Predictions of a ‘black pope’, and our demise, are greatly exaggerated

Jonathan deBurca Butler explores whether an Irish saint and Nostradamus really did predict the current pope

PERHAPS only sex, money, and in Ireland, property, fascinates the human mind more than doom. Prophecies resembling the one above have, through the centuries, been given credence by otherwise right-thinking people.

On the day Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio became pope, social media sites such as Twitter were brimming with reminders and references to prophecies and predictions that this papacy would be Rome’s last. “Isn’t top Jesuit known as ‘the Black Pope’ and didn’t Nostradamus/Malachy predict that last pope will be ‘black’,” tweeted RTÉ broadcaster John Creedon, with, it should be said, his tongue firmly in his cheek.