End of times & second coming of Jesus Catholic teaching?

[CountrySteve]

just as the title says, is there going to be a one world government ruled by the antichrist, the mark of the beat (666), and all that stuff, or does the Church have no teaching on this? i understand there’s no rapture but is there going to be a persecution of the Christians? by the antichrist and his false prophet? God bless y’all

 

[Aelred_Minor]

The Fathers of the Church and later saints wrote about a lot of this stuff, but I don’t believe there is a great deal of formal Church teaching on the subject. You will find a great deal of diversity among Catholics on these end-times issues, and unfortunately many people who will claim their position to be the Catholic position when in fact it is not.

 

[Aelred_Minor]

My own personal approach is to more or less assume something like the classic general outline will happen, but not to worry about the details. That general outline would be something like the Gospel gets preached to all nations, the Jews (some of them at least) convert, most people leave the Catholic Church, the Antichrist rules and persecutes the Church, then there is the Second Coming, General Resurrection, and General Judgment. Also the order of the first several elements there might be different.

Again you will find Catholics who will want to go into more detail than this or less, or who will even deny aspects of that traditional outline entirely. Here in America you will especially find those Catholics who treat any kind of eschatological speculation like the plague, presumably as a reaction to Protestant excesses in this area.

 

[The_Scott]

Here in America you will especially find those Catholics who treat any kind of eschatological speculation like the plague, presumably as a reaction to Protestant excesses in this area.

cough Harold Camping cough

 

[Zacdecat]

just as the title says, is there going to be a one world government ruled by the antichrist, the mark of the beat (666), and all that stuff, or does the Church have no teaching on this? i understand there’s no rapture but is there going to be a persecution of the Christians? by the antichrist and his false prophet? God bless y’all

Why do you say there will be no rapture? Yes as others have responded the church does have teachings on this, but the RCC has never DWELT on it as some non Catholics do.

 

[Aelred_Minor]

Why do you say there will be no rapture? Yes as others have responded the church does have teachings on this, but the RCC has never DWELT on it as some non Catholics do.

The term “rapture” is usually used, at least here in America, to mean a time that God will supposedly take all the true Christians up to heaven either just before or in the middle of a big tribulation the world will go through. Often they believe this tribulation will be seven years long and will be followed by a thousand year reign of Christ on earth, ruling Jews from Jerusalem, before finally the Second Coming and the new eternal order arrives. Some of these ideas are alien to Catholicism while others are options some Fathers seem to have believed in but have become unpopular in the Catholic Church.

Technically you could say we Catholics believe in the rapture, but believe it will happen at about the same time as the Second Coming and General Resurrection, but stating it that way could lead to unnecessary confusion since this is not what the word usually means.

 

[CountrySteve]

The term “rapture” is usually used, at least here in America, to mean a time that God will supposedly take all the true Christians up to heaven either just before or in the middle of a big tribulation the world will go through. Often they believe this tribulation will be seven years long and will be followed by a thousand year reign of Christ on earth, ruling Jews from Jerusalem, before finally the Second Coming and the new eternal order arrives. Some of these ideas are alien to Catholicism while others are options some Fathers seem to have believed in but have become unpopular in the Catholic Church.

Technically you could say we Catholics believe in the rapture, but believe it will happen at about the same time as the Second Coming and General Resurrection, but stating it that way could lead to unnecessary confusion since this is not what the word usually means.

lol now im confused how does the rapture work then according too Catholic teachings?

 

[FAB]

All the discussion of the Rapture and 666 comes from the Book of Revelation a protestant favorite to predict the end of the world. THe Church’s teaching is that it is not a prediction of the end of the world or of end times. It was written at a time of Church persecution and the style of writting was popular at the time.
The book of revevation does teach us God’s continual love for His people and continual salvation.
The Church does teach that Christ will come again, but there is time line and no one can predict it. We are each called to be ready for judgement and to live our lives in accordance with Christ teaching.
The Kingdom of God will not fully come to the earth until all God’s children follow the teachings of Christ. No worries of that happening any time soon.

 

[beehumble]

lol now im confused how does the rapture work then according too Catholic teachings?

It is a question of semantics. Protestants (not all but many) have hijacked the word ‘rapture’ to mean something unbiblical, and so Catholics try to avoid using the word. Protestants say the ‘good’ will be taken up to heaven - raptured - BEFORE the final tribulations, but the Bible teaches that the Christians will indeed suffer through the final tribulations just as Jesus suffered His own tribulation - His crucifixion.

Catholics, if they mention it at all, speak of a rapture that happens at the Second Coming/General Judgment, AFTER the tribulations. As Jesus returns, accompanied by angels and saints (those already in heaven), the faithful still alive on earth will go up to meet Him, Paul tells us.

Hope this helps.

God bless you.

 

[Qoheleth]

If you want to take a look at catholic thought on these subjects pick up a copy of Trial, Tribulation and Triumph. Author Desmond Birch, available on Amazon.

 

[johnthebaptist1]

I believe that it is true, that at the end, the Antichrist well try to turn thoes with Fatih to God, away from God by, offering them better times and to save them from the Final Battle of Destuction. but inthe end Good will over come Evil.

 

[Aelred_Minor]

All the discussion of the Rapture and 666 comes from the Book of Revelation a protestant favorite to predict the end of the world. THe Church’s teaching is that it is not a prediction of the end of the world or of end times. It was written at a time of Church persecution and the style of writting was popular at the time.
The book of revevation does teach us God’s continual love for His people and continual salvation.
The Church does teach that Christ will come again, but there is time line and no one can predict it. We are each called to be ready for judgement and to live our lives in accordance with Christ teaching.
The Kingdom of God will not fully come to the earth until all God’s children follow the teachings of Christ. No worries of that happening any time soon.

This is an example of private opinions regarding Biblical interpretation (in this case, the assertion that the book of Revelation does not prophesy the end of the world, and the very strange assertion about everyone following the teachings of Christ) which may not be heretical but certainly are not Church teaching and should not be identified as such.

 

[Aelred_Minor]

lol now im confused how does the rapture work then according too Catholic teachings?

Sorry, I only just saw this.

As someone else said, a fairly standard Catholic position would be that those Christians who are still alive at the time of the Second Coming will not die a normal death but will be “caught up” in the clouds with Jesus Christ, probably just after the General Resurrection (and maybe even after the General Judgment?), in accordance with the inspired words of St. Paul:

“For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first; then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.” (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17)

The position that this “rapture” (being “caught up”) will happen before or during the Great Tribulation and over a thousand years before the definitive consummation of history is alien to mainstream Catholic thought and in my opinion is highly counterintuitive, though as far as I know it is not technically a heresy.