The False Prophet of the Apocalypse

Of late there has been a spate of Catholics online spreading stories that run along the following lines: Pope Francis is not really the Pope, he the the antichrist, or the beast, or the false prophet. This is backed up by a bunch of "prophecies." One prominent news source and several Catholic "influencers" have posted similar things, and in the groups I manage I have had to "break up" numerous fights between "Catholics." I'm not going to waste your time or give them any extra eyeballs by posting links but you are welcome to google the title of this post if you want to read one of them. After reading this, you may not want to, however. Here are my thoughts.

First off, what is prophecy?

To a Christian, prophecy is not predicting the future, but speaking God’s truth. What is God's truth? Look at the Biblical prophets. With a few rare exceptions, they say nothing about the future world of politics and future events (the only exception I can think of is in Isaiah where he says someone named Cyrus will restore Jerusalem). Instead, they speak of current events (even though those events may have echoes in the future) and the truth that God loves us, will never abandon us, and that we need to repent and turn from false idols. Jonah – Ninevah must repent or be destroyed. Isaiah – God will shepherd His people. Hosea – turn from idols and be faithful to God. Elijah – God is faithful to His chosen people.

On the other hand, to the modern world prophecy is predicting the future through preternatural means. This is a corruption of prophecy and demonic. The Bible and the catechism both expressly forbid as serious sin the desire to know future events through means that are not natural. That’s not to say God does not reveal knowledge of the future to certain people -. Zechariah, Mary and Joseph, for example. But that knowledge was given to them individually, not to the world. To try to predict the dates of the “Great Apostacy” the “Tribulation” and the second coming of Our Lord is sinful. It is not for us to know, as Jesus Himself says in Sacred Scripture.

Regarding all these current trendy Catholic prophecies about saviors and antichrists (usually applied to Trump and Pope Francis respectively), I can make the “savior” ones apply to Trump to Obama or Biden or Pope Francis. On the other hand I can make the antichrist ones apply to Trump, or Pope Francis, or Biden. Most of them can apply to any world figure. All you have to do is first decide that person "X" is the antichrist, then manipulate things until you find some connection to the number 666. For instance, if you take the integer values of the ASCII encoding of the characters "BERGOGLIO" and add them up they equal 666! "Proof" that the Pope is the antichrist! If that hadn't worked, I'm sure there is some combination of characters in some part of his name that will add up if you translate and encode them just right.. Starting with a conclusion and manipulating times, events, names, etc. until you find some connection to something somebody wrote is NOT the way to the truth.

So the methodology is suspect right off the bat. Now let’s consider the sources quoted:

• Prophecies of St. Francis. This book claims to contain “unknown” writings of St. Francis of Assisi. It has an imprimatur from the bishop. Is this a good source? I don’t know but note that an imprimatur only means that the book does not contain statements that contradict Catholic dogma. It does not mean that the contents are true, or even that the church agrees with the book (see https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/imprimaturs-and-private-revelations for information on imprimaturs). Also, the book was published in 1882, and St. Francis died in 1181, 700 years earlier. Why is there no record of these writings for 700 years? But let us assume it is accurate – what does the book actually predict? I found it online (https://archive.org/stream/SeraphicFatherStFrancisOfAssisi?ref=ol#page/n265/mode/2up). The book notes that the prophecy was fulfilled in 1378 under Pope Urban VI. Does that mean it can’t also apply to today? It could, but 1378 was not the end of the world, so saying that this is THE great Tribulation and the Final end does not follow.

• St. Malachy. Just like the prophecies of St. Francis, the prophecies of St. Malachy were "discovered" in 1590, 450 years after St. Malachy lived, in 1148. They are simply not credible. For an explanation see http://jimmyakin.com/2013/02/how-reliable-is-the-st-malachy-prophecy.html Perhaps they should be called prophecies of "malarkey" instead.
  

• Our Lady of Garabandal – this apparition was determined not to be genuine by four successive bishops. Enthusiasts reject the bishop's authority and claim it will be recognized at a later date. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith wrote of it "this Sacred Congregation wishes to assert: that the Holy See has never approved even indirectly the Garabandal movement, that it has never encouraged or blessed Garabandal promoters or centers. Rather the Holy See deplores the fact that certain persons and Institutions persist in formatting the movement in obvious contradiction with the dispositions of ecclesiastical authority and thus disseminate confusion among the people."

• Our Lady of LaSalette is an approved apparition, BUT as noted above, the recognition of an apparition by the church does not mean it is accurate, only that the message does not contradict Catholic dogma. The apparition took place in 1846 and was approved in 1851. However, the prophecy states that the antichrist will be revealed in 1865. That did not happen. That should be proof that at least the prophecy of the antichrist is false. See https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/la-salette-sorting-fact-from-fiction for more information.

• Our Lady of Fatima – these modern interpretations all assume that the consecration of Russia was not done and that there are more secrets that were never revealed (or more parts to the secrets). Sr. Lucia, the original visionary, confirmed several times that the consecration of Russia was done to Our Lady’s satisfaction, and that the secrets were as revealed. See https://www.bluearmy.com/letter-from-sister-lucia-confirmed-consecration-of-russia-was-done/ and https://jimmyakin.com/2019/10/the-third-secret-of-fatima-jimmy-akins-mysterious-world.html

• The “Warning” or “Illumination of Conscience” cited in these theories is false – see https://sqpn.com/2020/10/the-warning-the-illumination-of-conscience-catholic-prophecy/

• The “End Time” prophecies cited are false – see https://sqpn.com/2020/10/the-apostle-of-the-last-times-fr-michel-rodrigue-apocalyptic-prophecy-private-revelation-last-days-end-times/

• Pope St. Pius X’s prophecy about the next Pope with the same name – assuming this is even true – I can’t find the actual statement by the Pope, only later claims that he said this – is claimed to refer to Pope Benedict XVI. The prophecy speaks of a Pope with the same name who will suffer and flee to hiding, and then the last days of the world will come. Of course the next pope named Pius was Pius XI, who didn't fit the prophecy. Rather than accept that the prophecy was false, enthusiasts looked for ways to twist it to fit the "fact" that these are the last days. What they came up with is that Pope Benedict XVI's given name is Josef, which, when translated from German to Italian, is Giuseppe, which was the given name of Pope St. Pius X. However, if you want to go down that rabbit hole, there are better candidates: Pope Pius XII's given name was Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli – and he also was a pope Pius – that’s a better match for the prophecy than Pope Benedict… or the Pope after that, John XXIII was Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli… if you’re willing to twist things enough you can make the prophecy be about anyone you like.

So, the source material used is garbage.

Next, look at the “fruits” of the prophecies. The one thing that separates Catholics from all other Christians is the Pope. If you look at Martin Luther’s 95 theses, the church has basically adopted all of his reforms except one – that the Pope is not the seat of authority for the church. That is the Protestant heresy. So when I hear Catholics saying that Francis is not the “real” Pope what does that mean? The bishops acknowledge Francis as Pope, so these Catholics have separated themselves from the Magisterium. If they say “Benedict is Pope” – well, Benedict says Francis is Pope, so they are defying the authority of Pope Benedict as well. There is no scenario I see where this leads us to a closer relationship with Christ and His church. On the contrary it seems to me that such people should no longer be called Catholic, but they are now Protestant, since they do not accept the authority of any Pope.

So the fruit of this whole exercise is to cause divisions within the church and cause the faithful to leave the body of Christ. That's not to say that some people won't use these theories to give them resolve to repent, but these theories are not necessary for that, nor is that their goal. Instead they are sensational "click bait."

So my conclusion is that this is demonic because:

• The "goal" of the prophecies (to predict the second coming of Christ) is sinful, and something Christ warns us against.
• The methods used to come to the conclusion are deceitful and involve twisting the truth, they are not of God.
• The sources of the prophecy are false, possibly of demonic origin.
• The fruits of the prophecies are fear and division, putting our own "knowledge" above the teachings of the church.

Note, I do think Pope Francis is not being a very good Pope, and that we are living in the end times, but you don't need these prophecies to tell you that. Clearly we are in end times - we have been for 2000 years, but playing around with private revelations and false prophets is not something we should be doing.

 

One finally thought... a lot of the people pushing these theories see themselves as a "faithful remnant" because they are defying the "antichrist/beast." They point to things like the above, and that Pope Francis is bad and is "destroying" the church. But are they the faithful remnant for defying Pope Francis? Is it not them who are destroying the church? Remember in Israel, the son of Solomon, Rehoboam, was so bad that ten of the twelve tribes split off. Yet, the ones who stayed with the bad king were the faithful remnant, not the ones who defied him and set up their own temples.

I'm not suggesting we fall into line with the "new world order" and other ideas the Pope seems to embrace. But I am suggesting when we see things we don't like, we say "yes, he is wrong" and recognize him as Pope anyway. It is time we realize the Pope is not God, but a man.

 

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