Does the Popes Prophecy of St. Malachy indicate that the end times are imminent?

I also found the prophechies of Saint Malachy to be very interesting.

While it is always quite easy to to make a prophecy sound like the person, the prophecies associated with:

• John Paul I - "From the midst of the moon" who only lived just one lunar cycle after his election

• John Paul II - "Laboring under the Sun," - and indeed, one weighed down by the job

• Benedict XVI - "the Greening of the Olive" - and indeed, the Benedictines are associated with the Olive

These things were interesting to me. Furthermore, the idea of "Petrus Romanus" - Peter the Roman, sounded like an antichirst to me too.

That said, two things should be considered:

1. Confirmation Bias suggests that humans look for patterns in anything. Most of the "accuracies" of Malachy are ex post facto justifications.

2. Malachy himself never said that every Pope would be listed. Just as many Christians see Daniel's "final week" as separated from the 69 previous, so to there is nothing to demand that the successor is clearly Petrus Romanus.

Beyond this, there is an incongruency that is hard to overlook:

In the extreme persecution of the Holy Roman Church, there will sit ... Peter the Roman, who will pasture his sheep in many tribulations: and when these things are finished, the city of seven hills will be destroyed, and the terrible judge will judge his people. The End.

Now, even as an Evangelical whose own confirmation bias sees persecution, the truth is that it would be a stretch to call the persecution of the Church in the West "extreme." (Indonesia, Nigeria, Iraq, Egypt, China, and countless other places in the emerging world, yes, but not in Rome.) As such, one should carefully consider this incongruency before leaping to conclusions.

As others have said, eschatology can be problemmatic, especially when pinning down a date so definately. If Jesus didn't know, there is nothing to suggest that Malachy did either.

That said, the one thing to remember about "the last days" is this, from Romans 13:11:

Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.

Many, many of Jesus' parables (The Wheat and the Tares, The Foolish Virgins, The Wedding Feast, the Parable of the Vineyard, the Cursing of the Fig Tree, etcera, etcera, etcera) all make the same point: Be Ready! As such, it is just as good to continue with Paul:

12 The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. 13 Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. 14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

Live like that, and it doesn't matter who sits on the Papal Throne.

Update:

Just so you know, you aren't alone in being afraid anti-Christ is right around the corner. In Paul's day, the believers in Thessalonica had the same concerns. Paul gently wrote in 2 Thessaloanians 2 that they shouldn't worry:

Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers,1 2 not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that fthe day of the Lord has come. 3 Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and ithe man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction,3 4 who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. 5 Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? 6 And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time

In other words, when the time does come, you'll know.