Men will surrender to the spirit of the age. They will say that if they had lived in our day, faith would be simple and easy. But in their day, they will say, things are complex; the Church must be brought up to date and made meaningful to the day's problems. When the Church and the world are one, then those days are at hand.

St. Senanus (6th Century)

Falsehood will characterize that class of men who will sit in judgment to pass sentence according to law: between the father and his son, litigations will subsist. The clergy of the holy church will be addicted to pride and injustice. Women will abandon feelings of delicacy, and cohabit with men out of wedlock.

St. Columcille/Columba (521-597)

Seven years before the last day, the sea shall submerge Eirin [Ireland] in one inundation.

Saint Hildegard (12th Century)

The time is coming when princes and peoples will reject the authority of the Pope. Some countries will prefer their own Church rulers to the Pope. The German Empire will be divided.

Before the comet comes, many nations, the good excepted, will be scourged by want and famine.

The great nation in the ocean that is inhabited by people of different tribes and descent will be devastated by earthquake, storm, and tidal wave. It will be divided and, in great part, submerged. That nation will also have many misfortunes at sea and lose its colonies. [After the] great Comet, the great nation will be devastated by earthquakes, storms, and great waves of water, causing much want and plagues.

The ocean will also flood many other countries, so that all coastal cities will live in fear, with many destroyed. All sea coast cities will be fearful, and many of them will be destroyed by tidal waves, and most living creatures will be killed and even those who escape will die from a horrible disease. For in none of those cities does a person live according to the Laws of God. A powerful wind will rise in the North, carrying heavy fog and the densest dust, and it will fill their throats and eyes so that they will cease their butchery and be stricken with a great fear.

In the 20th century there will be wars and fury that will last a long time; whole provinces shall be emptied of their inhabitants, and kingdoms shall be thrown into confusion. In many places the land shall be left untilled, and there shall be great slaughters of the upper class. The right hand of the world shall fear the left, and the north shall prevail over the south.

Abbot Werdin D'Orante (12th Century)

The great monarch and the great Pope will precede Antichrist. The nations will be at war for four years and a great part of the world will be destroyed. The Pope will go over the sea carrying the sign of Redemption on his forehead. The great Monarch will come to restore peace and the Pope will share in the victory.

John of Vitiguerro (13th Century)

The pope will change his residence and the Church will not be defended for twenty-five months or more because, during all that time there will be no Pope in Rome... After many tribulations, a Pope shall be elected out of those who survived the persecutions.

Johannes Friede (1204-1257)

When the great time will come, in which mankind will face its last, hard trial, it will be foreshadowed by striking changes in nature. The alteration between cold and heat will become more intensive, storms will have more catastrophic effects, earthquakes will destroy great regions, and the seas will overflow many lowlands. Not all of it will be the result of natural causes, but mankind will penetrate into the bowels of the earth and will reach into the clouds, gambling with its own existence. Before the powers of destruction will succeed in their design, the universe will be thrown into disorder, and the age of iron will plunge into nothingness. When nights will be filled with more intensive cold and days with heat, a new life will begin in nature. The heat means radiation from the earth, the cold the waning light of the sun. Only a few years more and you will become aware that sunlight has grown perceptibly weaker. When even your artificial light will cease to give service, the great event in the heavens will be near.

St. Vincent Ferrer (14th Century)

In the days of peace that are to come after the desolation of revolutions and wars, before the end of the world, the Christians will become so lax in their religion that they will refuse to receive the Sacrament of Confirmation, saying, "It is an unnecessary Sacrament."

John of the Cleft Rock (14th Century)

Towards the end of the world, tyrants and hostile mobs will rob the Church and the clergy of all their possessions and will afflict and martyr them. Those who heap the most abuse upon them will be held in high esteem. At that time, the Pope with his cardinals will have to flee Rome in tragic circumstances to a place where they will be unknown. The Pope will die a cruel death in his exile. The sufferings of the Church will be much greater than at any previous time in her history. But God will raise a holy Pope, and the Angels will rejoice. Enlightened by God, this man will rebuild almost the whole world through his holiness. He will lead everyone to the true Faith. (Yves Dupont, Catholic Prophecy, Tan Books and Publishers, 1973)

Maelmhaedhoc O'Morgair (Latin form: Malachy) was born in Armagh, Ireland in 1094. In 1148, he died in the arms of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, his biographer. St. Malachy was reported to have possessed the powers of levitation, healing, and clairvoyance. While on his way to the Vatican to assume the post of papal legate for Ireland, he fell into trance and saw a line of papal reigns stretching from the successor to Innocent II and extending through centuries to the last of the line, identified as Peter of Rome.

Malachy assigned short descriptions in Latin to each pope when he committed his vision to paper. These mottoes usually refer to a family name, birthplace, coat-of-arms, or office held before election to the papacy. Some of the phrases are multiple prophecies, written with ingenious word play. For example, Pius II, who reigned for only 26 days in 1503, was aptly described as "De Parvo Homine" (from a little man). His family name was Piccolomini, Italian for "little man."

Sometimes the personal history of the pope plays a part in the motto given by Malachy. Clement XIII (1758-69), who had conenctions with the government of the Italian state of Umbria and whose emblem was a rose, was called by Malachy Rosa Umbriae, the "Rose of Umbria."

The passage of time has proved doubters of St. Malachy wrong, for his prophecies have turned out to be amazingly accurate. He even prophesied the precise date of his own death, and got it right. The prophecies concern the papacy, starting with Pope Celestine II in 1143. In all, 112 popes and their characteristics are listed from 1143 to the "end of the world."

Here are descriptions of the final popes according to Malachy:

• Pastor et Nauta/Shepherd and Navigator: John XXIII (1958 -1963), patriarch of Venice (a city full of sailors) led his flock to a modernization of the Church through the Ecumenical Council. John chose two symbols for this Council -- a cross and a ship.
• Flors Florum/Flower of Flowers: Paul VI (1963-1978) had a coat-of-arms depicting three fleurs-de-lis.
• De Medietate Lunae/From the Half Moon: John Paul I (1978-1978) had the given name of Albino Luciani or "white light." Half-way into his short reign, a lunar eclipse occurred.
• De Labore Solis/From the Toil of the Sun: John Paul II was born during the solar eclipse of May 18, 1920. There was a solar eclipse on the day of his burial, April 9, 2005.
• De Gloria Olivae/From the Glory of the Olives: Benedict XVI.. Saint Benedict, the founder of the Benedictine order, prophesied that before the end of the world his Order, known also as the Olivetans, will triumphantly lead the Catholic Church in its fight against evil.
• Petrus Romanus/Peter of Rome: The Final Pope? "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."

It was revealed to me that through the intercession of the Mother of God, all heresies will disappear. This victory over heresies has been reserved by Christ for His Blessed Mother... Before the Second Coming of Christ, Mary must, more than ever, shine in mercy, might and grace in order to bring unbelievers into the Catholic Faith.

Sister Marianne de Jesus Torres (17th Century)

The most Holy Trinity confirmed the desire of my Queen, assuring that God will bless all those who, by their support and help, contribute in the making of the Holy Statue, as well as all those who help spread this devotion (to Our Lady of Good Success) throughout the centuries, making known its origin and these apparitions in the 20th century. This will be a time of great corruption of customs. The sacred sacrament of Holy Orders will be ridiculed, oppressed and despised, for in doing this, one scorns and defiles the Church of God, and even God Himself, represented by His priests. The Demon will try to persecute the Ministers of the Lord in every possible way.

Blessed Rembordt (18th Century)

God will punish the world when men have devised marvelous inventions that will lead them to forget God. They will have horseless carriages; they will fly like birds.

The Ecstatic of Tours (19th Century)

Before the war breaks out again, food will be scarce and expensive. There will be little work for the workers, and fathers will hear their children crying for food. There will be earthquakes and signs in the sun. Toward the end, darkness will cover the earth. When everyone believes that peace is ensured, when everyone least expects it, the great happening will begin. Revolution will break out in Italy almost at the same time as in France. For some time the Church will be without a Pope.

Sister Mary of Jesus Crucified (19th Century)

All states will be shaken by war and civil conflict. During a darkness lasting three days the people given to evil ways will perish so that only one-fourth of mankind will survive. The clergy, too, will be greatly reduced in number, as most of them will die in defense of the faith of their country.

Pope Pius IX (1878)

Since the whole world is against God and His Church, it is evident that He has reserved the victory over His enemies to Himself. This will be more obvious when it is considered that the root of all our present evils is to be found in the fact that those with talents and vigor crave earthly pleasures, and not only desert God but repudiate Him altogether. Thus it appears they cannot be brought back in any other way except through an act that cannot be ascribed to any secondary agency, and thus all will be forced to look to the supernatural...

There will come a great wonder, which will fill the world with astonishment. This wonder will be preceded by the triumph of revolution. The church will suffer exceedingly. Her servants and her chieftain will be mocked, scourged, and martyred.

Maria Laach Monastery (16th Century)

The twentieth century will bring death and destruction, apostasy from the Church, discord in families, cities and governments; it will be the century of three great wars with intervals of a few decades. They will become ever more devastating and bloody and will lay in ruins not only Germany, but finally all countries of East and West. After a terrible defeat of Germany will follow the next great war. There will be no bread for people anymore and no fodder for animals. Poisonous clouds, manufactured by human hands, will sink down and exterminate everything. The human mind will be seized by insanity.

Venerable Bartholomew Holzhauser (17th Century)

The fifth period of the Church, which began circa 1520, will end with the arrival of the holy Pope and of the powerful Monarch who is called "Help From God" because he will restore everything. The fifth period is one of affliction, desolation, humiliation, and poverty for the Church. Jesus Christ will purify His people through cruel wars, famines, plagues, epidemics, and other horrible calamities. He will also afflict and weaken the Latin Church with many heresies. It is a period of defections, calamities and exterminations. Those Christians who survive the sword, plague and famines, will be few on earth.

During this period, many men will abuse of the freedom of conscience conceded to them. It is of such men that Jude the Apostle spoke when he said, "These men blaspheme whatever they do not understand; and they corrupt whatever they know naturally as irrational animals do." They will ridicule Christian simplicity; they will call it folly and nonsense, but they will have the highest regard for advanced knowledge, and for the skill by which the axioms of law, the precepts of morality, the Holy Canons and religious dogmas are clouded by senseless questions and elaborate arguments.

These are the evil times, a century full of dangers and calamities. Heresy is everywhere, and the followers of heresy are in power almost everywhere. But God will permit a great evil against His Church: Heretics and tyrants will come suddenly and unexpectedly; they will break into the Church. They will enter Italy and lay Rome waste; they will burn down churches and destroy everything.