CNA explains: What is the St. Malachy prophecy, and why are people talking about it?

CNA Staff, Apr 28, 2025 / 06:00 am

The recent death of Pope Francis on April 21 has reignited interest in the centuries-old “Prophecy of the Popes,” also known as the St. Malachy prophecy, which some say indicates that Pope Francis was the last pope the Church will ever have.

The over-900-year-old prophecy, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, purports to describe every single pope from the year 1143 until the end of time — and Pope Francis appears, at least at a glance, to be the last pope described in the prophecy, suggesting the world will end now that his papacy has concluded.

A closer look shows that there is some significant evidence against the authenticity of this alleged prophecy. Here’s what you need to know.

What is the ‘Prophecy of the Popes’?

The document in question was allegedly a private revelation given to the medieval figure St. Malachy, who served as archbishop of Armagh, Ireland, in the 1100s. Reportedly, he made a visit to Rome in which he had a vision of the future popes and wrote them down.

The prophecy consists of a list of 112 short phrases; enigmatic “mottoes” in Latin that are supposed to represent the popes from St. Malachy’s time onward. 

The mottoes generally contain references to one of several things, including the pope’s name (his papal name, his birth name, or his family name), his place of origin, or a heraldic crest connected with him (his papal arms, his family crest, or the crest of his order or place of origin). They often involve wordplay regarding these things, though that is more obvious in Latin than in English.

The mottoes are believed by some to predict the succession of Catholic popes, concluding with a final pope referred to as “Peter the Roman.”

The next-to-last motto in the prophecy of the popes has been associated with Pope Benedict XVI, who resigned the papacy in 2013 and died at the end of 2022. The election of Pope Francis as his successor brings us to the last name in the prophecy of the popes, which many have taken to indicate the final pope at the end of the world.

This passage reads as follows:

“Peter the Roman, who will nourish the sheep in many tribulations; when they are finished, the city of seven hills will be destroyed, and the dreadful judge will judge his people. The end.”

Is it genuine?

This prophecy is not a Vatican-approved private revelation, though it has been influential in some Catholic circles for several hundred years. There is evidence to doubt its authenticity, however.

First, the prophecy was not published until 1595, though St. Malachy died in 1148. There is no record of the prophecy existing in the intervening 447 years. Allegedly, this was because the prophecy lay forgotten in a Roman archive, and it was not rediscovered until 1590.

While the fact that there is no mention of the document in the hundreds of years between the times of its reported composition and its rediscovery does not prove that it is false, it does cast significant doubt on its authenticity.

It has been proposed that the document, rather than being an authentic revelation, is a forgery composed around 1590 and then planted in the archive for political purposes — a claim that would explain the document’s lengthy absence.

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Do its contents hold true?

The logical approach is to examine the prophecy’s contents to see which theory of its origins they are more consistent with: Do the contents seem to suggest that it was written in the 1100s, or do they suggest that it was written around 1590?

Many observers have thought the latter. One reason is that the “mottoes” for the period prior to 1590 are very easy to connect with the popes they allegedly represent. By contrast, the mottoes assigned to the popes coming after 1590 are much harder to connect with the popes they allegedly represent and often can be connected only in a contrived way.

Some examples of mottoes that are easy to connect to pre-1590 popes include:

• “Ex castro Tiberis” (“From a castle on the Tiber”). This is connected with Celestine II (1143–1144), who was born in Citta di Castello (“City of the Castle”), which is on the banks of the Tiber river.

• “Frigidus abbas” (“Cold Abbot”). This is connected with Benedict XII (1334–1342), who had been the abbot of a monastery at Fontfroide (“Cold Spring”).

• “De parvo homine” (“From a small man”). This is connected to Pius III (1503), whose family name was Piccolomini, which is derived from piccolo (small) and uomo (man).  

By contrast, some examples of post-1590 popes include:

• “Pia civitas in bello” (“Pious city in war”). This is connected with Innocent IV (1591), but there is no good way to link him with this motto. Some have pointed to the fact that he was patriarch of Jerusalem before his election to the papacy, and Jerusalem could be thought of as a “pious city,” but so could Rome and many others. Almost any Christian city would count, and Jerusalem was not a Christian city at this time. Furthermore, Jerusalem was not at war when he was patriarch.

• “Aquila rapax” (“Rapacious eagle”). This is connected with Pius VII (1800–1823), but there is no good way to link him with this motto. Some have proposed that his reign overlapped with that of Napoleon and that Napoleon could be described as a rapacious eagle (that is, a hungry commander of armies), but this is very tenuous and makes the motto not a description of the pope but of someone else who was on the world stage during his reign.

• “Religio depopulata” (“Religion destroyed”). This is connected with Benedict XV (1914–1922), but there is no good way to link him in particular with this motto. There is no obvious connection to his name, family, place of origin, or coat of arms. He did not destroy religion or religious life. Neither were either destroyed during his reign. He did reign during World War I, but that did not destroy either. He also reigned when communism came to power in Russia. That didn’t destroy religion in his day or in Italy. And again, we’d be connecting the motto with something other than the pope. If that were allowed then it would be possible to connect every motto with something that happened somewhere in the world during a pope’s day, and the prophecies would have no particular value as they would all be applicable to any pope.

What should we make of all this?

Let’s return now to the motto that supposedly describes Pope Francis: “Peter the Roman.” The name Peter has no clear connection to Francis, whose baptisimal name was Jorge Mario Bergolio (other than the fact that he held the office of St. Peter, the papacy). And despite having some Italian ancestry, Francis was not Roman by birth but rather Argentinian. 

There’s more: The Catholic Encyclopedia notes that even though the prophecy designates “Peter the Roman” as the last pope, the prophecy does not say that no popes will intervene between him and his predecessor, designated “Gloria olivæ” (“The glory of the olive”). The prophecy merely says that Peter the Roman, whenever he shows up, will be the last. 

Thus there is no compelling reason to believe that Peter the Roman is Pope Francis. (Many news articles and commentators also claim that the prophecy predicts Peter the Roman will show up in 2027, but in reality the document makes no mention of a year.)

Taking all of this together, Catholics need not worry much about St. Malachy’s prophecies. It is not an approved apparition, and the evidence is consistent with it being a forgery composed around 1590.

More fundamentally, Jesus indicated that we would not know the time of the end — and in keeping with Our Lord’s warning, predictions of the end of the world based on the Bible have a dismal track record. Trying to predict the end of time based on an unapproved private revelation that shows signs of being forged is even more misguided. 

We should trust God, live according to his word, and leave the future in his hands.

As Jesus said:

“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the day's own trouble be sufficient for the day (Mt 6:34).”

This piece was adapted from a blog post by Jimmy Akin first published in the National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner, on Feb. 24, 2013.