By JEROME R. CORSI, WND—
Editor’s note: The following video shows Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican’s Secretary of State, addressing Pope Benedict XVI on Ash Wednesday, Feb. 13, 2013.
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.
A recent prophecy Bible teacher preached that according to Malachy, the 13th century priest to whom God gave prophecies of every Pope from the beginning to the end, the next Pope will be the Tribulation Pope – the False Prophet of Revelation 13. He will combine a perverted expression of Christianity with a perverted expression of Islam which is currently being called Chrislam & is being propagated today by many misguided pastors of the Christian faith. That will be the one-world religion of the New World Order under Anti-Christ. Look up, Saints of God, for our redemption draws near! Hallelujah!
St. Malachy’s prophecy merely says that the final pope will pastor his people
during a time of great persecution and tribulation, after which the
city of Rome will be destroyed. I don’t see anything in this prophecy that
says the final pope will be either good or bad, much less the false prophet of
Revelation. I don’t think there is enough evidence to link these two . Pope Benedict’s
successor may indeed be the final pope; however, a scenario in which he shepherds
the Catholic Church during the time of the great tribulation and persecution of ALL
Christians, at the end of which Rome itself is destroyed as a part of that persecution,
seems just as likely as the conclusion you draw.
PLEASE MAKE VERY SURE THAT YOU HAVE RECEIVED JESUS INTO YOUR VERY HEARTS AS LORD
AND SAVIOR . AND THEN ASK OTHERS TO DO THE SAME THING. SALVATION IS MORE IMPORTANT THAT ANYTHING WE CAN IMAGINE AND HOW O’ WONDERFUL IT WILL BE. PLEASE
THERE IS NOTHING ON THIS EARTH WORTH WANTING TO HOLD ONTO IN COMPARISON WITH
KNOWING JESUS AND ALL THAT HE IS…..RECEIVE AND OR REDEDICATE YOUR LIFE TO HIM–
NOW !!! YOU WILL ” N O T ” REGRET IT AT….A L L !!!!!!!
Jesus is standing at the door….. are you ready?
In my heritage, we were taught the final pope would be a jew. The only jew in the running could be the Ghanian man, Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson, born on 11 October 1948), was born in Wassa Nsuta in Western Ghana to a Methodist mother and a Catholic father. Nsuta is a small town and is the capital of Sekyere Central, a district in the Ashanti Region of Ghana. The western Nsuta is the one in central Ghana. Elevation = 415m. Kodwo Appial Turkson is the fourth child among ten children. His mother sold vegetables in the open market while his father worked as a carpenter. He is a Ghanian Cardinal of the Catholic Church. He is the current president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, since his appointment by Pope Benedict XVI on October 24, 2009. He had previously served as Archbishop of Cape Coast. He was elevated to the cardinalate by Pope John Paul II in 2003, and is widely regarded as papabile. .
The question to be asked is: is this man a Ga-Dangmes of Ghana? The Ga-Dangmes of Ghana are the ancient tribes of Dan and Gad who relocated, lock, stock and barrel from the east side of the Jordan River, which was the land these tribes of Dan and Gad were given by the G-d of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to Africa, who eventually ended up in Ghana.
What do you suppose the probabilities/implications of an hypothesis that the last Pope will not only be called a ‘Peter of Rome’ but would also be from the the tribe of DAN and/or GAD? What would be the implications in light of prophecy about the end-times, the Day of the Lord? Will he be the one to initiate, as the High Priest, the one-world religion demanded by the one-world order of the anti-christ? WOW!!! I mean, G-d’s options are beyond the wildest imaginations of man. Could it be? Read ‘The Ga-Dangmes of Ghana: Hebrew Israelites Origins and Traditional Customs’ by Joseph Nii Abekar Mensah (2008). Mensah is a Gadite from Ghana, and a retired doctor in the field of neuropsychology. He writes one can “tell a Ghanian’s ancestry/origins by the names they have been given”. This ‘Peter of Rome’ named Kodwo Appiah (the names Peter & Turkson are western additions), could have linkage to what lineage he came out of, and it could be significant in regard to what the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures had to say about the end of time as we know it.
We live in interesting times! And just like the G-d of Abraham, Isaac & Jacob allowed Sara to rush ahead of His Will, by giving Hagar to her husband, Abraham to beget a son, from whose lineage we have this pagan end-time moon-god religion of Islam today; so perhaps the G-d of Abraham, Isaac & Jacob allowed for the tribes of Dan and Gad to abandon their G-d given ancestral land, and settle in a country today we call Ghana, to bring about the prophets end-time predictions. Who knows??? We need to continuously remind ourselves that ‘G-d’s WAYS are not man’s ways; and G-d’s THOUGHTS are not the way man thinks’.
Thanks Moll,
You have given some very interesting data that I have not seen anywhere else, especially on Peter Turkson. We won’t have to wait long to know for sure.
Jim
I don’t know whether to laugh, cry, or weep in frustration. Here are a pair of authors who aren’t Roman Catholic trying to interpret a Catholic prophecy, without having any knowledge of Catholic history, faith, or tradition other than what they heard in their own church some Sunday. And it appears that they are focusing on this one particular Catholic prophecy while a) totally ignoring the nearly 2,000 years of visions and prophecies given to other Catholic saints, and b) applying little if any discernment to this one prophecy.
So, here’s a bit of information: Pope’s don’t choose their own successors. Several have TRIED to choose or indicate which Cardinal they wanted chosen after their deaths, but by and large that did not work out. Being Camerlengo usually works against being chosen — Cardinals tend to want to balance power and wouldn’t want to solidify a dead pope’s power by confirming this selection. In fact, you have more fingers on one hand than Camerlengos that have been elected Pope in the past 500 years.
Even if Benedict HAS indicated who he prefers to follow him, it doesn’t matter. Once the Cardinal Electors enter the conclave, they are bound by Canon Law and oath not to be bound by any promises or attempts to influence them that may have occurred before the Conclave. This is in reaction to certain kings who claimed the right of veto over the Conclave’s selection.
The key is that each and every elector must, after periods of prayer and discernment, must vote for that man they believe the Holy Spirit is choosing to lead His Church.
@Marie Ciccolella, I wouldn’t worry about the teachings of an anti-Catholic Bible teacher. For one thing, the “Prophecy of Malachy” is not scripture: it is not perfect or free from error, and to base teachings around it as if it were if just plain wrong. Provided there is no schism, then any Pope that is validly elected is preserved by the Holy Spirit from teaching or promoting error. If there is schism, then is guaranteed that at least one of the factions will be teaching error.