St. Malachy's prophecy, misread?

Vanity | 2012-03-20 | dangus

[dangus]

I hate to encourage any silliness about the prophecy of St. Malachy, which supposedly list every pope from Pope Celestine II (AD 1143). But I just found out that everyone who's been going around citing how Benedict XVI is the last Pope before Petrus Romanus has been following the same wrong translation.

There is no numbering of the popes. Each phrase is simply interpreted as referring to a separate pope. The last several popes are listed as such:

De medietate lunæ.

De labore ſolis.

Gloria oliuæ.

In Psecutione extrema S.R.E. ſedebit.

Petrus Romanus, qui paſcet oues in multis tribulationibus: quibus tranſactis ciuitas ſepticollis diruetur, & Iudex tremẽdus iudicabit populum ſuum.

Finis.

That's 5 popes before "Finis," right?

Except all the end-times nuts count it as 4, conflating "In Psecutione extrema S.R.E. ſedebit." with "Petrus Romanus." Yet, they are listed separately with a period in between.

Nonetheless, despite the indicated sentence break, these two lines are typicall translated without break: "In the extreme [or final] persecution of the SRE [Holy Roman Church], 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 people. The end."

Nonsense. It should be read: "In extreme persecution, the Holy Roman Church will sit." Then the phrase about Peter the Roman. By referring the the Holy Roman Church, it could mean a period without a pope (sede vacante), but then "sit" sorta betrays that notion. It could mean that a long line of popes will extend throughout persistent persecution. Most likely, a Pope, as an embodiment of the Holy Roman Church sits through a persecution. In any event, it does not refer to the reign of Peter the Roman.

[dangus]

side note: Medieval “s” looks a lot like an “f”

[jeffreyinpewaukee]

Note the out of place period following the word “psecutione” and the visions of Pius X: a pope bearing the same name (Giuseppe/Joseph) will walk out of the Vatican stepping over the bodies of dead priests and die a cruel death shortly thereafter. The pope of the same name is Joseph Ratzinger. The out of place period indicates an interruption. Put these together and you get some kind of catastrophic event happening in Benedict XVI’s lifetime which interrupts the papal succession.

“Petrus Romanus” refers to a historical person who will assume the papacy after this interval of vacancy.

[Salvation]

Very interesting and very different from the way St. Malachy’s predictions have been interpreted.

Pondering this.

[steve86]

Regardless of what the prophecies say or don’t say the current pontiff is demonstrably a bad pope.