Did Pope St. Pius X prophesy Pope Benedict XVI's martyrdom?

When he was installed as Pope on April 19, 2005, the Holy Father requested our prayers. "Pray for me, that I may not flee for fear of the wolves. Let us pray for one another, that the Lord will carry us and that we will learn to carry one another." 

On April 9, 1993, Our Lady told Father Gobbi that Jesus' passion "is being renewed by you, my beloved children.  And so I have called you time and again to enter, by your consecration, into the Gethsemane of my Immaculate Heart.  This is in order to form you for your priestly immolation and to give you the strength to go forward without fear to the Calvary of your martyrdom, close to me, the sorrowful Mother, who has begotten you beneath the Cross upon which my Son Jesus has been put to death.  The time of your painful passion has now arrived.  You too will be persecuted and stricken, rejected and condemned, imprisoned and killed.  But do not let yourselves be seized with apprehension or fear.  I am close to you, as I was beneath the Cross.  I am at your side at the hour of the painful passion which is being renewed by you, my beloved ones, because today also it is beneath the cross that I am fulfilling my role as Mother of the new times, which are coming to birth from your painful suffering."

The Church is approaching Calvary.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us that, "Before Christ's second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers.  This persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the 'mystery of iniquity' in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth.  The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh." (CCC, 675).


We are now in the final hour before the bloody persecution.  The Church finds herself surrounded by many enemies.  Even now the Man of Sin readies himself to enter the world stage openly.  Pope St. Pius X, the Pope of the Eucharist, while giving an audience for the General Chapter of the Franciscan Order in 1909, fell into a mystical trance and prophesied:

"I have seen one of my successors, of the same name, who was fleeing over the dead bodies of his brethren.  He will take refuge in some hiding place; but after a brief respite, he will die a cruel death.  Respect for God has disappeared from human hearts.  They wish to efface even God's memory.  This perversity is nothing less than the beginning of the last days of the world."

While in a mystical trance, Pope St. Pius X observed a time when many people would desire to "efface even God's memory."  An accurate description of our own time.  And who is this successor on the throne of Peter who will possess the same name as Pius X and who will have to flee Rome, eventually facing "a cruel death"?  Only time will tell.  But it should be noted that Pope St. Pius X was born Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto on June 2, 1835.  Pope Benedict XVI was born Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger on April 16, 1927.  Giuseppe is Italian for Joseph.

Now is the time for the entire Church to prepare for persecution the likes of which the Church has never seen.  In the words of Father Charles Arminjon: "..this persecution will be the most severe and violent of all because it will be inspired not by superstition or fanaticism, nor by a blind attachment to the worship of idols...It's purpose will not be to assuage pride, or to satisfy an unbridled lust for power...It will be a persecution inspired solely by hatred of God, in which God and His Christ will be directly challenged, and its sole objective will be the extermination of the divine kingdom, the complete annihilation of Christianity and of all positive religion." (The End of the Present World and the Mysteries of the Future Life, pp. 63-64).