Do Catholics need to believe in the Era of Peace?

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faithmatters

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Could someone explain the church teaching on the Era of Peace?
 
I don’t really think the church has a specific teaching on an era of peace. But it might be helpful to know what exactly you are referring to.
 
As in the aforementioned period of peace lasting 25 years that Our Lady talked about in her apparitions at La Salette? No, we don’t have to. You are free to believe in the apparitions, but it is not apart of the Deposit of Faith.

But if you are talking about millenarianism, or the Thousand Year Reign, that is not what Catholics believe and stems from Protestant misinterpretation of the Bible that first arose in the 1800s.
 
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misstherese said:
if you are talking about millenarianism, or the Thousand Year Reign, that is not what Catholics believe and stems from Protestant misinterpretation of the Bible that first arose in the 1800s.
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Actually, a variety of understandings of the “thousand year reign” – as found in the Book of Revelation – have existed for as long as the Book of Revelation has been around! (You can imagine the excitement as the year 1000 A.D. approached… 😉 )

However, in the 1800s, a new theological theory appeared from the pen of John Darby: dispensationalism. Dispensationalism, as you might know, is where the whole notion of the “rapture” was invented. Most dispensationalists believe in a literal 1000-year reign of Christ that follows the rapture and the tribulation.

However, dispensationalists aren’t the only ones who believe in a literal 1000-year reign. Catholicism, by contrast, takes on an amillenial stance: that is, the “1000-year reign” is not a literal reality.
 
The Catholic teaching is that the era of peace (the millennium) began with the destruction of the second temple - the end of Judaism - and the beginning of the ‘church age’.

We are currently in the millennium.
 
All I can say is, the Era of Peace can’t come too soon.
 
I will have to look up what St. John Vianney envisioned. I’ve gotten really into him after seeing the “Vianney” one-man play that toured many churches last month.
 
“But if you are talking about millenarianism, or the Thousand Year Reign, that is not what Catholics believe and stems from Protestant misinterpretation of the Bible that first arose in the 1800s.”

Wrong.
Barnabas in the first century of the “church age” mentioned it in chapter 13 of his epistle.
 
blanchardman said:
“But if you are talking about millenarianism, or the Thousand Year Reign, that is not what Catholics believe and stems from Protestant misinterpretation of the Bible that first arose in the 1800s.”

Wrong.

Barnabas in the first century of the “church age” mentioned it in chapter 13 of his epistle.
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Psst… you’re responding to @misstherese, not to me. And, if you had read my post to which you’ve replied, you’d see that I was making the same point that you are. 😉

Blessings,
G.
 
Whoops!
I am posting on a phone with a shattered screen. It does strange things sometimes. I also have a cat on my lap “demanding” attention.
 
@blanchardman “Amen amen I say unto you, it will be easier to have a contented cat than enter the Kingdom of God” - The Gospel of Pontius Pilate
 
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It’s a natural tendency to want to see the world live under the peaceful reign of Christ and millenarianism was the embodiment of this misplaced hope. The one thing about Fatima and certain other private prophecies that gives me pause is the proposed time of peace, which sometimes resembles a way of realizing the same desire as the millenialists, while avoiding the specific claim of Christ returning before the end.

On the other hand, Scripture and the Catechism describe things as pretty much just going down the toilet until we hit rock bottom, at which time Christ returns…
 
OK! Barnabas was a millenialists less than 100 years after Jesus died.

You end your post with, " at which time Christ returns…"
Then what? Don’t leave us hanging.
Revelation says He sets up His kingdom. What say you?
 
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He judges the living and the dead and His kingdom has no end as the Creed says.

He doesn’t come and establish a first kingdom that has an end in a 1000 years and then after that He judges the living and the dead, and then His other kingdom has no end.
 
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The final judgment is after the1000 year reign.
At the start of this period there is the first resurrection. It is followed by the final judgment. A judgment by fire
 
The thousand years theory (chiliasm or milennialism) has been declared heresy the Synod of the Church at Ephesus 431 AD and before that it has been called as such by Pope Damasus in 337 and to my knowledge no other Pope reversed this status.

Please feel free to read more about the story of this old idea here:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10307a.htm

To answer your question since it’s a heresy, a Catholic must not believe in this idea at all and accept the decision the Church made about it when called it out as heresy.
 
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