Roman Catholic News Volume 5, Issue 66 WEDNESDAY 13 APRIL 2005
Hoax or Authentic? The Prophecies of St. Malachy (Part 1)
Malachy (Máel Máedóc Ua Morgair), 1094-1148, Armagh-born archbishop, papal legate, and the first Irishman to be canonized wrote a manuscript containing 112 prophecies concerning the future Popes until the Second Coming of Christ. The debate over its authenticity is still contested by some but without any reason given other than appealing to arguments of authority without citing any authority. Arguments of authority are classified in logic as logical fallacies. If there were any foundation to rejecting the prophecies of St. Malachy the Church has had about 450 years to do so, but never has. If this manuscript is authentic and was known prior to its rediscovery in 1556 by the Vatican Librarian Onofrio Panvinio (1529-1568) then it may have inspired other similar manuscripts to have been made on papal prophecies. As it stands, there are several other similar manuscripts far more famous than that of St. Malachy including the Vaticinia de summis pontificibus. These medieval authors I believe were imitators of St. Malachy creating their own original prophecies as spin-offs of his original work. This aspect of the history of the St. Malachy manuscript has never been considered before and is the result of my interest and research on this subject since 1970. The evidence of other similar modeled papal prophecies lends support to the authenticity of the St. Malachy manuscript showing it predates the 16th century. Moreover, the manuscript supposedly written by St. Malachy is written in a 12th century manuscript hand. The physical appearance of the manuscript, its age, material and script gave no doubt to Panvinio and others that it was authentic. The Latin medieval papal prophecies (Vaticinia de summis pontificibus), is a compilation of two distinct manuscripts later on joined as one. The first was written about 1280, 140 years after St. Malachy’s manuscript, and is a compilation of 15 illuminated predictions on Popes starting with Nicolaus III (1277-1280). It is thought to have been translated into Latin modeled on Byzantine prophecies, but it can be equally argued to have been modeled on those