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DO CATHOLICS BELIEVE IN THE RAPTURE?

by: Br. Duane M. Cartujano




The idea of "rapture" seems to come from a literal reading of 1 Thessalonians 4:17, where St. Paul is trying to explain how those who already have died will be raised and share in the events of Christ's second coming, which he expected very soon. He imagines the second coming in very dramatic terms (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18); in this scenario, the dead will first be raised, then the living will also be "caught up" ( = rapture) to be with the Lord. Some literalist Evangelicals in the 20th century expanded this verse into a whole scenario for the end of the world, which they promote.
This sense of the “rapture” is a belief held by some Christians, especially fundamentalists. It is not a term generally used by the Catholic Church.
So, in the fundamentalist sense, Catholics don’t really have our own word, since we don’t see things in the same way as the fundamentalists.
According to Craig S. Keener, a Protestant scholar, in his
book, "The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament" on page 597:
"Although no ancient Christian authors attest the view that the restrainer is the church (the idea of a rapture before the tribulation first explicitly appears in history around 1830, as a corollary of dispensationalism), the many adherents of this view today cite various other New Testament texts for its support" (The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, Craig S. Keener, IVP Academic, 2014, p. 597).
In the old sense of the word, however, the “final resurrection” is probably the equivalent.
Catholic interpreters generally simply see the passage 1 Thessalonians 4.15-17 as promising, in picturesque terms borrowed from Jewish Apocalyptic, that after death, those who are saved will not be destroyed but will "be with the Lord."
"Those who have fallen asleep and who are now raised from the dead-together with those who are still alive will "meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever" (4:17)." (The Paulist Biblical Commentary, p. 1447)

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