The Steel Magnolia

Interesting article I read on the net this morning:

New pope will be assassinated: Scholar
Thursday, 07 April , 2005, 10:57
Bogota: The pope elected to succeed John Paul II will be assassinated and his death will spark a Muslim invasion of the West that will split the Roman Catholic church, according to an interpretation of Nostradamus’ prophecies by a leading Colombian author.

“The next pope elected will be subsequently murdered in central Italy. Then comes pope number 112, who will flee Rome because of an attack by Muslims,” Gonzalo Echeverri, a Colombian investigating judge and author of a book on Nostradamus told AFP.

According to Echeverri, the pope will base himself in Avignon, France and another pontiff will take control in Italy, splitting the Catholic church in two.

“There is a very clear prophecy that says the holy father will move to another place, even warning that the French pope will not be able to stay in Avignon due to the Muslim invasion and will flee again to Lyon, where he will be attacked, according to Nostradamus,” Echeverri said.

Avignon was a base for popes for much of the 14th century, another time of grave divisions in the Church and Europe.

Nostradamus was a 16th century scholar who made prophecies. His supporters say he predicted the French revolution, the rise of Hitler and the assassination of President John F Kennedy.

I started to think about this “prediction” and it really didn’t “feel right,” so to say. The likelihood of there being such an open split in the Catholic church, the possibility of a pope taking up residence in Avignon in this day and age, is so remote as to be laughable.

Since I don’t have this guy’s book and can’t find out exactly what quatrain he is talking about, and since I have a computerized text version of Nostradamu’s quatrains and a search program, I did a search to see if anything at all fit.

Nothing did.

I can only think that he is reading something into a quatrain that is very vague, and what it is, I don’t know.

When I first read this, I immediately thought of the contankerations surrounding Phillippe le Bel and his desire to eliminate the Templars and take all their goodies for himself. There is a pretty good synopsis of the events HERE.

We read here about a certain event that is quite astonishing and sounds exactly like what the Colombian author has described:

… [T]he French king Philip IV (the Fair) was getting impatient with the pope for not crowning him Emperor. He began taxing the clergy and withholding church revenues - despite an earlier papal bull that this was a grave offence.

In 1302, Boniface penned a Bull Unam Sanctam (‘one holy’) not just to Philip but to the whole church:

‘There is but one, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church outside of which there is no salvation …

‘We declare that it is wholly necessary for salvation for every creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff’.

A year later, Boniface was working on another Bull, this time to excommunicate Philip. What he didn’t know was that Nogaret had joined forces with Sciarra Colonna, relative of the sacked cardinals. In October that year (1303), their forces stormed into Anagni, the pope’s favourite retreat. The invaders began burning the main doors of the cathedral and slaughtered all who had not yet fled. They then advanced towards the palace, killing all (bishops included) along the way. The pope’s bodyguards surrendered.

Sciarra made his way to the huge audience chamber. There sat the pope, 86, alone except for a single cowering cardinal. He was attired in full regalia, including a gold cross in his hands. Initially awed, Sciarra strode slowly towards the Pontiff. “Resign”, he shouted and slapped him across the face, the chamber walls echoing with the sound.. Too proud to beg for mercy, Boniface lowered his head and intoned that he was ready to die. Sciarra hesitated and then raised his sword.

Just then Nogaret burst in and shouted at him that the pope was wanted in France to face a general council. Sciarra put back his sword but proceeded to strip the pope of his costly tiara and garments until he stood nearly naked, showing his body infested with lice. He was thrown into a dungeon, dark and dank. Meanwhile the people of the town got organised, drove away the invaders and rescued the pope.

Boniface was a changed man. The hunger and thirst in the dungeon, the darkness and isolation, the rats scampering over him had unhinged him. He kept himself locked in the Lateran for 5 weeks and there in solitude he died. His predecessor Celestine had foretold: “You leapt to the throne like a fox, you will rule like a lion, you will die like a dog.”

The next pope, Benedict XI, died of dysentery in 8 months. There was 11 months of wrangling between the French and other cardinals deciding on his successor. In the end, the Archbishop of Bordeaux was elected as Pope Clement V. King Philip of France had a French pope at last. Clement never set foot in Rome. In order not ‘to cause pain to our dear son, the King of France’, in 1309 he moved to Avignon, a small city in Provence which then belonged not to France but to the king of Naples.It was almost surrounded by papal territory. He agreed to be crowned at Lyon, absolved Philip and Nogaret of all wrong doing and even published a bull praising Philip for his hostile actions against Boniface. Clement created a large number of cardinals, most of them French, 5 being members of his own family. He died in 1314. It took two years to decide on his successor, John XXII.

The thing is, all of this happened BEFORE the time of Nostradamus and, since Nostradamus is supposed to be writing prophecies, that is, things that will happen in the future, “true believers” have to project such events forward in time.

But, what if Nostradamus was not ALWAYS writing about the future? What if Nostradamus was writing also about the past, that is, recording things for posterity so that people would know “what really happened?”

The reason I am suggesting this is because of an article I have already mentioned by Laura Knight-Jadczyk entitled “The True Identity of Fulcanelli and the Da Vinci Code.” In this article she mentions the following:

Another of Marguerite’s [of Navarre, wife of Henri d’Albret] associates and correspondents was Jules Cesar Scaliger who was a close friend and associate of Nostradamus. Nostradamus, as it happens, was born in Alet-le-Bains, in Foix lands. Nostradamus also attended school with Rabelais.

In 1525 Nostradamus settled in Agen, not far from Toulouse and Auch. In 1534, it is said he married a woman of “High Estate”, who gave him two children. This woman has never been identified, but considering his highly probable association with Marguerite of Navarre, it is likely that there was some connection there. It is said that, in 1538, his wife and children died of the plague. Around the same time, he had a falling out with Scaliger, and he was accused of heresy by the Inquisition…

The article focuses, in part, on a “history” recorded in Auch Cathedral. About Auch Cathedral, Knight-Jadczyk writes:

There is a very great mystery in the city of Auch. It consists of two masterpieces of Renaissance art preserved in St. Mary’s Cathedral - a cathedral dedicated to “The Black Virgin.

She then quotes a priest who has made Auch Cathedral his life’s study:

The artists of the Gothic Cathedrals would be none other than the Compagnons du devoir de liberté - The Companions Devoted to Liberty.

These companions have been able to give full initiative to their art, to the point of expressing in many places their initiations - of course, discreetly.

This remarkable set is not mere art! Like the windows, it contains thought, a message.

When we carefully observe the details, in the stalls, something immediately appears to our eyes: Demons and snakes, malevolent animals and monsters of all species swarm there. This invasion contributes to give to this whole a tragic aspect that also agrees very well with the profound movement of history that is narrated to us.

This tragic aspect is complementary and has to be put in relationship to the windows of Arnaud de Moles. The windows and stalls constitute a whole. The two masterpieces were designed at the same time. The same story is told. Its theme was proposed to the glaziers and the sculptors. This theme evokes the same reality: the reality of man in general.

One would almost think about Dante’s Inferno. But this obvious tragedy is not hell - it is the history of humanity on earth. Charity - empty handed - walks right before the monsters and demons, sustained by one same hope, going alone, but courageous, to face evil, the malevolent snake. At the end of the cycle, she becomes triumphant Strength. Her mission is accomplished because we see all malevolent snakes crushed under her feet or finally mastered in her hands.

Since this history is told and relived in retrospect, our artists knew in advance that this dramatic adventure had to bring us to Life.

What breadth! What perspective! that comes out of the thought of the woodwork of the choir of Auch. Some connoisseurs are not afraid to compare the extraordinary work of these stalls with the frescoes of Michelangelo. [Raymond Montané]

When I read “this history is told and relived in retrospect” and knew that the creators of this artwork were somehow connected to Leonardo Da Vinci and to Nostradamus, as well as the “father of Western Historical chronology,” Jules Cesar Scaliger, I realized that it must be so that Nostradamus not only made prophecies, but he recorded for us the “inside scoop” on events of the time, and the periods immediately preceding his own historical placement.

Thus, the issue of the schism of the Catholic Church and the Pope at Avignon MUST refer to the affair of Nogaret and Boniface VIII.

Boniface’s contest with Philip IV of France was the principal feature of his career. One suspects that what Nostradamus may have been trying to tell us (and I am still not sure of the quatrain that the esteemed Colombian writer refers to) was that Boniface was murdered so that Phillipe Le Bel could have his French pope, Clement V.

Now, the interesting thing about Boniface VIII is that he comes up in the Mystery of Rennes-le-Chateau. The alleged story about this renegade country priest says that he went to Paris and returned with reproductions of three paintings: The Shepherds of Arcadia by Poussin, The second is St. Anthony and St. Paul by Teniers, and the third was a painting of Pope St. Celestine V. For a look at these paintings, go HERE.

Supposedly, these paintings are clues to the solution of some mystery. Whether or not any of that is true as is told by the “Rennes-le-Chateau” cottage industry of mystery manufacturing, I can’t say. But in the present case, the connection IS interesting. The site with the paintings I have linked to tells us the following:

I would like to quote a very short biography written totally from the church’s perspective. First it should be noted that he ruled as Pope for less than a year which seemed to be a habit at this time in history so that in itself is not unique. ….

“On December 13th Celestine met the cardinals in the great hall of the palace. Clad in his pontificals he read them the decree of abdication, then stepped down and stripped himself of all papal imsignia. The “Great Refusal”, as Dante called it.

Celestine was kept in confinement by his successor Boniface VIII, lest he should become the tool of designing schemes and endanger the unity of the church, He died on May 19th, 1296. Pope Clement V cannonized him in. (This is, if one studies the record carfully, so much rubbish. How could he have possibly endangered the unity of the church. There appears to be much more to this story than the church would let on. There are reports that he was instrumental in helping the Templars and that is why he was carefully locked up untill his death. Sure would be interesting to get into The Vatican Archives and read some of what was really written during this time. I am sure it would be illuminating !)

The painting is entitled “Allegory of the Coronation of Celestine V” and is supposedly a French painting of the 16th century, however how they can date it to this period not knowing the artist is beyond me. There is no history of it as far as who owned it and how it came into being and furthermore I have yet to be able to see a rendition in colour. Very curious indeed. Personally I get the feeling that it is perhaps earlier than they say but then what do I know of art. It is, of course, housed in the Louvre.

It seems interesting that the description of the confrontation with Boniface VIII and Nogaret describes the Pope being stripped to the point that it was seen that his body was infested with lice, and then we have Celestine V stripping himself of all Papal insignia before being locked up by Boniface VIII. Then, along comes Clement V who does a big cover-up.

So, my guess is that this was a crucial point in history and Nostradamus may have been trying to tell us something that had nothing to do with an invasion of Muslims, but rather the take-over of the church by a gang of infidels of a different sort.

Just “another take.”