La Profezia Degno Pastore (The Worthy Shepherd Prophecy)

By Blessed Tomasuccio de Foligno, 14th Century


"One from beyond the mountains shall become the Vicar Of God. Religious and clerics shall take part in this change.
Outside the true path, there will be only disreputable men; I shrug my shoulders when the Bark of Peter is in danger and there is no one to lend it help...The schismatic shall fall into the scorn of the Italian faithful..." By about twelve years shall the millennium have passed [2012 A.D.] when the resplendent mantle of legitimate power shall emerge from the shadows where it was being kept by the schism. And beyond harm from the one [the usurper antipope] who is blocking the door of salvation, for his deceitful schism shall have come to an end. And the mass of the faithful shall attach itself to the worthy Shepherd, who shall extricate each one from error and restore to the Church its beauty. He shall renew it."
(Prophecy of *Blessed Tomasuccio de Foligno, Profezie, 14th Century)


*Tomasuccio de Foligno (1319-1377 A.D) beatus:

Franciscan tertiary. Born in Valmacinaia (Nocera Umbra). At the age of 24, Tomassucio retreated into solitude at Rigali (near Gualdo Tadino), wearing the habit of the TOR. He lived there under the direction of the hermit Pietro de Gualdo Tadino. After the death of Pietro (1367), Tomasuccio continued his life of retreat near Valdigorgo until 1370, when he embarked on a life as itinerant preacher in the March of Ancona and Tuscany. He went as pilgrim to Santiago da Compostella, to continue his itinerant preaching at Genoa and Tuscany after his return. In 1373 he was back in Umbria, to end up in Foligno, where he served for some time the hospital of La Santa Trinità. According to his biographer and disciple Giusto della Rosa, he died there in September 1377 (The Martyrologium Franciscanum [Rome, 1938], 359 commemorates him on September 15th). One of Blessed Tomasuccio’s visions, as well as his more famous Profezie have survived.

Editions:

"Visio Paradisi/Visione de la festa che fanoli sancti in paradiso el di de ogni sancti", ed. M. Faloci Pulignani, in: Miscellanea Francescana 8 (1901), 148-158 [During one of his journeys, travelling from Assisi to Nocera Umbra, Tomasuccio visited a derelict church, where he received a vision of the saints in glory. He related his vision to one of his travel companions].

"Profezie", ed. M. Faloci Pulignani, in: Miscellanea Francescana 1 (1886), 81-88, 121-125, 151-157, 173-182 [A versified lamentation/prophecy in 212 verses, deploring the sins of the time, the strife... the (future) punishment of several cities of central Italy (a.o. Lucca, Perugia, Venice, Ferrara, Bologna, Genoa). He also foretells of a ‘degno pastore’ (at the start of the next millennium) who would re-establish order and rejuvenate the world and religion. The work has survived in a range of manuscripts, and has received several editions].