Article Lead Image

A young Spaniard had a dream that foretold the Catholic Church’s future

A young Spaniard named Alejandro Rodriguez predicted Benedict's resignation and Francis's election in a dream. And there's proof on Twitter. 

 

Kris Holt

Internet Culture

Posted on Mar 14, 2013   Updated on Jun 1, 2021, 9:40 pm CDT

A young man in Spain predicted Benedict’s resignation and Francis’s election in a dream. And there’s proof on Twitter. 

On the morning of Feb. 11, the girlfriend of 22-year-old Madrid resident Alejandro Rodriguez sent a tweet about her partner’s dream:

In English, through the power of Google Translate, that reads:

Yolanda De Mena sent that tweet at 6:06am ET, just as news was breaking of Benedict’s resignation from the papacy. It is the other fact, Rodriguez’s premonition of the new pope’s name, which struck a chord with Twitter users.

De Mena’s tweet, which one person dubbed “the biggest spoiler in the history of mankind” has been retweeted more than 58,000 times, with her boyfriend surprised to see it receiving attention from outlets in Chile, Colombia, and Spain. He was also interviewed by an Argentine radio show. Meanwhile, De Mena’s follower count has jumped from around 100 to more than 9,400.

While some suggested that De Mena had somehow faked the date on the tweet, it’s there as clear as day. Of course, she could have been fibbing about the Benedict part of the dream given the time it was posted, but there’s no way to have altered the tweet to add Francis’s name. It was either a lucky guess, or a prophetic dream about the new pope.

Photo via @Ardecabo/Twitter

Share this article
*First Published: Mar 14, 2013, 2:24 pm CDT