End Times

[texasbluebonnet]

A question,
( I am a convert and still continue ont he road to learning about my faith )

Please forgive me if this seems a stupid question, but do we as catholics believe that there will be a third world war and armeggedon and all that?

What are our beliefs on if there will be an end?

thanks and God Bless and keep you all safe.

 

[IoA]

texasbluebonnet:

A question,
( I am a convert and still continue ont he road to learning about my faith )

Please forgive me if this seems a stupid question, but do we as catholics believe that there will be a third world war and armeggedon and all that?

What are our beliefs on if there will be an end?

Not a stupid question at all, considering how popular End Times stuff has become. Catholic Answers has done a great job addressing these questions already, as you can see in their tracts on Last Things. To understand why we reject the Rapture for the faulty theology that it is, check out this tract.

Welcome Home!

 

[Fidelis]

The Church has no specific teaching on “World War III.” For the Church’s teaching on “Armagedon” see CCC 675-77:

**The Church’s ultimate trial **

*675 Before Christ’s second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the “mystery of iniquity” in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh.

676 The Antichrist’s deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the eschatological judgment. The Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism, especially the “intrinsically perverse” political form of a secular messianism.

677 The Church will enter the glory of the kingdom only through this final Passover, when she will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection. The kingdom will be fulfilled, then, not by a historic triumph of the Church through a progressive ascendancy, but only by God’s victory over the final unleashing of evil, which will cause his Bride to come down from heaven. God’s triumph over the revolt of evil will take the form of the Last Judgment after the final cosmic upheaval of this passing world. *

For a fuller explanation, see the article on this site:

catholic.com/library/Rapture.asp

A site that has several good articles comparing the erroneous Prostestant view of the End Times with orthodox Catholic teaching can be found at:

carl-olson.com/wcblb_home.html

I’d also recommend, The Rapture Trap, by Paul Thigpen, available at most Catholic and secular (Barnes & Noble) bookstores. There is also a study guide available for use with this book.

 

[rfk]

The only stupid question is the one our ego will not allow us to ask, right.

Here are some articles from the Catholic Encyclopedia that give some history from a Catholic perspective.

Millennium and Millenarianism

Antichrist
Radio Replies (Excerpts) (Ctrl-F to search, and go to “THE END OF THE WORLD”
****

I found it interesting that the word “armageddon” does not appear anywhere on the Catholic Encyclopedia (www.newadvent.org) website.

Welcome to the Church!

 

[wisdom_3_5]

EWTN has a series in its audio library on the end times with Colin Donovan- I think its 13 episodes. They explain it pretty well, I think.

 

[cmom]

EWTN just finished up a series called Last things in Time and Eternity with Desmond Birch. You can order it from ETWN, or the book by Desmond Birch it was based on :Trial, Tribulation and Triumph.

 

[walter]

Fidelis:

The Church has no specific teaching on “World War III.” For the Church’s teaching on “Armagedon” see CCC 675-77:

**The Church’s ultimate trial **

*675 Before Christ’s second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the “mystery of iniquity” in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh.

676 The Antichrist’s deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the eschatological judgment. The Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism, especially the “intrinsically perverse” political form of a secular messianism.

677 The Church will enter the glory of the kingdom only through this final Passover, when she will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection. The kingdom will be fulfilled, then, not by a historic triumph of the Church through a progressive ascendancy, but only by God’s victory over the final unleashing of evil, which will cause his Bride to come down from heaven. God’s triumph over the revolt of evil will take the form of the Last Judgment after the final cosmic upheaval of this passing world. *

For a fuller explanation, see the article on this site:

catholic.com/library/Rapture.asp

A site that has several good articles comparing the erroneous Prostestant view of the End Times with orthodox Catholic teaching can be found at:

carl-olson.com/wcblb_home.html

I’d also recommend, The Rapture Trap, by Paul Thigpen, available at most Catholic and secular (Barnes & Noble) bookstores. There is also a study guide available for use with this book.

sound advice