Opening a can of worms
My dear friend Aaron Harris, a non-Catholic, but a pious believer who loved the Holy Father, writes with a very serious question:Obviously, I too am saddened by the Pope's passing.
What are the chances that the next Pope will in fact be an anti-pope, signalling the End?
I can't help thinking this might happen.
My response to this very serious End Times question:
The traditional definition of "anti-pope" is merely a pretender to the papal throne. In that sense, we currently have at least three that I know of, but only one has any following of note: The anti-pope known as Pius XIII is actually an arch-traditionalist who completely disregards Vatican II. First of all, since Vatican II was an ecumenical council, it simply cannot be disregarded. It has been abused, yes, and misinterpreted, certainly. If the documents of Vatican II are applied exactly as written, however, what you have is not an apostate church, but a renewed one. The trick is applying those documents exactly as they are written, kind of like Strict Construction of the Constitution. JP II called for a strict interpretation of Vatican II, but he was there! As a result of being a part of it, he understood what Vatican II actually meant.
I am a strong believer that we might very well have a "bad pope" before the end. However, I am a personal believer in the prophecies of the Irish mystic St. Malachy. Malachy believed that before the End, we could have a bad pope, but that the very last pope would not only be a faithful one, he would successfully guide the Church through the final tribulation, what the Catechism calls "the final Passover." The Catechism of the Catholic Church states:
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 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.
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 Judgement after the final cosmic upheaval of this passing world.
As Aaron is aware, but other evengelical readers may not know, not only does the Catholic Church reject the doctrine of the Rapture, but I personally reject it, I did even before I was Catholic. This rejection placed me at odds with most of American evngelicalism. I never believed this difference in doctrine was a source of frinction between you and I. However, the more I deeply study this doctrine and why it is not worthy of belief, the more I find the prospect that many Americans believe this notion without serious study into the matter to be very disconcerting, and that is putting it lightly.
The Christian's faith is refined through tribulation. There is no reason to believe that the Church (the Body of Christ) will not imitate her Lord in the End. She will appear to die, but will rise again. I will say that my faith is about as solid as it ever was that the Catholic Church is the Church. This belief has intensified through the process of JP II's passing. (No, I don't think that all Protestants are going to Hell or any such thing!) I have developed a set of concrete beliefs about the Antichrist (the Son of Perdition, the Man of Sin, etc.) that point to his persecution of the Church, and this is based concretely in Scripture.
Aaron has, perhaps unwittingly, opened a can of worms here in terms of giving me a darn good excuse to go off on several prophetic dissertations here during the Interregnum. To slake the thirst of some readers for my thoughts in this theologically controversial area, I will do so in the coming days. However, there are two things readers must know:
First, to Protestant millenialist readers of whatever school: Your theology of the Last Things in Time is vehemently different than our own. I will likely use terms, figures, and writings that you may not understand or have never heard of. Be not afraid to write with questions. Remember also that there is a very good reason that Catholic theology regarding the End of Days is spotty, and that reason is because the Holy Spirit has not yet revealed all things their fullness. Unlike some of you, we do not take the words of Hal Lindsey and Tim La Haye to be the Infallible Word of God.
To Catholics: Much (but not all) of what I will attempt to discuss here is based on private revelation which has not been declared to be false by the Church. Therefore, you can safely assume (unless I quote an official document) that much of what I say that pertains to the End Times is based on my personal beliefs regarding things which the Church either says are true or that the Church has said are not false. Much of what I say is not counted as dogma. Rather these things are my strongly-held opinion of prophecy, in harmony with Church teaching as I best understand it.
Let the can of worms be opened...
posted by Deacon David Oatney @ 11:36 AM
1 Comments:
Could it be possible that the Ant-christ rise from an entirely different religion? Why does everyone always assume he will rise through the Catholic church?
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