The Secret Code of Popes!

This is a super old list called the 'Prophecy of the Popes.' It's like a riddle book with 112 short, mysterious clues. Each clue is supposed to be about a Pope, the leader of the Catholic Church. It started with a Pope named Celestine II and has clues for many Popes who came after him. It's like a game of 'guess who' for church leaders!

A long, long time ago, in the 1100s, there was a man named Saint Malachy. He was a big deal, an Archbishop in Ireland. Later, in the 1500s, a monk named Arnold Wion found this list and said Saint Malachy wrote it. But, some people think Arnold Wion might have made it up himself, just before he showed it to everyone!

The really amazing thing is that the clues for Popes up to around the year 1590 were really, really good guesses! They matched the Popes perfectly. It's like someone knew exactly what would happen. But after that, the clues didn't match anymore. This makes people wonder if it was a real prophecy or a clever trick!

The prophecy has a special ending. The very last clue talks about a Pope named 'Peter the Roman.' It says that when this Pope is in charge, something big will happen. It predicts that Rome, the famous city, will be destroyed, and then something called the Last Judgment will happen. It's a very dramatic ending to the list!