Roman Catholic Teaching on Eschatology

I wish to draw a few conclusions regarding (Roman) Catholic teaching on Eschatology, based on the "Catechism of the Catholic Church: With Modifications from the Editio Typica" (Doubleday). This English translation is copyrighted 1997, but based on a Latin work copyrighted 1994.

Doubtlessly there is Catholic literature that covers eschatological subjects in much greater detail. However, I should think there are not many that would be more authoritative, as Pope John Paul II called it "A sure norm for teaching the Faith."

The following excerpts are taken from Part One, Article 7, pages 191-194:

THE KINGDOM IS MANIFESTED THROUGH THE CHURCH

As Lord, Christ is also head of the Church, which is his Body. Taken up to heaven and glorified after he had thus fully accomplish his mission, Christ dwells on earth in his Church. . . ."Already the final age of the world is with us, and the renewal of the world is irrevocably under way; it is even now anticipated in a certain real way, for the Church on earth is endowed already with a sanctity that is real but imperfect." Christ's kingdom already manifests its presence through the miraculous signs that attend its proclamation by the Church. (191-192)

THE KINGDOM WILL BE FULFILLED WHEN CHRIST RETURNS TO EARTH

Though already present in his Church, Christ's reign is nevertheless yet to be fulfilled "with power and great glory" by the king's return to earth. . . . Until everything is subject to him, "until there be realized new heavens and a new earth in which justice dwells, the pilgrim Church, in her sacraments and institutions, which belong to this present age, carries the mark of this world which will pass. . . Before his Ascension Christ affirmed that the hour had not yet come for the glorious establishment of the messianic kingdom awaited by Israel which, according to the prophets, was to bring all men the definitive order of justice, love, and peace. (192-193)

THE CHURCH WILL EXPERIENCE THE PERSECUTION OF THE ANTICHRIST

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. (193-194)

MILLENARIANISM IS HERESY

The Antichrist's deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that mesianic hope which can only be realized beyond history though the eschatological judgment. 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. (194)

THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST WILL NOT BE FULFILLED UNTIL ISRAEL REPENTS

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.". . . . 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." (193)