We've got something for Malachy, to appear in the Oxford Book of
Days:
Malachy O'More (1094-1148, canonized 1190), bishop of Down from
1124, was elected and consecrated archbishop of Armagh in 1132;
his installation was delayed till 1134 by opponents of his
reforms. Two years later he resigned, but in 1139 he was
appointed papal legate, in which capacity he effected the
definitive substitution of the Roman liturgy for the Celtic. He
became a friend of Bernard of Clairvaux, whose Cistercian order
he introduced into Ireland, and who wrote his life at some
length.
St Bernard credited him with prophetic powers; in 1595
predictions in his name were published (Wion, i. 307-11), briefly
describing future popes (including certain antipopes) beginning
with Celestine II (1143-4), `from the fortress of the Tiber' (ex
castro Tiberis); he came from Citta del Castello. Down to Urban
VII (15-27 Sept. 1590)--called `from the dew of heaven' (ex rore
caeli) because he had been archbishop of Rossano in Calabria,
`where manna is collected' from the manna-ash--they are
accompanied by notes relating the prophecies to the birth-place,
arms, or other known circumstance of the pontiff in question; the
next three popes down to the reigning Clement VIII are identified
without comment; from `the man of the waves' (undosus vir)
onwards no annotation is made.
Urban's immediate successor was Gregory XIV, elected after a
long and unedifying conclave; he is described as `from the
antiquity of the city' (ex antiquitate urbis). That would have
been more appropriate for a rival candidate, Girolamo Simoncelli
of Orvieto (Urbs Vetus); it seems evident that the prophecies
were concocted to promote his candidature. In this they failed,
nor has official credence ever been lent them; they are regularly
exhumed during papal elections, but make only random matches with
the popes who came later. Pius VI, who in 1782 journeyed to
Vienna in fruitless protest against Joseph II's Edict of
Toleration, is described as `the apostolic traveller' (peregrinus
apostolicus), and the intellectual Leo XIII as `the light from
heaven' (lumen de caelo); but Pius VII's title of `rapacious
eagle' (aquila rapax) more aptly fits his antagonist Napoleon,
and the Venetians Clement XIII and Gregory XVI are respectively
`the rose of Umbria' (rosa Umbriae) and `from the baths of
Tuscany' (de balneis Etruriae), which suggests that the prophet
had never learnt geography. He did better with John Paul II,
`from the travail of the sun' (de labore solis), for on the day
of Karol Wojtyla's birth, 18 May 1920, there was a partial solar
eclipse; but it was visible only in the southern hemisphere.
The next pope (we are told) will be `the glory of the olive'
(gloria olivae), after which `in the ultimate persecution of the
Holy Roman Church Peter II shall sit: he shall feed his sheep
amid many tribulations, after the accomplishment whereof the City
of the Seven Hills shall be destroyed and the awful Judge shall
judge His people.' Readers disturbed by this prospect may be
comforted to know that in the great Roman basilica of San Paolo
fuori le mura, where a portrait-frieze depicts every pope from St
Peter onwards, there are eight roundels still vacant in the main
sequence and another twenty available on the east and west walls
of the interior church. The 334 years and 13 days of the last
twenty-eight completed reigns, from the election of Innocent X on
15 September 1644 to the death of John Paul I on 28 September
1978, suggest that ample time will be available to make any
further arrangements.
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Bonnie Blackburn
67 St Bernard's Road
Oxford OX2 6EJ
tel. 01865 552808 fax 01865 512237
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
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