1000-year-old prophecy predicts the next pope but has terrifying warning for humanity

A supposed prophecy meant to be close to being millennium-old claims to predict the next pope and has a chilling warning for humanity.

Yesterday (22 April), the Vatican announced the death of Pope Francis at age 88, with his cause of death being revealed as a cerebal stroke leading to a coma and heart failure.

Following his passing, a nine-day period of mourning will commence before being followed by the lengthy process of having to pick a new Pope.

And there's a few to choose from.

However, there's a book known as the Prophecy of the Popes, which was claimed to have been written in the 1100s by an Irish chap called Saint Malachy, or just Malachy to his friends, as he was made a saint several decades after his death.

His alleged prophecy claims to list 112 popes, and we've almost entirely run through the list with just a reference to 'Peter the Roman' left and some prophetic doomsaying to follow.

Apparently the next pope will be 'Peter the Roman', and then the world will end (Laszlo Szirtesi/Getty Images)

The final entry says the last pope will be: "Peter the Roman, who will pasture his sheep in many tribulations, and when these things are finished, the city of seven hills will be destroyed, and the dreadful judge will judge his people. The End."

So that's Rome getting destroyed and what sounds like the end of the world, and some interpretations of the Prophecy of the Popes reckon it tips the world to end in 2027 which is not far off.

Basically, what the Prophecy of the Popes does is list a series of cryptic phrases which have just so happened to correspond with the people who made it to the head of the Catholic church.

Pope Francis has died (Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images)

So, for example, one of the entries is 'from the guardian goose', which refers to Pope Alexander III who may have come from a family that bore the image of a goose on its coat of arms.

Or another one, 'pasturing ox', which referred to Callixtus III whose coat of arms had an ox standing on a field of grass.

Like many prophecies, however, it appears to be a big steaming load of bullplop, as papal scholars and historians have been quick to debunk some of the support around it.

The legitimacy of the prophecy has been strongly challenged (Public Domain)

It's suspected that 'Peter the Roman' was supposed to be the recently deceased Pope Francis.

However, scholars aren't so convinced as he wasn't originally named Peter, nor took it as a papal name.

Josh Canning, director of Toronto's Chaplaincy at the Newman Centre, said in 2013 (via Global News): "I don't know how you can connect Peter the Roman with Pope Francis."

The prophecy is also claimed to have been written in the 12th century, however, papal historian, Anura Guruge says that while it's attributed to Malachy, it's still unknown 'whether he actually wrote it'.

There's also a theory that it was created by a monk, Arnold Wyon, in order to get his mate the top job, which didn't work in the end.