Hands of a fortune teller on a shining ball

Prophets in History: The Prediction of the Church's Future

Nostradamus and Saint Malaquias made some of the most impressive prophecies in the history of humanity

The prophecies of Nostradamus

Nostradamus was born on December 14, 1503, in France. Being of Jewish descent by his great-grandfather, he became a prophet, yet he was deeply connected to Christianity. Said to have suffered from epilepsy, he died in 1566, victim of a cardio-pulmonary fatality. Nostradamus attended medicine studies, which dropped out, having worked as a pharmacist.

His practices of hygiene and application of certain natural products produced some good results against the Black Plague that at the time spread all over Europe, which to some extent contributed to the achievement of a certain personal fame. However, this same plague killed his first wife and children, which caused him great pain.

Some say that it was after this tragedy that Nostradamus really began its prophetic production, as well as its occult and astrological studies. Nostradamus got married again and had six children. He dedicated his life to the study of astrology and witchcraft.

In his prophecies, Nostradamus predicted among other historical events: the death of King Henry II, the fate of the children of Catherine of Médecis, the foundation of the United States of America, the fall of the Soviet Union, the existence of Hitler and Napoleon, and so on. Nostradamus predicted (in a final prophetic act), his own death.

Scrible writing in an old paper
Saint Malaquias' texts are preserved in manuscripts kept in the Vatican | Getty Images

The prophecies of Saint Malaquias

Another great prophet was St. Malaquias, who made some of the most formidable prophecies ever, comparable only to those of Nostradamus. St. Malaquias, whose forecasts are a body of texts preserved in manuscripts kept in the Vatican, was an Irish bishop of the XII century that some claim to have been affiliated to the Gnostic occultist movements.

St. Malaquias was a monk who made apocalyptic prophecies, but did not make any profoundly enigmatic catastrophic prophecies. He was ordained a priest in 1119, and began to have visions on the future in 1139. He was plagued with this visions, which revealed truths about the end of the church.

The clarity of his prophecies is surprising because it measured the end of time by the number of popes who are to exist until the end of our civilization, has we know it. The monk predicted that there were to exist 112 popes, from the time in which he lived, (since the pope Celestin II, in 1143), until the end of time, when the last pontiff, Peter II occupies the throne of the Vatican in an environment of terrible suffering for humanity.

But the prophecies do not stop here: Saint Malaquias not only appointed how many popes were to exist, but also gave a discretion for each one of the popes who he predicted that would exist so that each of them could be objectively identified. So until today's date, all the popes that existed correspond to the descriptions of Saint Malaquias.