Prophecy of St Malachy, Against TektonTV, Part I

Prophecy of St Malachy, Against TektonTV, Part I · Prophecy of St Malachy, etc, Part II

J. P. Holding, of the protestant self described "ministry" Tekton TV, which is a youtube channel (as a Catholic, I am also an Apologist, but I don't dare describe it as a "ministry"!), is sometimes doing some good stuff. Yesterday, I saw some of his less good stuff, when he considers the alarm about end times in connection with St Malachy's prophecy as "quackery".

He went through ten Popes, I'll go a bit further back. He criticised some descriptions by St Malachy as unfulfilled, as fulfilled no better than next or previous Pope, as vague. Here we will go through an extension of his list:

252 Pius VI (1775-1799) 96 Peregrinus Apostolicus

Apostolic Pilgrim - or Apostolic stranger. As an "Apostle" - i e Pope - he was taken to where he was a stranger, by Napoleon Buonaparte taking him captive.

253 Pius VII (1800-1823) 97 Aquila rapax

Rapacious eagle is a good description of Napoleon. Few would deny he was rapacious, and as he claimed the title Emperor, he carried the Roman Eagle. Pius VII - whom some Catholics have counted as an Antipope - made peace with him, the so called Concordate.

So, his papacy started "under the auspices of" a rapacious eagle, the same which had carried his predecessor into places where he was a peregrinus. Hey, this starts to sound like the inspiration for Gwaihir taking Gandalf in his claws ... Tolkien of course knew this fairly well, at some point. And it can have simmered in his imagination for some time.

Note that while Pius VI could also have been considered as a reasonable fulfilment of Aquila Rapax, obviously, since Pius VII stayed in Rome on good terms with Napoleon (too good terms for the taste of some Catholics) could not have been a fulfilment of the peregrinus part of his predecessor.

No successor of Pius VII could have been considered as fulfilling Aquila rapax up to those confronting Hitler, so far. Lenin was rapax, but in his case Hammer and Sickle replaced Russian Eagle. Savoy was rapax enough, but its ensigns is a Cross, not an eagle.

No predecessor of either for quite a long time back could have fitted Aquila rapax (you might want to consider Sacco di Roma by a German Emperor, Charles V. (The Pope in question also same year suffered Swedish Reformation leading to some more sacking : #221 Clement VII (1523-1534) #65 Flos pilæi ægri, flower of ... sorry, this one is beyond my Latin skills), and I don't know many peregrini either, except if some hade made pilgrimages before papacy, which would have meant they were not yet apostolic while being pilgrims, no longer actively on pilgrimage once apostolic. No successor of Pius VI could have been considered as pilgrim up to recent very travel happy Popes or Antipopes starting with "John Paul II".

254 Leo XII (1823-1829) 98 Canis et coluber

Dog and snake ... His condemnations of Freemasonry (with Carbonarism) and of Protestantism make him a watchdog biting these snakes. I can imagine Tom Horn having some problem with that ...

This would of course fit more than one Pope in the following, up to St Pius X, but he could be seen as initiating the list. He also took this as the theme of his first encyclical, hence its name, Ubi Primum, as soon as. Here are some other words from it:

11. Who can reflect without weeping on the fierce and mighty conflicts which have raged in Our times and continue to rage almost daily against the Catholic religion? Listen to St. Jerome: “It is no small spark, no small spark, l say, which is scarcely seen in being observed; it is not a little leaven which is obviously a small thing. It is rather a flame which attempts to devastate almost the entire world and to burn up walls, cities, broad pastures and districts; and a leaven which mixes with the flour and tries to destroy its whole substance.”[8] With this reason for fear, We would lose all heart for Our apostolic service were it not that the Guardian of Israel does not slumber or sleep, and says to His disciples: “Behold I am with you all days even to the end of the world,” and condescends to be shepherd of shepherds as well as guardian of the sheep.[9]

12. But at what are these remarks aimed? A certain sect, which you surely know, has unjustly arrogated to itself the name of philosophy, and has aroused from the ashes the disorderly ranks of practically every error. Under the gentle appearance of piety and liberality this sect professes what they call tolerance or indifferentism. It preaches that not only in civil affairs, which is not Our concern here, but also in religion, God has given every individual a wide freedom to embrace and adopt without danger to his salvation whatever sect or opinion appeals to him on the basis of his private judgement. The apostle Paul warns us against the impiety of these madmen. “I beseech you, brethren, to behold those who create dissensions and scandals beyond the teaching which you have learned. Keep away from such men. They do not serve Christ Our Lord but their own belly, and by sweet speeches and blessings they seduce the hearts of the innocent.”[10]

Ubi Primum
On His Assuming the Pontificate
Pope Leo XII - May 5, 1824
http://www.papalencyclicals.net/leo12/l12ubipr.htm

Whether he wanted to show watchdog mentality to fulfil the prophecy or not, he sure has this watchdog mentality and in his book it is the masonic sect which stands for the serpent.

By contrast, Pius VI was more concerned with condemning Catholics who were wayward about Catholic matters, like the Pistoia Synod (in which some have seen a prequel to Vatican II) or the French Oathtaking Clergy, who took oaths on a constitution of the Church very similar to that of Chinese patriotic Catholics - a national constitution incompatible with Catholic teaching. Napoleon had to rescind that in order to get peace with Pius VII - whose early steps as a Pontiff were of course about this Napoleonic Wars thing. Neither of them would have fitted the Canis et coluber as much as he did.

255 Pius VIII (1829-1830) 99 Vir religiosus

This one fits very many Popes. It is a little non-descript. Well, the papacy of Pius VIII is also a little non-descript, because it is very short. He had no time to make a real impact - but since he is following in the footsteps of his predecessor, he is religiously obedient to the example of him. The two encyclicals are reiterating a theme from the Canis et coluber papacy.

If he reflected in the papal motto given by St Malachy, he would have said perhaps he didn't need to do very much to fulfil it - and he didn't do very much, in a way not quite foreseeable.

256 Gregory XVI (1831-1846) 100 De balneis hetruriæ

(bath of Etruria)

Hist.: prior to his election he was member of an order founded by Saint Romuald, at Balneo, in Etruria, present day Toscany.

So, the election of a Camaldulensian to cardinal by some previous pope, and the election of this cardinal at this conclave could have been there to fulfil the prophecy. But it certainly didn't contradict it.

257 Pius IX (1846-1878) 101 Crux de cruce

(Cross of Crosses - mistranslated, no plural!)

Hist.:Pius XI was the last Pope to reign over the Papal States (the middle third of what is today Italy). He ended up being a prisoner of the Vatican, never venturing outside Vatican City. A much heavier burden than his predecessors.

What the history doesn't mention, which clinches it, is that this came from the house of Savoy, who have a cross on their escutcheon, since centuries earlier : so his cross came from a cross, that of Savoy.

258 Leo XIII (1878-1903) 102 Lumen in cælo

(Light in the Heavens)

Hist.: Leo XIII wrote encyclicals on Catholic social teaching that were still being digested 100 years later. He added considerably to theology.

I disagree on last sentence of "Hist."

He didn't add to revelation what wasn't there. I'll be back on that one, but now more on the words, commented on in TektonTV video:

There was the comet during his reign in 1882:

Greatest Comet of the 19th Century: The Great September Comet of 1882
https://www.space.com/24069-greatest-comets-of-past-centuries.html

This comet is perhaps the brightest comet that has ever been seen and was a gigantic member of the Kreutz Sungrazing Group of Comets. First spotted as a bright zero-magnitude object by a group of Italian sailors in the Southern Hemisphere on Sept. 1, this comet brightened dramatically as it approached its rendezvous with the sun.

By Sept. 14, it became visible in broad daylight, and when it arrived at perihelion on Dec. 17, it passed at a distance of only 264,000 miles (4

25,000 km) from the sun's surface. On that day, some observers described the comet's silvery radiance as scarcely fainter than the limb of the Sun, suggesting a magnitude somewhere between -15 and -20 (the latter magnitude would register nearly 1,000 times brighter than the full moon!). The following day, observers in Cordoba, Argentina, described the comet as a "blazing star" near the sun.

The nucleus also broke into at least four separate parts. In the days and weeks that followed, the comet became visible in the morning sky as an immense object sporting a brilliant tail. Today, some comet historians consider it a "Super Comet," far above the run of even great comets. [See Amazing Stargazer Photos of Comets from 2013]

In 1590 it was impossible to foresee that Pope 102 on St Malachy's list would have a brighter comet than the Popes 97 - 101. And actually possibly even than predecessors back to pope 93 Animal rurale (ruling in 1744, during the- whose own theology was not really a comet. He was a humdrum Pope). A list of 9 brightest comets ever lists 1744, 1843 (Gregory XVI) and 1882, which was brighter than that of 1843.

Perhaps these comets show some of the value of the theology of the Popes : Now, Gregory XVI condemned slave hunt, enslaving free men (Catholic bishops in Southron states assured he did not mean to condemn keeping slaves already such), if these men have committed no crimes, for reasons like skin colour or so. Leo XIII condemned the Industrial Capitalism. Saying that the conditions of poor workers were even worse than those of slaves.

He also tried to re-enact Scholastic theology, and arguably failed. Neo-Thomism which sees his reign as a starting point, is simply not the same thing as Thomism. He recommended studying carefully St Thomas Aquinas and not omitting to study St Bonaventura and John Duns Scotus. This came in a century where theology had the habit of proving God by Idealism - a most perfect concept from which no perfection is lacking is of course more really such if not lacking the perfection of actual existence, but the fact that it can be thought doesn't prove it is a concept of sth actually existing - or exhort to accepting God by Pascal's wager (not bad in some pastoral cases, but insufficient as a general proof for studies). St Thomas' first way involved movement, including that of place (the one he actually thought most noble, the one which is also most visible) as visible indicator of a first mover. He meant at least the daily movement of the Heavens - around Earth.

In Providentissimus Deus, he never actually mentions the heliocentric verses geocentric controversy by name. But he gives what is in some ways and for some Bible passages, a kind of back door to taking them as phenomenal language. Only, he gives a quote - already quoted by St Thomas - about the phenomenal language, according to some Church Father, which left out the crystalline spheres of Aristotelic astronomy, and ... well, the leaving out of Aristotelic spheres was of course phenomenally correct, but according to modern astronomers it was also correct as to physical fact behind the appearances. This is the quote in which he says such and such - in the case of leaving out crystalline spheres I think it was Moses in Genesis 1 - describes what appears to the senses, in which there is no falsehood. Well, if heliocentrism is true, there is actually daily falsehood in our sense of seeing, since we are each day seeing the inverse of what actually happens.

This great opportunity has by and large been missed. For Thomas' real positions, Leo XIII was a light in the sky, but as fleeting as the comet.

259 St. Pius X (1903-1914) 103 Ignis ardens

(ardent fire)

Hist.: The Pope had great personal piety and achieved a number of important reforms in the devotional and liturgical life of priests and laypeople.

In other words, he made daily Communion and communion at an early age accessible. Before his time, you usually got confirmed at 12 (perhaps 14 for boys) and went to Communion after that, and if very pious, perhaps once a month. He deemed, if you can already discern Communion from the bread which satisfies the stomach, if you know it is Our Lord, you can go to Communion (if you fulfil the other conditions). Since St Maria Goretti had achieved great holiness from the five Communions she had received before 12 - she was martyred before her 12th birthday - this may have contributed to his decision.

He personally gave communion to a four year old boy whose mother had taken him to the Pope, after he had found the boy knew the difference.

He was also an ardent fire in another way. You condemn a heretical book, in earlier centuries than his, you burn it publically, whether it is a bad translation of the Bible or a book against the Bible. You condemn a heretic who refuses to recant, in some of the centuries prior than his, you burn him.

His condemnation of certain modern errors makes him a great and well remembered proponent of the Canis at Coluber line. Arguably greater than any successor in the line leading up to and in the ensuing line of modern Antipopes.

He is the man who banned Alfred Loisy. Here is some of his history, in wiki:

In 1902, he started to pay attention to Adolf von Harnack's Das Wesen des Christentum. Harnack believed that the essence of Christianity was the relationship between individual and God, making an organized church a largely unnecessary creation. Loisy disagreed with the idea that the organized church was unnecessary, but the nature of his disagreement brought him controversy. From 1901 to 1903 he wrote several works that would be condemned by the Church. These include La Religion d'Israël, Études évangéliques, L'Évangile et L'Église, Autour d'un petit livre, and Le quatrième Évangile. His 1908 Les Évangiles Synoptiques would cause his excommunication. In his works he argued against Harnack, trying to show that it was necessary and inevitable for the Catholic Church to form as it did. He also argued that God intended this and compared his own ideas on this to those of Cardinal Newman. Although L'Évangile et L'Église in particular was condemned by Cardinal Richard, Pope Leo consistently refused to interfere directly.[6] It was his successor, Pope Pius X who would later condemn these works.

...

Cardinal Sarto became Pope Pius X on 4 August 1903. On 1 October, Loisy published three new books, Autour d'un petit livre, Le Quatrième Évangile and Le Discours sur la Montagne (a fragment of a proposed enlarged commentary on the Synoptic Gospels). Autour consists of seven letters on different topics addressed to church leaders and friends. On 23 December the pope ordered the publication of a decree of the Index of prohibited books, incorporating a decree of the Inquisition, condemning Loisy's Religion d'Israël, L'Évangile et l'Église, Études évangéliques, Autour d'un petit livre and Le Quatrième Évangile. On 12 January 1904 Loisy wrote to the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Merry del Val, that he received the condemnation with respect, and condemned whatever might be reprehensible in his books, whilst reserving the rights of his conscience and his opinions as an historian. Since the Holy See was not satisfied, Loisy sent three further declarations to Rome; the last, dispatched on 17 March, was addressed to the pope himself, and remained unanswered. At the end of March Loisy gave up his lectureship, as he declared, on his own initiative. In April 1907 he returned to his native Lorraine, to Ceffonds (near Montier-en-Der), and to his relatives there.[6]

...

In July 1907 the Holy Office (after Vatican II renamed as Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) issued a decree, signed by Pius X, entitled Lamentabili sane exitu[8] (or "A Lamentable Departure Indeed"), which formally condemned sixty-five modernist or relativist propositions concerning the nature of the Church, revelation, biblical exegesis, the sacraments, and the divinity of Christ. This was followed by the encyclical Pascendi dominici gregis (or "Feeding the Lord's Flock"), which characterized Modernism as the "synthesis of all heresies". The documents made Loisy realise that there was no hope for reconciliation of his views with the official doctrine of the Church.

If Loisy and Pope St Pius X had lived 3 centuries earlier, probably Loisy would have burned under the Pope as Giordano Bruno burned under St Robert Bellarmine, in 1600. I say this with the main sympathy for the inquisitors who were defending the true religion against blasphemy. And had the unenviable task to deal with men unwilling to see and recant their errors.

In that sense too, Pope St Pius X was a burning fire.

260 Benedict XV (1914-1922) 104 Religio depopulata

(Religion laid waste)

Hist.: This Pope reigned during the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia which store the establishment of Communism.

J. P. Holding has argued against this interpretation, since more Christians were killed later than directly under Benedict XV's time. He has argued that Shoa which happened way later was at least as good an interpretation. Well, how about a comparison with Judaism?

If Judaism had been the right religion (which it is not since when it means rejecting Our Lord), and if a Jewish prophet had prophecied in Latin "religio depopulata", for which year would it have been most appropriate?

For 68 or 70 when Titus destroyed the Temple or for Shoa? Now, some of you might wonder why I am taking up the year 68. The reason is, the latest divergence between Jewish and Christian chronology I know of is that we differ by two years on how many years have passed since that taking of Jerusalem. OK, back to the question : it would have referred to destruction of the Temple.

And arguably, more monasteries and church buildings were destroyed in the time of Lenin and Trotski than later. Supposing that the destruction continued and intensified during the last years of Lenin - I'll check in a moment - at least the process started before Benedict XV died.

Some might argue that certain novelties in his code of canon law (also 1917), like raising minimal marital age from 14/12 to 16/14, like modifying so as to eliminate the banning of taking interest, laid waste religion in another sense, closer home. He also stopped the inquisitorial procedures initiated by his predecessor St Pius X, even while keeping remnants, such as requiring an Oath of Antimodernism (still there up to Vatican II, I presume) of all priests (meaning every Council Father who was a modernist was also an oath breaker).

BBL

Back from a coffee pause, and I just brushed up some of previous. One comment on why the "religio" which is "laid waste" is more like monasteries and churches than about lives of faithful : religion means public worship, basically. Yes, Catholic faith is described as "true religion", comprison both public worship and inner personal faith part, as opposed to "false religions" - which are mainly described as false in their public capacity. OK, if you believe one of them and it is your fault, it is false in capacity of your inner belief too. Some of them who converted obviusly did have a beginning of the right faith while publically showing forth a false religion - since they came to the conclusion they had made a mistake therein. A member of them not yet converted may be converting tomorrow for all you know or the Church on earth knows. So, the Catholic Church especially teaches it is false in the public capacity, having some reticence to judge the inner life of each and every individual member of one of them.

But the more prominent sense of "religion" is not from this distinction, it is more about canonic and monastic lives being such consistent acts of religion as to merit the definition of public worship and as to therefore be described as "religion". A Russian monk may have survived 1922, but his monastery may no longer have been there for him to live a normal monastic life in after that date. Now you may begin to fathom why "religio depopulata" fits Benedict XV better than succeeding papacies or papacy.

I will give a link to the video I am incriminating below my signature, and then go on to part II when I am a bit less exhausted. I woke up first time 4:55 this morning. I will also link to the Catholic site where I have taken descriptions from.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St Moses
4.IX.2017

Links:

• End Times Quackery 1C: The Petrus Romanus Prophecies of St. Malachy
  tektontv
  Ajoutée le 10 oct. 2012
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ns5SpYrvmR0
  
  
• Prophecy of St Malachy
  http://www.catholic-pages.com/grabbag/malachy.asp