I agree that it would be useless to speculate about “end-times scenarios, specific governments and nations, disasters, etc.” because it is worthless. For one, to the degree that the world rejects the teachings and grace of the Church, there will be temporal problems. Hence, if we have a major apostasy, we can simply expect to suffer. Knowing the minor historical details is of little use. Secondly, God does not have a vendetta against any one nation or another (barring, of course, the Gentile/Jew distinction, in that the Gentiles and Jews have a somewhat different relationship to God in the course of Salvation History in the sense of
when they accept the Revelation).
However, saying the Fundamentalist approach is useless does not therefore imply that
any other interpretation besides the application to first century is useless. Scripture can have more than one layer of meaning! Of course, the book addresses,
on one level, what happened in the Early Church,
but history goes on! The only thing is that, to understand the history, we need to look at the
spiritual situations in the ages of history, because that is what ultimately shapes that history. More specifically, Christ has revealed what the ultimate source of peace and prosperity is:
to know the truths about God and to live them. But we can only know what to believe from the Church, and we cannot live what we believe without grace, the essential dispenser of which is the Church as well. Hence, the prophecy in the Book, if it were to be about “world history,” would address the questions of: “To what degree does the world believe in and cooperate with the truths and graces of the Church, and to what degree does it not?”
On that note, since the Church’s triumph over paganism in the Middle Ages, there has been a
gradual spiritual decline (setting aside minor recoveries for the Church at each step) until now. That the Book would, in some sense, deal with this would not be “useless” or “arrogant,” for then it would actually be delving into the ultimate root of man’s problems.
For example, we have the contrast between those with the Seal of God in their foreheads (the 144,000) and those with the mark of the beast. That this would allegorically portray persons who are, respectively,
total friends of God (i.e., devout Catholics, those who recognize that the truth comes from God) and
total enemies of God (i.e., apostates, persons who believe that they are their own gods and determine for themselves what to believe and do, irrespective of any religion) would not be ludicrous, just as the late pope commented that the “False Prophet” of our day is
materialism, an ideology that leads men to “worship the beast,” which, in its ultimate sense, represents man’s fallen nature and sinful resistance to God and His Plan across the whole spectrum of Salvation history. This is, in fact, how certain Early Fathers saw the beast.
In addition, of course, there are "
gray areas" between these extremes, which also seems to be addressed in the Book, specifically with the three “great woes.” That is, recalling the gradual spiritual decline above, the three great woes could, on one level of meaning, be an allusion to this process.
That Catholic Revelation through Scripture provides info on both the beginning and end of Church history (i.e., the persecutions of Rome and the Church’s triumph in the beginning, and the fullness of Gentiles, Jews and apostasy at the end) does not seem to me to suggest that there is necessarily
nothing in between of any significance. For example, the mystics (see
here) suggest a minor apostasy and tribulation that will be followed by the reunion of Christians and a great Reign of the Gospel and Peace, all prior to the very end. That the Church would discover that Revelation deals with some of these developments is not to be discarded. There was a development of God’s Plan in the OT until Christ, and the Plan continues into the age of the Church. Hence, that Scripture would contain what the plan is in its completion in the course of the Church age, provided it addresses it, again, from a spiritual perspective, I do not deem “useless” or “sensational.” In fact, it would really be giving us insights into God’s Love and Plan for humanity, giving us a psychological and spiritual understanding of the whole of Salvation History, both from the perspective of man’s sinful resistance, as well as God’s loving redemption.
Even the parts of the Book of Revelation that ARE about the future were not written for us to crack like a code to match up with world history; it is meant to reassure that in the end, whenever that may be, God will triumph over evil and if we presevere with him, will share our eternal reward with him forever.
