Tea at Trianon: The Papal Prophecies of Joachim di Fiore

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Wednesday, December 13, 2023

The Papal Prophecies of Joachim di Fiore

From Kristen at Catholic Exchange:

Relying on the theory of the three ages of human history, di Fiore’s writings assume a swiftly approaching apocalypse.

The Age of the Father characterized the Old Testament. The Age of the Son references the life of Jesus and the establishment of the New Covenant. The Age of the Holy Spirit encompasses the rest of human history, from the Ascension until the Apocalypse. We are necessarily living in this third age—and to di Fiore, the immediacy of this trajectory took precedence in his interpretation of Church events and short future.

The book consists of di Fiore’s 30 prophecies, or “oracles” concerning the popes, buttressed by his prophecies on the Dominican and Franciscan orders, and rounded out by his interpretation of the number of the beast in the Book of Revelation. Appendices include a 17th century image providing a cyclic interpretation of the oracles, and the 16th century papal prophecies of Bl. Giodcocho Palmerio.

Readers who hope to draw clear parallels to known pontiffs will likely be disappointed, as the prophecies are almost entirely inscrutable. The editor does not interpret or elaborate upon the specific prophecies, leaving that task to the reader. He recognizes the perplexing nature of the prophecies, stating: “Whereas identifying the popes referred to in the probably non-genuine prophecies attributed to St. Malachy is a relatively straightforward task, understanding the prophetic utterances attributed to Blessed Joachim is far from simple (as any aspiring interpreter of them will very soon discover!) Nevertheless, it is the hope of the translator that modern readers may find these mystical oracles, despite their obscurity and ambiguity, to be beautiful, striking, and thought-provoking.”

My attempts to understand the prophecies got me nowhere, but I did notice several emergent themes.

First, the apocalyptic nature of the writings is evident: for example, Oracle XV states “This is the final beast, terrible in aspect, who shall draw down the Stars from the Heavens,” using cosmic and final language reminiscent of the Book of Revelation.

Second, the succession of popes fluctuates between the good, the bad, and the conflicted. “Fraudulently you have entered, powerfully you have ruled. But weeping, you shall die!” (Oracle VI) suggests a corrupt leader, while the virtues of the pope in Oracle XVI are praised: “A good work! He shall bestow a treasury upon the poor.” Some reigns are not so straightforward: Oracle XXVIII celebrates the illustrious “second life” of a man from a prominent family, but prognosticates that “after just two years, he shall enter the rock again, dead.” The distinction between pope and antipope is not made, leaving much to retrospective speculation. (Read more.)

My posts on the St. Malachy prophecies, HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE.