Guest Post: What do you think? Do the Prophecies of St. Francis Explain It All?

Take a look at this and see what you think, but please don't be alarmed. Church history is filled with challenging periods when corrupt popes ruled and anti-popes added to the confusion. "Let not your hearts be troubled." Trust in God and pray. I don't know if we are living in the time prophesied by St. Francis or not. I do know that our response in all circumstances is to commit to the duties of our state in life and to work out our salvation in fear and trembling committing ourselves to the will of God.   Mary Ann

The Prophecy of St. Francis about a Future Pope

By David Martin

Shortly before his death, St. Francis of Assisi called together the friars of his Order and detailed a prophecy of what was to come upon the Church in the latter days. That this prophecy references the last times is evident by the prediction of events that would not be fulfilled until after Vatican II, and by its placing these events in the time frame of the Gospel prophecy concerning the great tribulations just before Christ's Second Coming. (Matthew 24) St. Francis relates the following concerning the future Church under siege.

"The time is fast approaching in which there will be great trials and afflictions; perplexities and dissensions, both spiritual and temporal, will abound; the charity of many will grow cold, and the malice of the wicked will increase.

"The devils will have unusual power, the immaculate purity of our Order, and of others, will be so much obscured that there will be very few Christians who will obey the true Sovereign Pontiff [cf, Benedict XVI] and the Roman Church with loyal hearts and perfect charity. At the time of this tribulation a man, not canonically elected, will be raised to the Pontificate, who, by his cunning, will endeavor to draw many into error and death.

"Then scandals will be multiplied, our Order will be divided, and many others will be entirely destroyed, because they will consent to error instead of opposing it.

"There will be such diversity of opinions and schisms among the people, the religious and the clergy, that, except those days were shortened, according to the words of the Gospel, even the elect would be led into error, were they not specially guided, amid such great confusion, by the immense mercy of God.

"Then our Rule and manner of life will be violently opposed by some, and terrible trials will come upon us. [cf, Franciscans of the Immaculate] Those who are found faithful will receive the crown of life; but woe to those who, trusting solely in their Order, shall fall into tepidity, for they will not be able to support the temptations permitted for the proving of the elect. 

"Those who persevere in their fervor and adhere to virtue with love and zeal for the truth, will suffer injuries and persecutions as rebels and schismatics; for their persecutors, urged on by the evil spirits, will say they are rendering a great service to God by destroying such 'pestilent men' from the face of the earth. But the Lord will be the refuge of the afflicted, and will save all who trust in Him. And in order to be like their Head [Christ], these, the elect, will act with confidence, and by their death will purchase for themselves eternal life; choosing to obey God rather than man, they will fear nothing, and they will prefer to perish rather than consent to falsehood and perfidy.

"Some preachers will keep silence about the truth, and others will trample it under foot and deny it. Sanctity of life will be held in derision even by those who outwardly profess it, for in those days Jesus Christ will send them not a true pastor, but a destroyer."

TAKEN FROM Works of the Seraphic Father St. Francis of Assisi, R. Washbourne, 1882, pp. 248-250, with imprimatur by His Excellency William Bernard, Bishop of Birmingham.  

In this prophecy, St. Francis relates how very few Christians "will obey the true sovereign pontiff" [presumably Benedict XVI] and how many would be misled by "a man, not canonically elected" who "will be raised to the Pontificate." The mention of a "true" sovereign pontiff implies that the opposite would coexist with him. To infer that this refers to Pope Francis is in no way unreasonable, when we consider his ongoing contempt for rules, discipline, and tradition, and the fact that he has praised enemies like abortionist Emma Bonino and heretic Martin Luther, while persecuting holy men like Cardinal Burke, Cardinal Sarah, and the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate in Rome (FFI).

St. Francis no doubt was referring to the FFI, when he said, "our Rule and manner of life will be violently opposed by some, and terrible trials will come upon us." We all know of the cruel punishment that came upon the Franciscan Friars in 2013, whose founder Fr. Stefano Manelli was dismissed and whose members were forbidden from saying the Latin Mass and forced into saying the modern Mass against their conscience and against the rules of the order.

In speaking of the Church, St. Francis said, "scandals will be multiplied," which have certainly come to pass. What else could describe a pope dubbing Catholic procreation as "rabbit breeding" while warmly inviting transgenders to the Vatican to meet with him and receive his blessing? And of course there is the hot-button issue of allowing divorced and civilly remarried adulterers to receive Communion, as sanctioned in Amoris Laetita. Jesus spoke of this very thing, saying, "Woe to the world because of scandals." (Matthew 18:7)

From the onset we have seen something very "contrary" with Francis. While scolding any attempts to convert outsiders to the Catholic Faith, he blesses apostates and permits them to poison his flock with their rebellious thinking. While dubbing "idolaters" those Christians who hold tenaciously to Catholic tradition, he blesses the lost and misled who bow to the planetary idol of "Mother Earth."

Worse yet is his formal denial of the Church's dogmatic teaching on eternal hell, as inscribed in Article 297 of Amoris Laetita. "No one can be condemned forever, because that is not the logic of the Gospel! Here I am not speaking only of the divorced and remarried, but of everyone, in whatever situation they find themselves." Formal heresy anyone?

However, the real crime of his pontificate was nailed by St. Francis, when he said, "Sanctity of life will be held in derision even by those who outwardly profess it." Francis, who has often fashioned nice words of praise for the pro-life movement, recently dismissed all the members of the Pontifical Academy for Life and has rewritten its statutes in such a way that, beginning January 1, 2017, the new members will not be required to hold to the oath to defend the dignity of a person "from conception until (natural) death." (Source)

And now Pope Francis has praised the 1960s German moral theologian Bernard Häring, one of the most prominent dissenters from Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, for his new morality which the pope said helped "moral theology to flourish." "I think Bernard Häring was the first to start looking for a new way to help moral theology to flourish again," he said in comments, published Sunday by La Civiltà Cattolica, that were given during a dialogue with the Jesuit order which was gathered for its 36th general Congregation on October 24, 2016, in Rome. (Source)

Apparently Francis thinks that Humanae Vitae was serving to drive morality back to the jungle. Humanae Vitae, as we know, is Pope Paul's crowning masterpiece on the sanctity of human life which absolutely forbids abortion or any type of artificial birth control. The entire Church is bound by it.

Even so, Francis is complicit with United Nations anti-life agenda. We recount the infamous event of April 28, 2015, when the Vatican hosted a Soros-backed climate change conference in which several key pro-abortion advocates from the U.N., including U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and Jeffrey Sachs, proposed that the Church adopt their Sustainable Development Goals of making the planet a safer place through worldwide depopulation. (abortion) The proposals of April 28 were fully endorsed by the Vatican the very next day.

On September 25, 2015, Pope Francis addressed the United Nations General Assembly, urging the approval of the Sustainable Development Goals, which passed that day in the U.N. His encyclical on climate change would serve to get the fire going on this, and he himself had expressed hope that his environmental encyclical, Laudato Si, would be used to promote the passage of the UN Sustainable Development Goals in September 2015.

The foregoing warrants still a closer look at the prophecy about an uncanonically elected pope. St. Francis said, "a man, not canonically elected, will be raised to the Pontificate," indicating that his ascent to the papacy will be done before the entire Church, but somehow his election will not be canonical. It suggests that a private interest group will place this man into power under the guise of an election, so that he could advance their agenda.

Credible reports from 2015 indicate that Benedict XVI was coerced into resigning, which was providentially foreshadowed in Pope Benedict's inaugural speech of April 24, 2005, when he said: "Pray for me, that I may not flee for fear of the wolves." We know from Cardinal Danneels of Brussels that he was part of a radical "mafia" reformist group opposed to Benedict XVI. Danneels, known for his support of abortion, LGBT rights, gay-marriage, and pornography said in a taped interview in September 2015 that he and several cardinals were part of this "mafia" club which bore the name of St. Gallen. He said the group was calling for drastic changes in the Church, to make it "much more modern," and that the plan all along was to have Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio [Francis] head it. (Source)

This infamous clique which is documented in Austen Ivereigh's biography of Pope Francis, The Great Reformer, comprised the key members of the Vatican "gay-lobby" which held the reigns and created much chaos at the October 2014-2015 Synods on the Family. According to some reports, lobby members threatened Pope Benedict with extortion prior to his resignation.

This is credible when we consider that on February 11, 2012, one year before Pope Benedict announced his resignation, it was reported that Benedict XVI was given only one year to live if he didn't resign. Cardinal Paolo Romeo, Archbishop of Palermo, reportedly said these things to a group of people in Beijing toward the end of 2011. According to the report, Cardinal Romeo "harshly criticized Pope Benedict XVI," and "with self-assurance, as if he knew with precision, Cardinal Romeo announced that the Holy Father would have only twelve months to live. During his conversations in China he prophesied the death of Pope Benedict XVI within the next 12 months." (Source)

Still another point that lends credence to the idea of an "uncanonically elected pope" is the testimony of Pope Benedict himself, who stated that he never renounced his Petrine Office. On the eve of his resignation, he said: "Here, allow me to go back once again to 19 April 2005. The real gravity of the decision was also due to the fact that from that moment on I was engaged always and forever by the Lord. Always – anyone who accepts the Petrine ministry no longer has any privacy. He belongs always and completely to everyone, to the whole Church. In a manner of speaking, the private dimension of his life is completely eliminated." ... "The 'always' is also a "forever" – there can no longer be a return to the private sphere. My decision to resign the active exercise of the ministry does not revoke this." (Pope Benedict XVI at the General Audience of February 27, 2013)

Hence Benedict XVI is still pope, wholly and entirely, so that nothing of his Petrine character has been diminished. Yet, there can only be one pope, not two, so what does that make Francis? If Francis is a true, canonically elected pope, then Benedict XVI can no longer be pope, since the Grace of State of his Office no longer rests with him, but has been given to Pope Francis. Yet Benedict insists he is pope "forever" and that his "decision to resign the active exercise of the ministry does not revoke this."

If Benedict XVI had renounced the entirety of the Petrine Office, i.e. the contemplative and active ministry together, it could perhaps be argued that he is merely Pope Emeritus and is no longer a valid pope, but he argues emphatically against this, stating that he is pope "forever" and that he has resigned only the active ministry thereof. Yet there cannot exist two popes simultaneously. The idea of a "two-headed" pope or a "communal papacy" is heretical and foreign to anything Christ taught. It's either Francis or Benedict XVI. Which is it?