Did Pope Benedict XVI line up his successor and then resign to fulfill a
900-year-old prophecy that the next leader of the Roman Catholic Church
would be history's "final pope?"
The idea was posed by Tom Horn, co-author of the book
"Petrus Romanus: The Final Pope is Here."
As WND reported, Horn and his co-author, Cris Putnam, accurately
predicted Benedict would become the first pope in nearly 600 years to
resign.
Horn believes the last pope, called "Petrus Romanus" in the prophecy by
Irish Archbishop St. Malachy, could be the man who is set to take over
interim leadership the moment Benedict resigns Feb. 28 at 8 p.m. local
time, becoming the acting Vatican head of state.
The claim centers on Cardinal Tarcisio Pietro (Peter in English) Evasio
Bertone, born in Romano Canavese, Piedmont, the current secretary of
state for the Vatican, who Pope Benedict XVI appointed Camerlengo, or
Chamberlain, of the Holy Roman Church April 4, 2007.
In the period known as "sede vacante," when there is no sitting pope,
Bertone will be called upon as Camerlengo to serve as the head of the
Roman Catholic Church.
He will be in charge until the College of Cardinals attending the
upcoming Papal Conclave in the Sistine Chapel select a new pope.
Did Benedict choose his successor?
Benedict XVI has made decisions that indicate Bertone could be, or at least once was, his choice for successor, Horn told WND.
Working alongside Bertone, Benedict appeared to be "stacking the deck"
in Bertone's favor Jan. 6, 2012, when he named 22 new cardinals. Most
are Europeans, primarily Italians, already holding key Vatican
positions.
As a result, Europeans currently number over half of all
cardinal-electors, 67 out of 125. Nearly a quarter of all voters in the
conclave will be Italian.
"When he appointed these new cardinals," Horn said, "Benedict seemed to
put his definitive stamp on an Italian successor, stacking the College
of Cardinals, those who could be called upon to give Bertone the
so-called apostolic chair of St. Peter."
Horn said the idea was not Benedict's alone.
Most Vatican experts attribute the large number of Italian appointments to the influence of Bertone, he said.
WND sources in Rome close to the Vatican previously suggested Benedict
may have resigned in part because he wanted to have a hand, even if
indirect, in influencing the selection of his successor.
The sources further argue that by selecting "Benedict" as his papal
name, Cardinal Josef Ratzinger, though not a priest of the Benedictine
Order, sought to identify his papacy with Malachy’s prohecy that the
next-to-last pope would be identified by the epithet Gloria olivae,
translated as "Glory of the Olive," knowing the Benedictine Order is
associated by tradition with olives.
By setting up the College of Cardinals to elevate an Italian cardinal to
the papacy, Pope Benedict XVI could help fulfill the Malachy prophecy,
making Cardinal Bertone – "Peter of Romano" by virtue of one of his
given names and his place of birth – the "final pope."
On Tuesday, Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi told reporters at a
Vatican briefing that Pope Benedict XVI would have no say in the
selection of his successor, telling reporters the pope "will surely say
absolutely nothing about the process of the election" for his successor.
Benedict "will not interfere in any way," Lombardi insisted.
The Third Secret of Fatima
Horn suspects Cardinal Bertone is at the center of a Vatican cover-up to
prevent the release of the complete version of what is known as the
highly controversial "Third Secret of Fatima," allegedly given by the
Virgin Mary in an appearance to three shepherd children in Fatima,
Portugal, July 13, 1917.
Bertone, who turned 78 in December, had a long history with Cardinal Ratzinger before he became Pope Benedict XVI.
From 1995 to 2002, Ratzinger worked with Bertone as his No. 2 at the
influential Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in the Vatican.
A few months after he was elected pope, Benedict asked Bertone to take
up the position of Vatican secretary of state, the position Bertone
holds to this day.
In January 2010, when Bertone reached 75, the age of retirement for
Curia cardinals, he presented a letter of resignation to the pope.
Benedict was adamant he needed Bertone to stay on as Vatican head of
state, because he wanted to maintain "their precious collaboration," as
reported by Andrea Tornielli in the Italian newspaper La Stampa.
Benedict has steadfastly supported Bertone through a series of crises
that have called into question Bertone’s integrity and honesty,
including a money-laundering scandal involving the Vatican Bank,
formerly known as the Institute for Works of Religion, or IOR. The
scandal resulted in the sacking of the bank’s head, Gotti Tedeschi, a
highly respected Italian economist and banker, as well as Paolo
Gabriele, the pope’s butler, who was criminally prosecuted for
confiscating and photocopying more than 1,000 pages of sensitive Vatican
documents over six years that he released to an Italian journalist for
publication.
In their role of directing the Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith, Cardinals Ratzinger and Bertone released for the fist time to the
public "The Third Secret of Fatima" at a press conference June 26,
2000.
In 2007, Bertone published a book, "The Last Secret of Fatima," with a
foreword authored by Benedict XVI, defending the publicly released text
of "Third Secret" as the entire secret, arguing that in publishing the
text, the Catholic Church had withheld nothing.
"The Third Secret of Fatima" involves a highly controversial End Times
vision of an assassination attempt on a future pope that is occasioned
by moral corruption and lack of faith among the clergy.
Pope John Paul II believed Our Lady of Fatima intervened to save his
life in the assassination attempt in St. Peter’s Square at Vatican City
on May 13, 1981, the anniversary of the first apparition of the Virgin
Mary to the three children of Fatima.
The current controversy began when Italian journalist and television
personality Antonio Socci and American attorney Christopher Ferrara
began publishing the claim the Vatican had refused to publish a second
part of "Third Secret" that contained the words of the Virgin as
revealed to the children of Fatima.
Socci and Ferrara contend the hidden text predicts catastrophes for the
Catholic Church and the world that involve End Days punishment by God,
leading to Jesus Christ returning to earth for Judgment Day.
Did Benedict XVI plan to resign in 2009?
Celestine V was the last pope to resign, in 1294, after only five months
in office. He was a hermit who was greatly revered for his sanctity and
his miracles.
On April 28, 2009, in a visit to view Celestine’s remains in the badly
damaged Santa Maria di Collemaggio after the disastrous 2009 L’Aquila
earthquake, Pope Benedict XVI left the woolen pallium he wore during his
papal inauguration in April 2005 on Clement’s glass casket as a gift.
To mark the 800th anniversary of Celestine’s birth, Benedict proclaimed the Celestine Year from Aug. 28, 2009, to Aug. 29, 2010.
Benedict was the only pope to visit Pope Celestine V’s tomb, a sign many
have taken that he had contemplated resignation for some time before he
made the announcement earlier this week.
On Dec. 13, 1294, on the Feast of Saint Lucy, Celestine V read the
following statement to the cardinals who assembled to hear his news: "I,
Celestine V, moved by valid reasons, that is, by humility, by desire
for a better life, by a troubled conscience, troubles of body, a lack of
knowledge, personal shortcomings, and so that I may then proceed to a
life of greater humility, voluntarily and without compunction give up
the papacy and renounce its position and dignity, burdens, and honors,
with full freedom. I now instruct the Sacred College of cardinals to
elect and provide, according to the cannons, a shepherd for the
universal church."
As recounted by John Sweeney in a 2012 book, "The Pope Who Quit,"
Celestine V declared himself "useless," stepped down from the papal
throne and removed his ring, tiara and mantle, handing them to the
cardinals who had elected him; he then sat down on the floor.
He put on the dress of the simplest of friars – the gray habit of a
Celestine hermit – and secreted away from the crowd outside to return to
the mountains.
What will be next for Pope Benedict XVI? Is there a spiritual connection between the hermit pope and the scholar?
Malachy’s predictions
St. Malachy, an Irish saint and the archbishop of Armagh, who lived from
1094 to 1l48, is attributed with a vision of the last 112 popes from
which he created a prophetic list. He named with a descriptive epithet
each pope in succession from Celestine II, who was pope from 1143-1144,
to the present day.
Malachy described the last pope as "Petrus Romanus," or "Peter the
Roman," writing: "In the final persecution of the Holy Roman Church
there will reign Peter the Roman, who will feed his flock among many
tribulations; after which the seven-hilled city will be destroyed and
the dreadful Judge will judge the people."
In 1880, M. J. O’Brien, a Catholic priest, published in Dublin a book
providing a "historical and critical account" of the prophecy of St.
Malachy regarding the succession of the popes.
O’Brien understood that Malachy’s prophecy was declaring that in the
reign of the pope identified as Petrus Romanus the end of the world
would come, culminating in Jesus Christ descending to earth for Judgment
Day.
O’Brien said Malachy’s vision occurred while he was in Rome for a month,
visiting and praying at the Eternal City’s many historical and holy
sites.
"The sight of the ruins of Pagan Rome, the tombs of the Apostles, the
thought of so many thousands of martyrs, the presence of [Pope] Innocent
II, who had been obligated to wander so many years in France and
elsewhere on account of the anti-pope Anaclete – all this, I say, filled
the mind of St. Malachy with deep and sad reflections and he was forced
to cry out in the words of the old prophets: ‘Usquequo, Domine non
misereberis Sion?’ – ‘How long, O Lord! wilt Thou not have mercy on
Sion?’"
O'Brien continued:
And God Answered: "Until
the end of the world the Church will be both militant and triumphant.
Until the end of time the sufferings of my passion and the mysteries of
my cross must be continued on earth, and I shall be with you until the
end of the world." And then was unfolded before the gaze of the holy
bishop of Armagh the long line of illustrious pilots who were to guide
the storm-tossed bark of Peter until the end.
Malachy gave his manuscript to Innocent II, born Gregorio Papareschi,
who was pope from 1130 to 1143. Innocent placed the manuscript in the
Vatican archives, where the document remained unknown until its
discovery in 1590.
Through the past 900 years, various critics have questioned the
authenticity and the accuracy of St. Malachy’s prophecy, often arguing
the methods employed by some of Malachy’s interpreters in applying his
epithets to certain popes have been tortuous.
In a modern 1969 version of Malachy’s prophecies, Archbishop H. E.
Cardinale, the apostolic nuncio to Belgium and Luxembourg, wrote "it is
fair to say the vast majority of Malachy’s predictions about successive
Popes is amazingly accurate – always remembering that he gives only a
minimum of information."
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