As far as I know, Nostradamus isn't part of this prophecy at all.
The hoax is in attributing it to St. Malachy, it is thought to be a forgery because the popes who lived prior to the discovery of the prophecy fit really well into the prophecy, the subsequent ones do not (it's kind of like a horoscope or fortune cookie, if you work really hard at it you can make it fit but it's sometimes a huge stretch).
To the best of my knowledge, St. Malachy NEVER claimed to be a prophet and his "prophecy" was "discovered" four centuries after his death. Keep in mind, that under Old Testament Law a prophet needed to be 100% right, 100% of the time or he was to be put to death (Deuteronomy 18).
As far as Nostradamus, the prophecy you are speaking of isn't his. The prophecies of Nostradamus are, in my opinion, all over the place and open to wide interpretation. I don't put much stock in him because ANYBODY can predict that disasters will happen and they eventually will, many of his prophecies have simply been interpreted in such a way that they fit certain events.
There are also other objections, such as:
* The prophecies are written in bad Latin. However St. Malachy, being an Archbishop, was probably pretty good in Latin, given that it was the language of knowledge and prayer at his time.
* It does not seem likely that the Catholic Church will be ever persecuted. This might have been seen as a possibility in 1590, but today we know better. Organizations are better subverted from the inside. That's what we are witnessing - not only in Vatican, but also in Washington.
That is my opinion too, dear wagglebee. Though I do put stock in the prophets, I don't put any stock in fortune-tellers.
But Nostradamus is a fascinating cultural phenomenon. A friend of mine believes that he was predicting the end of the world; and thus every breaking event had to be analyzed through his prophecy before it could be understood.
My citation of Nostradamus was mean to be "fanciful," not serious....