Customer Reviews

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

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1 star:		(13)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

This book is extremely offensive to Christians in general and Catholics in particular. His basic thesis is that the Christian faith is based on forgery and lies. He also singles out a few Popes who were flawed and makes claims about church documents which he claims were forged uses that to convince us that the Catholic Church is about to sink into oblivion. Curiously he claims that the prophecies of St Malachy were forged in the 16th century then admits that the forger was a great prophet because the prophecies are very accurate even after the date of the supposed forgery. At the end of the book he states that he thinks the Holy Roman Catholic Church is demonically possessed and he is happy to face the lake of fire for saying so. I feel sorry for the man because he has called eternal damnation on himself. If you are curious about the Prophecies of St Malachy please look elsewhere because this man is trying to lead people astray.

I have no doubt that John Hogue (as well as some of the reviewers of his book) would love to interpret the prophecies attributed to St. Malachy as presaging the end of the universal or Catholic Church while having no implications for the rest of physical existence. However, a more careful analysis would seem to indicate that he is predicting, ultimately, the end of not only the Church Temporal but temporality itself, i.e., the end of time. For example, in the last prediction concerning Petrus Romanus, Malachy points out (translating from the Latin into English) that at the end of Peter's pontificate, the dreadful judge will judge his people. Although dreadful has come to mean something bad, unpleasant or even awful in contemporary English (particularly American English), its more traditional definition is closer to inspiring dread or fear (indeed the term awful originally meant something more like awe-inspiring).

A reasonable inference is that the judge who inspires dread is God. Traditional, classical, pre-Protestant, pre-American, pre-Hogueian Christianity (i.e the faith of the fathers) teaches that ALL shall be judged by God (specifically in His Second Person)at the end of the world, not just the membership of the Catholic Church. There is no basis in scripture or Tradition for a belief in an antecedent, limited judgement applicable to Catholics exclusively.

To summarize, if John Hogue and his fellow anti-Catholics look forward to the day when St. Malachy's prophecy is fulfilled and those pesky Catholics are finally out of the way, on that day they shall find themselves out of the way as well. But even then, they shall be confronted with the Church Triumphant.

I did not go fifteen pages into this book before realizing that something was truly wrong. The author's attempt at convincing the reader that Simon Peter (the first Pope)was actually Simeon the Zealot (who died in Asia years after the crucifixion of Peter in Rome) would have been laughable, were it not presented as serious scholarship. Putting aside the prophesies that St. Malachi was supposed to have made, I found little of any real interest: it is blantantly obvious that the real purpose of the book is to take a swipe at orthodox Catholicism. I could not get my refund fast enough.

To say this book was a disappointment would be an understatement. Based on the tittle and jacket cover one would expect a reasoned analysis of the prophiecies of St Malachy, instead what you get in this book is a mix of Catholic and Christian bashing warmed over Nostradamus predections with the words twisted to make them fit reality. Included in the photo section is a photo of Pope John Paul II Below that is a picture of Sinead O"conner tearing up his picture to protest his opposition to abortion. Why is this picture in there? I don't know excecpt that it seems to fit the auther's political opion (it has nothing to do with Malahacy prophecies) On page 338 he writes "Matthew wrote down What Christ said around ad 90 57 years later. (he offers No proof for this or any other conclusions he draws) The fulfillment of Chist's prophecey about the destructionn of the temple therefor was put on record 20 years after the event took place...This piviotal prophetic dicourse.... was written down by an old man... more than half a century after Jesus uttered it. AS with so many important cornerstones of Christian dogma we are asked to take it on faith that Matthew's memory was clear and no hindsight embellishments were added to this prophecy. All this from an author who twists and embellishes the prophecies of nostradamous to fit with reality. add the total lack of footnotes and supporting evidence and you have a `book` that is hardly worth the paper it's printed on

To say that this book is unworthy of review is to make an understatement. The "facts" portrayed in this work are easy to characterize as misleading and in some cases are nothing more than the author's mere opinion. While not a Christian, or more specifically Catholic, I can see how this book might be offensive to those of this faith. The author could have expressed his opinions in a newspaper without wasting so much paper stock, time and effort. Refunds, anyone?

This book is worthless as history. Contains 111 pseudo-biographies of popes tenuously linking them to the prophecies of St. Malachy. The biographies are skewed toward the extreme negative, careful not to mention virtually any positive contribution of any pope cited.

Some of the prophecies are so remote that anyone would fit them. For example, the last Pope, Peter Romanus, the author claims will certainly not choose the name Peter but either his given name will be Peter, or he will have served at some parish named St. Peter's or will have visited a church named St. Peter's. Well, who doesn't that fit?

For John Paul I, the prophecy is "under the half moon" and the author links John Paul I tenuously to references to the moon. But the prophecy is half moon, not moon, of which the author makes no connection. For example, I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, near the town of Half Moon Bay. Actually not that close to Half Moon Bay about 15 miles away, but that would be close enough for this author.

More importantly, the author diverges to long sections on unrelated material, such as the prophecies of Nostradamus and selected works of Joachim of Flores. He spends an extended time of these unrelated materials. In essence this book should be about eleven pages long, so he as added the remaining pages as Pope and Catholic bashing filler.

More anti-Catholic drivel from yet another radical New Ager. An intellectually challenged one at that. Books such as this one deserve less than a one-star rating.