What does the Catholic Church actually teach about the end times? Do cradle Catholics believe we are in the end times now?

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I ask about the perspective of cradle Catholics because converts bring their biases and prior learning from other Christian sects (if they were protestants before) and while us converts try to learn everything anew and in a Catholic light, it is impossible to undo all the untruths we’ve been taught.
 
There are those who do believe that the events on the Book of Revelation are being lived right now, and there are those that as for now, there’s nothing under the sun, and I don’t think the Church will give an official position of any kind until Christ’s return is confirmed. As for me, I’ll leave myself in the neutral position until the end times do come to the world. Until then, I’ll just live my live obeying God in the mission He gave me, wheter it’s an immediate task, or my vocation to be fulfilled in the future, or simply the universal call for holiness. And I think everyone should too! 👍
 
The Catholic Church has made no dogmatic statements regarding where and when it sees itself in the grand history of salvation and its unfolding.

The Church still sees Christ’s original answer to a question on just when the resolution of all things will occur as applicable: "“It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority.”–Acts 1:7.

This does not mean that the Church is not being vigilant. We are taught to live in expectation of our Lord’s arrival whether we will personally live to the time in history or it occurs at our life’s end.

There has also been a growing number of discussions regarding the return of the Jews to their homeland. While again nothing has been presented as dogma, since the official recognition of the State of Israel by Pope John Paul II and the subsequent secularization of the European nations of Christendom, the possibility that we may be witnessing the end of the Gentile Times, an eschatological sign in itself, has been discussed and presented as a possibility.–Luke 21:24.
 
Pope Benedict stated twice that we are not living in the end times. Jesus Christ tells is in the Bible about specific things that need to happen first.

See Matthew 24:3 and read up to Matthew 24:25

Peace,
Ed
 
tabycat said:
We have been in the end times since AD40, just my opinion. 🙂 🤷
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Actually, since the Annunciation. The “last days” refers to the time of the Messiah, not just to the end of the world. Christ has been ruling through his Church since 33 AD. St. Paul and the early Church expected Christ to return at any moment–and why they emphasized being ready for it. We know, however, that no one knows the time of the end of the world and the beginning of the “new heavens and new earth.” Therefore, we are to be ever vigilant, knowing that for each of us our death will be the end of time for us as individuals.
 
edwest2 said:
Pope Benedict stated twice that we are not living in the end times. Jesus Christ tells is in the Bible about specific things that need to happen first.

See Matthew 24:3 and read up to Matthew 24:25

Peace,
Ed
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Oh? Really!
 
clarkest said:
I ask about the perspective of cradle Catholics because converts bring their biases and prior learning from other Christian sects (if they were protestants before) and while us converts try to learn everything anew and in a Catholic light, it is impossible to undo all the untruths we’ve been taught.
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Well, I think we believe Nero Caesar was the Anti-Christ (or at least one of them!). I heard his name added up to 666 and that he was responsible for the deaths of both St. Peter and St. Paul.

I think Catholics believe a number of the events in the Book of Revelations have already occurred, some, a long time ago.
 
tabycat said:
We have been in the end times since AD40, just my opinion. 🙂 🤷
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edwest2 said:
Pope Benedict stated twice that we are not living in the end times. Jesus Christ tells is in the Bible about specific things that need to happen first.

See Matthew 24:3 and read up to Matthew 24:25

Peace,
Ed
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Let’s see who agrees with the Sacred Scriptures:

I John 2:18 – “Little children, it is the last hour . . .”

If it was the last hour for John, it would seem that it is even “laster” for us.

For the OP, I would recommend Desmond Birch’s Trial, Tribulation & Triumph. It’s a slog, because he does a ver-r-ry thorough analysis of the understanding of the early Church Fathers of what was going to happen during the last days. He breaks things down by what the Fathers were unanimous about, what they were almost unanimous about, what they were generally agreed on, etc.

Edit for full disclosure: I was raised in a movement that had bought fully into the Darby system – pre-trib rapture, 7 years of tribulation, stars falling on the earth, demon locusts – the whole nine yards.
 
Cradle Catholics do **not **believe as a group that the end times are at hand.

My folks are all Catholic going back into the generations, and none even care to think about the end times.

Me, well if B16 really taught that we are not in the end times, that is something to be disappointed about. I had hoped to see our LORD alive!

ICXC NIKA
 
Odd place for this question to Catholics…why post it here in NCR? It seems more appropriate to Apologetics.🤷

Anyway…what the church teaches is easily found by a simple search of the Ask An Apologist forums where I found the following.
Catholic Answers even has a good book and a study available on this topic.
shop.catholic.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/small_image/135x/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/e/n/end-of-the-world.jpg
What Jesus Really Said About The End Of The World

shop.catholic.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/small_image/135x/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/b/e/beginning-apologetics-8.jpg
Beginning Apologetics 8: What Catholics Believe about the Second Coming, the Rapture, Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, and Indulgences
 
GEddie said:
Cradle Catholics do **not **believe as a group that the end times are at hand.

My folks are all Catholic going back into the generations, and none even care to think about the end times.

Me, well if B16 really taught that we are not in the end times, that is something to be disappointed about. I had hoped to see our LORD alive!

ICXC NIKA
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Amen!! 👍

We were also taught that the Book of Revelation was not intended to predict the future…it, like all apocalyptic literature, was written during very troubling times to give hope to those being persecuted…it referred to present times, and showed that, in spite of present difficulties, THE END is already written - God has won.
 
ServantPD said:
There are those who do believe that the events on the Book of Revelation are being lived right now, and there are those that as for now, there’s nothing under the sun, and I don’t think the Church will give an official position of any kind until Christ’s return is confirmed. As for me, I’ll leave myself in the neutral position until the end times do come to the world. Until then, I’ll just live my live obeying God in the mission He gave me, wheter it’s an immediate task, or my vocation to be fulfilled in the future, or simply the universal call for holiness. And I think everyone should too! 👍
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I don’t care what y’all say, this is the best answer ever!👍
 
From the Catechism:

*"Since the Ascension Christ’s coming in glory has been imminent, even though “it is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority.” This eschatological coming could be accomplished at any moment, even if both it and the final trial that will precede it are “delayed”.

The glorious Messiah’s coming is suspended at every moment of history until his recognition by “all Israel”, for “a hardening has come upon part of Israel” in their “unbelief” toward Jesus. St. Peter says to the Jews of Jerusalem after Pentecost: “Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for establishing all that God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old.” St. Paul echoes him: “For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?” The “full inclusion” of the Jews in the Messiah’s salvation, in the wake of “the full number of the Gentiles”, will enable the People of God to achieve “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ”, in which “God may be all in all”.

The Church’s ultimate trial

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.

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 judgement. 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.

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 Judgement after the final cosmic upheaval of this passing world."* (CCC par 673-677)
 
Church_Militant said:
Odd place for this question to Catholics…why post it here in NCR? It seems more appropriate to Apologetics.🤷
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Yeah, I was originally going to write a different question but then started playing around with what I was saying and ended up with the question currently posted. Yes, it should be in a different section. It’s too late now though.
 
edwest2 said:
Pope Benedict stated twice that we are not living in the end times. Jesus Christ tells is in the Bible about specific things that need to happen first.

See Matthew 24:3 and read up to Matthew 24:25

Peace,
Ed
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The only 2 I can think of is the re-building of the temple and the many false prophets showing up, I dont see the temple ever happening though, that would spur a war like no other if anyone tried to demolish the most holy site in Islam.

There have been many people simply claiming to be God or even divine, BUT to be a false prophet, they must also have some supernatural powers/abilities, and Ive seen none of these yet. I truly think if there was any living now, they would be showing off their powers in front of TV cameras and large crowds. In fact it is strange we have not seen ONE, yet the bible says there will be MANY. I have a feeling 99% of people living today, if they saw someone doing truly supernatural acts, they would think that person was divine and would not think twice about it, especially if no experts could explain their powers. but then again, God did tell us many would be fooled, so, definitely something to think about.
 
I believe that the End Times events have been happening one by one over a long period of time like over the past 100 or more years. It’s analogous to how when we download a program and it starts with 1% complete then 2% complete, etc until it finally gets to 100% complete. And it can hang at 99% complete for a longer time than the progression made up until that. Using this analogy, my rough guess is that we might be at least about 75 - 80% complete for all the things that were prophesied would take place before the Second Coming of Christ. We can’t know the day or the hour, but it suggests in the Bible that we can have some vague idea of when it may be drawing closer by noticing the prophecies and signs being fulfilled. There have been some major unprecedented global-scale changes in the world that have happened in modern times one being the invention of the nuclear bomb and its threat to all of the civilized world and another being the aggressive global promotion of abortion and attacks on marriage. Abortion and homosexuality are not new, but they were never aggressively promoted on a global scale until recent times. We also have the invention of television and mainstream media in modern times which has made globalized propaganda possible so that one lie can make it all the way around the world in an instant and influence public perception and therefore public opinion and actions.
 
clarkest said:
What does the Catholic Church actually teach about the end times? Do cradle Catholics believe we are in the end times now?

I ask about the perspective of cradle Catholics because converts bring their biases and prior learning from other Christian sects (if they were protestants before) and while us converts try to learn everything anew and in a Catholic light, it is impossible to undo all the untruths we’ve been taught.
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You have rightly directed this question to cradle Catholics considering that other Christians of different denominations have specific teaching on this topic and they would be invariably influenced by their former belief when they become Catholics. Not that they cannot answer this question of course. My wife was converted when she married to me. What I noticed was that she could never think like a cradle Catholic and it take years before she truly have a Catholic ‘mind’.

Catholic teaching on end time is very simple and straight forward. We are not to worry about it all as we are exhorted to live as if end time would come at any moment. We do not know the time and the moment it will come but it will come nevertheless; but it will be like a thief that comes into our house in the middle of the night. Thus we should be prepared at all times by being true to our vow in Baptism as a Christian. We are not to speculate or to read various happenings in the world as a prelude to end time because we just don’t know when it will come.

As for your second question, no, we do not believe we are in the end time now simply because we do not know if it is so. Any other assumption and foretelling are merely speculation and this is extremely discouraged because it is God’s prerogative and we are not to involve ourselves in it other than being prepared at all times.
 
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