Second Coming Prophecies

[spauline]

Astonishing as it may seem to some, the USA is not mentioned in Revelation, or anywhere else in the Bible. It is sheer navel-gazing conceit to imagine that the USA is so important that God must have mentioned it in the Bible.

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true, as Ratzinger pointed out in Fatima 3rd Secret, NT Public Revelation does not treat of individual Gentile nations.

On the other hand, from what i have studied in formal Catholic books, the ECFs saw the apocalypse as veiling the mystery of the AGES of the Church. And how might the ages be structured? Obviously not temporally, but rather SPIRITUALLY.

Hence, whereas Catholic dogma does not and never shall mention the USA, or Germany, or Russia, or China, the Church does define ecclesiological matters and sources of Divine truth.

Therefore, if you want to know what God, and derivatively, the Church, cares about the last 1700 years, look at the history pal, from a SPIRITUAL CATHOLIC viewpoint:

Initial Heresies and Islam (Trinity and Incarnation attacked)

Great Schism (Peter attacked)

Protestant Rebellion (rest of Bishops and all Oral Trad attacked)

Enlightenment (Scripture and all Divine Revelation attacked, retaining only Reason)

Modern Secular Apostasy (Reason attacked, utter depravity [atheism/relativism])

All of these, pal, are what you would call stages. It may be your liberal, mushy opinion that such just happens to randomly work down the sources of Divine Truth, all defined in Catholicism, in order of most reliable to least reliable, or that is, from least evident to most evident, but there are perhaps others who see an order to the attack of the dragon, and that there is some spiritual meaning for history than that the Church is nothing more than a vague Millennium.

And you would indeed speak for most Catholics in the West. But it is not dogma, and the Church has never condemned the ECF proposition that the apoc is the ages of the Church, so you can refrain that because you personally have spoken, the matter is settled.

 

[spauline]

But I think that it is possible to know the dates and events of the future, especially pertaining to the tribulation.

there is no legitimate purpose in knowing literal dates, nations, and times.

There is however merit in knowing the spiritual ages of the Church, their order, and their theological meaning and relationship to the Deposit of Faith, of which they will eventually be a part of.