.

He told the Express: “Malachy wrote the prophecies, supposedly in the 12th century, and he gave them to Pope Innocent in 1139. He listed 109 remaining Popes, and it ends with the last one – and it’s the only one who has more than one line of description.”

There has been much debate about the authenticity of the Prophecy of the Popes, which was “lost” in the Vatican archives until 1559. Furthermore, scholars have questioned whether the final pope’s extended description was added in when the book was published as it is the only one which is longer than two words.

But Howells argues that there are some predictions which can’t be shrugged off merely as coincidence, or because the church, influenced by the book, had purposefully positioned their Papal candidates to tie in with St. Malachy’s visions.

In his research, Howells discovered evidence that some popes tried to emulate what was ‘foresaw’ about them, including “Cardinal Spellman who took a boat full of sheep down the Tiber in 1958 to try to fit the prophecy of ‘shepherd and mariner’” – but it is a pope from a century ago who gives real weight to the predictions.

“Pope Benedict XV had this little phrase assigned to him by Malachy, which was ‘religion depopulated’,” said Howells. “Now during his reign, from 1914 to 1922, there was the First World War, which killed 20 million people, the 1918 pandemic of Spanish flu, which ravaged Europe, and the Bolshevik Revolution, which declared atheism across .

“If you were going to sum up that Pope from 1914 to 1922, ‘religion depopulated’ is perfect. It’s absolutely what happened. Similarly, with Pope John Paul II in 1978, who’s described as a ‘shining star’, his coat of arms was a shining star, a shooting star.

“They both came after the publication of The Prophecy of the Popes, and while John Paul could have chosen that banner, you don’t have that argument with Benedict XV. All across Europe, Catholicism was depopulated massively from Spanish Flu, , and the Bolshevik Revolution. It decimated religion, especially the Catholic religion, but religion in general across Europe. So that one’s a really interesting one, because that’s outside of the influence [of the Vatican].”

The Vatican holds a strict “no authentication of prophecies” policy, which means that they will neither confirm nor deny the accuracy of St. Malachy’s visions.

Regardless of the Vatican’s standpoint on prophetic predictions and the authenticity of St. Malachy’s writing – which many theological scholars have dismissed as a medieval forgery – it doesn’t change the fact that Pope Francis is the 109th pope to be appointed since the book’s initial creation.

However, Howells is open-minded about how St. Malachy’s final, unsettling, vision could play out, listing “comet, earthquake or war” as possible triggers for the destruction of Rome and the extinction of humanity. There may also be a less violent possibility, a symbolic representation of the loosening of the Catholic church’s grip on society, partially fuelled by a global loss of faith and a decrease in the amount of men joining the priesthood.

He continued: “It says, ‘In the final persecution of the Holy Roman Church there will reign Peter the Roman, 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.’

“In the apocalypse of St. John the formidable judge, the only judge that’s really mentioned is Jesus who returns to judge and preside over the apocalypse. The prediction doesn’t say if Peter the Roman will still be alive or dead, or will be around at the time of this kind of event.

“It’s interesting that there is a final persecution, there is Peter the Roman, these tribulations, the judgements and then it says ‘when these things are finished the city of the seven hills will be destroyed’. That’s kind of implying that Rome will be affected by war or something? Or it could be an earthquake, or a comet, which was a familiar prediction in the time Malachy is meant to have written the book.”

Reassuringly, Howells doesn’t seem too worried about Malachy’s vision of an impending extinction level event. He said: “Technically the destruction could be a thousand years from now. It could just be saying that this is the last Pope that’s on the list. It doesn’t necessarily link the two. It might just be symbolic.

“There is another prophecy about the Pope leaving the Vatican as it collapses, like there’s some physical destruction. But Malachy’s doesn’t really have that in its most basic form. It just talks about the final persecution.

“It’ll be interesting to see what comes next. What will happen after the current Pope dies? Presumably, they’ll just go to conclave and choose another.”

Robert Howells’ The Last Pope is available to .