Mysterium Iniquitatis

In a novel written quite a few years ago, Mysterium Iniquitatis (Adelphi, Milan 1995), the Italian novelist Sergio Quinzio imagines Petrus II, the last pope, wondering "if there is still a possibility for Christians to identify in a core of things to hope and believe."

With a first encyclical letter, Resurrectio mortuorum, Peter II solemnly reaffirms that "the dead in Christ will be resurrected in the same flesh which suffered in the world, and resurrected to live a human life consoled from all horror and from death." But no one pays any attention to the encyclical, so Peter II, anguished and completely abandoned, writes a second encyclical: Mysterium iniquitatis (#) which proclaims as truth of faith "the failure of Christianity."

Then the Pope, having climbed from within to the top of the dome of St. Peter - in the night, with the help of a lamp - reads the words written at its base: Tu es Petrus et super hanc petram edificabo ecclesiam meam et tibi dabo claves regni coelorum. ["You are Peter, the "stone", and upon this stone I will build my church and I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven" - Matt 16:18-19]

Then he lets himself fall at the intersection of the arms of the cross because "the Church of Christ, which is his body, has to follow the fate of Jesus Christ who is the head, it must follow him into death and like him be crucified in the world . It must also die in history to be later resurrected as the Lord and enter into the glory of the Father " (S. Quinzio,  Mysterium Iniquitatis).

Maybe it's some sort of prophecy, like those of Saint Malachy ...

(#) 2 Thes 2:7 nam mysterium iam operatur iniquitatis tantum ut qui tenet nunc donec de medio fiat ("For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way.")