Interesting, I never came across anything about this in the Catholic Church. Just wasn’t a thing that was focused on. I’ve always found Evangelical sects’ focus on Revelations and the Rapture to be sort of quirky.
Our study Bibles barely even mention that, for Catholics, we are presently living in the prophesied millennium, because it's just not that important compared to Mt 25, while for dispensationalists Mt 25 doesn't actually apply to this present dispensation!
I have some vague non-coalescing thoughts about the saints and Mary making “living in this world” feel easier for Catholics and removing some of the need to SEE the second coming to make life in this miserable world worth it for the evangelicals
It’s either that or Catholics have just been around long enough and gone through the “predict a date, be wrong, lose believers” cycle enough times to know better
Ha, fair points, I never thought about that part of it. There are certainly some religious orders that see the world as irredeemably corrupt, and withdraw from it (cloistered monks and nuns most famously), but this is more the exception than the norm, at least today.
Non-practicing former Catholic here:
In my parochial school, we were taught that because Jews were the “chosen people”, no Christian conversion was needed for them to attain Heaven. I don’t know if this is an American Catholic thing or something taught specifically in my parish/region.
This was also the implied teaching at my Roman Catholic parish in Alabama in the aughts: Jewish people were and still are God's Chosen People. I learned about supersession (sp?) this year and was bowled over.
The other thing to note here is that my religious teachings barely ever touched upon Revelations and was focused on performing “good works” in the present to ensure that you made the nice list and not the naughty list. Faith alone does not save you. Faith plus good works is the key.
I though “all Christians” focused on the New Testament. Like that was supposed to go with the name, wasn’t it? And I was always speechless when I learned that other sects take the Old Testament seriously… but as actual instructions?! That’s new for me! I’m not from the US though, so maybe it’s that.
Same, but 40 years ago. Would note that my peers from urban areas seem to have escaped awareness of this. Not sure when it stopped being a mostly rural phenomenon.
Never heard of anything specifically being taught, but yes there was definite foundation of "Israel GOOD, you gotta be for ISRAEL or Jesus won't return!" or something & it was totally not up for questioning or debate
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In my parochial school, we were taught that because Jews were the “chosen people”, no Christian conversion was needed for them to attain Heaven. I don’t know if this is an American Catholic thing or something taught specifically in my parish/region.
In this corner we have James.
In the other corner the challenger, Brother Martin Luther …
Faith alone isn’t enough for Heaven. If you’re also an asshole, no amount of faith keeps you out of Hell.
With that, I can at least concur.