A number of Catholic prophecies identify a year in which will mark the reversal of a period of persecution the Church will undergo just prior to the time of the Antichrist. The prophecies suggest that at that time the persecution will have reached an apex, and through divine intervention, the Church will be ultimately liberated. The year isn’t named but will be characterized by the following:

“When the Feast of St. Mark (April 25) shall fall on Easter, the Feast of St. Anthony (June 13) on Pentecost, and that of St. John (June 24th) on Corpus Christi, the whole world shall cry, Woe!” (Ven. Magdalene Porzat, ca. 1850).

This confluence occurred in 1943 and will occur again in 2038, and then not until 2190. What makes this prophecy intriguing is that 2038 will likely be during St. Hildegard’s era of the Grey Wolf, the conclusion of which is represented by the sudden ending of a period of persecution and a glorious new beginning for the Church.

A related prophecy appears in a sixteenth-century document known as the Prophecy of Orval. This is not a person but the name of a Cistercian monastery in Belgium which still exists today. A fragment of the anonymous prophecy, discovered in its archives in the mid-nineteenth century, describes the exact length of a period of God’s chastisement of His people which occurs near the time of the Antichrist:

“But the sons of Brutus view with anger the white flower and obtain a powerful code, and God in consequence is much irritated on account of his elect, and because the holy day is much profaned; nevertheless God will put to trial the return to Him during eighteen times twelve moons. God alone is great! He purifies his people by many tribulations, but an end will always be to the wicked.”

The identity of the “sons of Brutus” is difficult to discern, but the white flower is obviously France.

Eighteen times twelve moons is 18 years, marking the end to the “tribulations”. If we connect this with the Feast day confluence in 2038, also dramatically ending a period of persecution, then 2020 would mark the beginning of the chastisement as well as Hildegard’s era of the Grey Wolf. The prophecy of Orval also predicts the length of the period of peace that follows the chastisement:

“…fourteen times six moons and six times thirteen moons” [thirteen and a half years].

This would suggest that the arrival of the Antichrist will be sometime after 2050.

I came across another interesting observation related to the year 2038. The anonymous writer of the traditionalist Catholic blog, Centurio, was curious as to what the French priesthood might look like in the future. So he separated priests into two groups, those that perform the Traditional Latin Rite and those that did not. This was made easy as the former are associated with either the Confraternity of St. Peter, the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, or the Society of St. Pius X, all of which publish current statistics on their respective institutions, as does Rome.

By projecting into the future recent trends in the number of priests being either ordained, retiring, or dying, (noting the high average age of the non-traditional priests versus the younger traditional ones), he produced the following chart:

The author concludes:

“It is obvious from the above values that there will be a catastrophic decline in the number of non-traditional diocesan priests in France. The interesting result is that by the year 2038, traditional priests will outnumber priests celebrating the new mass.”(link)

Since aging is irreversible, by 2038 the Church in France might have become far more orthodox.

While these are interesting correlations to speculate about, Catholic prophecies as they have come down to us in the various collections, are problematic. For most of them it is difficult or impossible to asses their authenticity. This is not the case with St. Hildegard, who, with the exception of the Bible and approved Marian apparitions, has a level of authenticity with regard to prophecy that I believe is unequalled among the saints.

In an upcoming post I will explain why that is the case as well as propose a simple methodology for interpreting prophecies that are anonymous or whose level of authenticity is difficult to determine.

…rjt