With the election of a new pope, some have reexamined an alleged prophecy by a 12th century Irish saint who predicted the number of popes before the end of the world. Saint Malachy of Armagh, a Roman Catholic bishop who died in 1148, reportedly had a vision while on a pilgrimage to Rome, where he claimed to have learned the exact number of popes who would reign from his time until Judgment Day. Interest in the purported prophecy was high in 2013 with the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, as the prophecy indicated that the pontiff after him — which...