I've wondered for years why people fall for conspiracy theories.
My surmise -- and admittedly, that's all it is -- is that when bad things happen, any explanation is better than there being no explanation other than the universe being a chaotic and capricious place. Blaming the latest tornado outbreak on weather manipulation by the Bad Guys at least means there's a reason why communities were destroyed and lives were lost; otherwise it just appears that shit happens because shit happens, and nice people sometimes die and the world can be dangerous and unfair.
Which brings us to the death of Pope Francis, who died three days ago at the age of 88.
Even for many non-Catholics, Pope Francis seemed like a pretty cool guy. He embodied tolerance, gentleness, humility, and a deep concern for our environment. I didn't agree with his theology (obviously) but I did have a lot of respect for him as a person and a spiritual leader.
Now, it's not like his death was unexpected. He'd been ailing and in a slow decline for months, and recently came out of a long hospital stay for double pneumonia. Even so, the world's Catholics are in mourning -- and understandably anxious, in our current volatile world situation, about who will be chosen next to lead the world's 1.4 billion Roman Catholics.
And... also not unexpected... almost as soon as he died, the conspiracy theories started.
The first was that his death had something to do with a visit from Vice President J. D. Vance, who is nominally Catholic himself but embodies the exact opposite list of characteristics from those I listed for Pope Francis: intolerance, viciousness, arrogance, and a complete disregard for the environment. I've seen a number of claims -- some tongue-in-cheek, others apparently quite serious -- that Vance did something to hasten the Pope's death because of Francis's condemnation of many of the Trump administration's policies.
I'm a little dubious, but I think we should deport Vance to El Salvador just in case. He recently said he's fine with the "inevitable errors" that will come with eliminating due process, so he should have no problem with it, right?
Even more out there are the people who are now leaping about making excited little squeaking noises about the Prophecy of St. Malachi. This curious document is a series of 112 phrases in Latin, each of which is supposed to refer to one of the Popes, in order, starting with Celestine II (who led the church from 1143 to 1144). It was published in 1595 by Flemish Benedictine monk Arnold Wion, but Wion said it was actually from Malachi of Armagh, a twelfth-century Irish saint.
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Most modern scholars, however, think the whole thing was made up, if not by Wion, by someone in the late sixteenth century. So any accurate passages that apply to the Popes from prior to 1595 or so shouldn't be looked upon as anything even close to miraculous. It is, after all, easy to prophesy something after it's already happened.
Aficionados of the prophecy, though, have twisted themselves into pretzels trying to make the lines referring to events after 1595 fit to the Popes they allegedly are about. #83, for example, which would correspond with Pope Alexander VII, translates to "Guardian of the Mountains," and Alexander's papal arms had a design of six hills. Pope Clement X, whose line is "From a Great River," was allegedly born during a flood of the Tiber.
When you get into the eighteenth century, however, things become dicier, because by that time the Prophecy of St. Malachi had become widely popular, so some of the Popes apparently did stuff to fit the prophecy rather than the other way around. Pope Clement XI, for example, corresponds to the line "Surrounded by Flowers," and Clement had a medal created with the line "Flores circumdati," which is a pretty blatant attempt to make sure the Prophecy applies to him.
The reason the conspiracy theorists are getting all excited is that there are a total of 112 passages in the Prophecy, and -- you guessed it -- Pope Francis is the 112th Pope since Celestine II. So, without further ado, here's the passage that's supposed to apply to Pope Francis:
Peter the Roman, who will pasture his sheep in many tribulations, and when these things are finished, the City of Seven Hills will be destroyed, and the dreadful judge will judge his people. The End.
It's hard even for the most devoted conspiracy theorist to see how Pope Francis could be "Peter the Roman." He's not Roman, he's Argentine; neither his chosen papal name nor his birth name (Jorge Mario Bergoglio) contains any form of the name Peter. The best they've been able to do is to say that his chosen name (Francis) is after St. Francis of Assisi, and St. Francis's father was named Pietro, but even for a lot of woo-woos this is stretching credulity to the breaking point.
Be that as it may, there are still a lot of people who think the Prophecy is serious business, and they are especially focusing on "the City of Seven Hills will be destroyed" part. Because now that Pope Francis is dead, that means the rest of the prediction is imminent, so Rome is about to be hit by a massive earthquake or something.
I'm thinking it's probably not worth worrying about. I mean, for cryin' in the sink, this is worse than Nostradamus. Plus, it's not like we don't have enough real stuff to lose sleep over. I'm not going to fret over a prophecy that couldn't even get the name and origin of the Pope right.
But for some reason, this kind of stuff thrills a lot of people, and I really don't see the appeal. I guess it gives some mystical gloss to day-to-day events, rather than things happening because the world is just kind of weird and random. In any case, to any of my Catholic readers, my condolences for the loss of your spiritual leader. He did seem like a pretty cool guy, and I hope they can find a suitable replacement to step into his shoes.
But for those of you who live in Rome, no worries about the city burning down or anything.
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Ah, to be a little wishy-washy, Francis could be covered under the "interstitial" reading of the line just before Peter the Roman is named at the end of the list. This paragraph from wikipedia explains it (and lets me walk away from the internet before doing any more "research" on my own):
ReplyDeleteIn the Lignum Vitae, the line "In persecutione extrema S.R.E. sedebit." forms a separate sentence and paragraph of its own. While often read as part of the "Peter the Roman" prophecy, other interpreters view it as a separate, incomplete sentence explicitly referring to additional popes between "glory of the olive" and "Peter the Roman"
So, Francis could be the first of many "additional popes" before we reach the End Times. Anything to keep the dream alive, as it were, as so many prophets have done in the past.