|
|
41 of 46 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
The Future Is Still a Mystery, September 19, 2001
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.
|
by Peter Bander
by John Hogue
by Page Morgan
by Yves Dupont
