The Last Pope
St. Malachy's 12th-century prophecy listed 112 popes — ending with one called Petrus Romanus, “Peter the Roman,” under whom Rome would fall and the final judgment begin.
In 1139, the Irish archbishop Malachy is said to have received a vision of every pope from Celestine II onward — 112 in all. The list was published in 1595 and has been studied by Catholics for centuries. Pope Francis, who died in April 2025, was widely identified as the 111th. His successor, elected in May 2025, sits in the position the prophecy reserves for the final pope.
Whether Malachy actually wrote the list is debated by historians. What is not debated is that millions of Catholics — and a growing number of non-Catholics — read the timing as more than coincidence: a centuries-old institution running out of names in the same decade that channels, contactees, and physicists all describe as a threshold.
