I've always had an interest in world
hunger, but my last post was spurred on by James Rollins' novel—The
Doomsday Key. This is the third book I've read by Rollins. He's a
veterinarian turned novelist who has a great mind for science and
history. But besides the hunger and overpopulation scenario played
out in his story, he brought up the Prophecies Of Saint Malachy, a
12th century bishop in Ireland who, while in Rome, was
purported to have had a vision of every future pope to the end of
time. They number 111 or 112 depending on how you look at things. He
simply uttered a symbolic name for each pope while a servant recorded
them. Many of those names seem to be very accurate. For instance the
late John Paul II he refers to as “De Labore Solis” which seems
to mean “from the sun's labors.” As it turns out, John Paul was
born on the day of a solar eclipse.
Anyway, many of those mystical names
don't seem to have any connection to the popes, but several others
do. Some people think the prophecies are a 16th century
forgery because they weren't published until then, supposedly having
been found among the Vatican's archives. What's interesting to think
about though is that the current pope is the second to last according
to these prophecies. The last pope is referred to as Petrus Romanus
(Peter the Roman). The prophecy claims that the Church will undergo
some kind of persecution during his reign, and that he, “shall feed
the sheep amid great tribulations, and when these have passed, the
City of the Seven Hills shall be utterly destroyed, and the awful
Judge will judge the people.” Of course the Vatican is the City of
the 7-hills.
Quite honestly I don't believe in the
prophecies at all. Obviously, not being Catholic, I don't think
there's anything at all special about the Catholic Church compared to
any other sect or see any reason why God would single them out in a
prophecy about the end of the world. (I'd like to think that's what
us Episcopalians are for!) More importantly, there was not one
mention of these prophecies prior to their being “found” 4
centuries after they were written. Even St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who
was a friend of St. Malachy and the author of his biography, never
said anything about any prophecies coming from his friend.
Still, it is interesting to note that
if the next pope is the last one, that the world hunger/population
problem will just happen to reach it's doomsday point during his
reign.
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Ye shall not know the time or the place. I.e. Live and love and do God's work today.
ReplyDeleteI agree Ann with the exception that Jesus said there would be "signs" signalling the end, but the prophecies Of Saint Malachy isn't among them in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteScary stuff non-the-less, in view of current world situations.
ReplyDeleteI agree Ros. And look at it this way. Groceries have nearly doubled in price here in the USA the last five years. When the overpopulation finally gets to the stage that someone somewhere in power decides the only thing to do is create a virus that will wipe out a large segment of the population, who's he going to use it on? His own people? Not likely. China would be the most likely target. But China has nuclear arms. If they suspect some foreign government has killed off most of their people, what do you think they would do?
ReplyDeleteNuke whoever poisoned their people?
ReplyDeleteSure. It would be hard to blame them if they did. Revenge is sweetest when it's justifiable. But you have to give China credit for doing their level best to cut back on the population right now. Who knows, maybe they'll make great strides in that department during the next couple of decades and avoid a catastrophe. They have a two child limit imposed, but a lot of people are getting around it by going to places like Hong Kong to have their third and fourth children delivered. It would help tremendously if their people would try to obey the 2-child limit. Two children ought to be enough for any non-farm family, especially in a part of the world where starvation is waiting at your doorstep, and it's mostly the children who are dying. Malnutrition also makes a lot of them go blind along with other severe health disorders. Why anyone would want to bring children into that is beyond my understanding.
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