The Last Pope: The Decline and Fall of the Church of Rome : The Prophecies of St. Malachy for the New Millennium [Illustrated] [Hardcover]

John Hogue (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1998

In 1139 St Malachy set out from Ireland on a harrowing pilgrimage to Rome. On first sighting of the Eternal City he fell to the ground and began murmuring cryptic Latin phrases, each signifying the name, heraldic device or future destiny of all popes, from his contemporary, Celestinus II, until Judgement Day. To this day 90 per cent of his prophecies have come true. Pope Innocent II locked St Malalchy's manuscript away in the labyrinth of the Vatican until it was rediscovered in 1595. It was criticized and rejected by the church authorirties as fraudulent but the accuracy of the mottoes remains remarkably accurate. Presenting a detailed history of St Malachy and his prophecies, this text provides an account of Catholic history, the development of Western Europe and the fates of 100 popes. It also provides a glimpse at the possible futures for the Catholic Church and the rest of society as we face the imminent apocalypse predicted by St Malachy.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

John Hogue, a leading authority on Nostradamian prophecy, turns his analytical skills to the 111 Latin mottoes of Malachy of Ireland, a 12th-century bishop who is said to have predicted the succession of popes from Celestine II to the end of the Catholic church. Hogue integrates prophecy and history like a master fencer wields a rapier and dagger, adding just a touch of wry humor--who else but Hogue would compare Saint Bernard and the 12th-century monastic movement to Elvis Presley and rock 'n' roll? The Last Pope succeeds on many levels: as a comprehensive history of the papacy, as an examination of the prophecy of Saint Malachy, and as an assessment of the history and potential future of Catholicism. --Brian Patterson

About the Author

John Hogue is the author of the best-selling Messiahs, Nostradamus: The New Revelations and Nostradamus: The Complete Prophecies. He lives in Seattle. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Element Books Ltd; illustrated edition edition (October 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1862042020
• ISBN-13: 978-1862042025
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #778,497 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #72 in Books > Christian Books & Bibles > Catholicism > Popes

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars The Future Is Still a Mystery, September 19, 2001

By 

Timothy Haugh (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Last Pope (Paperback)

I became interested in this book because of the reference to the prophecies of St. Malachy. I had never heard of this saint or his prophecies and I wanted to see if there is anything in them. Supposedly given to a twelfth century Irish saint in a vision, this sequence of one-line prophecies is said to describe each successive pope from the Middle Ages through today. Interest has been generated in these prophecies recently because there are only two left--meaning we are two popes away from Armageddon.

I am not a big believer in prophecy, neither its accuracy or its usefulness except in the general sense of reminding people to repent for their sins. I am particularly wary of prophecies of the end of the world. Not only have all predictions of the end of the world been thus far wrong (and there have been many) but also Jesus himself said, "but of that day or hour, no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father" (Mark 13:32). If the Father did not reveal the time of the Day of Judgement to his Son, I find it hard to believe that He has or plans on revealing it to anyone else until it is upon us.

This book did not do anything to change my feelings about the usefulness of accuracy of prophecy. As always, these prophecies (usually consisting of no more than three or four words) are twisted into shape to fit the popes that have so far come along--sometimes referring to heraldry, the pope's name, his birthplace, the deeds of his life, etc. If the prophecies had all referred to the same thing (such as heraldry), they would be much more convincing. But so much happens in a person's life that it is easy to make a few words fit anyone's life and certainly these few phrases have no useful predictive power.

Here is where the book really falls flat. In analyzing the two prophecies that have yet to be fulfilled, Hogue offers us numerous interpretations--almost none of which come even close to hitting the mark. Writing in early 1998, Hogue was convinced John Paul II would be dead by 1999. Well, it is late 2001 and the old man is still going strong. None of what Hogue expected to be by this year has even remotely come to pass other than some general talk of floods, famines, wars, earthquakes, etc., which can fit almost any year in human history.

What this book seem mostly to be is an opportunity to criticize the past 1000 years of the papacy. I have many criticisms of the papacy myself but this book is almost universally negative and, believe it or not, the papacy has generated some positive things in the world as well. In analyzing the popes of the twentieth century Hogue is a little fairer but, in the end, the papacy suffers. It's fun to wonder about the future but, all in all, I find this book to be useless beyond stirring the imagination a bit. Not a bad thing, but not enough.

44 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Sad, To Be Used Only As a Low-Water Mark of Our Culture, July 26, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Last Pope: The Decline and Fall of the Church of Rome : The Prophecies of St. Malachy for the New Millennium (Hardcover)

Pretty poor. If you think this might be a valid look at the prophesies of St. Malachy, think again. One presumes the author has an axe to grind against Catholicism. I'm not a Catholic, but I gave serious consideration to becoming one after giving this tripe the once-over. Some of the things he says are merely laughable. His depictions of Bernard of Clairvaux and Pius XII go beyond libel (fortunately for the author, you can't libel the dead) and his pitiful portrayal of John Paul II hardly fits the courageous individual who fought in the resistance against the Nazis, and who as Cardinal and Pope stood eye-to-eye against the Soviets until they blinked. He also attributes the Catholic Church's dwindling membership in recent years to its alleged "medieval" mindset, rather than attributing the loss to post-Vatican II problems, as most serious observers do. St. Malachy, whether he actually had the visions or whether they themselves are a forgery (most scholarship leans toward the latter), made a list of the popes up to just beyond the number of our present pope, and then, he said, would come the anti-Christ. In his letters, John the Elder warns us against "the spirit of anti-christ", and this is certainly in that spirit. Don't waste your money unless you despise the Catholic church or Christianity in general, which is the group Hogue panders to. This book is comparable to a Herr Goebbels commentary on Maimonides.

37 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Where was the editor?, November 25, 2001

By 

Kelley Hunt (Texas, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Last Pope (Paperback)

This book would have been a lot better if the author had stuck to discussing the prophesies of St. Malachy (preferably in a scholarly rather than sarcastic tone). Instead he went off on a bizarre rant against the Catholic Church. It didn't seem to belong in this book. If he wanted to do a critique of the Catholic Church that should have gone in another book entitled "My Critique of the Catholic Church"...I'm not even Catholic and I found his critique offensive.