Post by hibernicus on Dec 21, 2011 15:46:24 GMT
I recently came across a very interesting book in the Central Catholic Library called THE WAR AND THE PROPHETS by the hagiologist Fr Herbert Thurston. It was published during the First World War and shows how many prophecies circulating among French Catholics in the immediate aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War (generally and fallaciously predicting an imminent monarchical restoration, the reclamation of the Papal States by an "Angel Pope" identified at the time with Pius IX, and a great French triumph over the Prussians through the leadership of a "great monarch" whom the alleged seers identified with the Legitimist claimant, the Comte de Chambord) had been brushed off and given a renewed circulation as prophecies of French victory in the Great War. (I suspect some of these prophecies are still cropping up in trad circles; Rick Salbato of Unity Publishing, whose site on true and false Marian apparitions I have linked to occasionally, is always on about the Great Monarch, and "Gregory XVII" with characteristic modesty claimed that he himself was both Angel Pope and Great Monarch.)
Fr Thurston has a chapter on the alleged prophecies of St Malachy in which he claims to identify a book used by the fabricator of the prophecies, which gave brief accounts of the Popes' pre-pontifical careers and coats of arms (hence, he claims, the emphasis on heraldry in the prophecies of Popes reigning before the prophecies' first publication, compared with its paucity in the later prophecies.) I don't know if this view has won general acceptance.
Fr Thurston has a chapter on the alleged prophecies of St Malachy in which he claims to identify a book used by the fabricator of the prophecies, which gave brief accounts of the Popes' pre-pontifical careers and coats of arms (hence, he claims, the emphasis on heraldry in the prophecies of Popes reigning before the prophecies' first publication, compared with its paucity in the later prophecies.) I don't know if this view has won general acceptance.