I'm not sure why I bring the Scoffield Study Bible week after week. I don't think I do it to vex Jim. It takes a lot to vex him anyway. 'though he did ask me about my position on rapture. He hedges his bets by saying you don't have to believe in rapture in order to be raptured. You just have to believe in Jesus. Fair enough. I just said in reply that, in our efforts to critique millenarianism, we run the risk of denying too much.
Catholic eschatology probably comes closer to dispensational eschatology than most people realize - we expect a "great apostasy" or "falling away", the inclusion of Israel, and some sort of antichrist figure, but we do deny the Rapture, especially a secret one, as paragraph 675 and 677 indicate, the Church will undergo a final trial or "tribulation" before Christ's return.
I tried to make a study of Catholic eschatology in the latest Catechism for your benefit but it is difficult to study any particular topic because information is spread throughout the work. But a "core" discussion of the End Times seems to be found in paragraphs 673 - 677, included here with footnotes (566-581) listed below:
673
Since the Ascension, Christ's coming in glory has been imminent,566 even though "it is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority."567 This eschatological coming could be accomplished at any moment, even if both it and the final trial that will precede it are "delayed."568
674
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.569 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."570 St. Paul echoes him: "For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?"571 The "full inclusion" of the Jews in the Messiah's salvation, in the wake of "the full number of the Gentiles,"572 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."573
675
Before Christ's second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers.574 The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth575 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.576
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 judgment. The Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism,577 especially the "intrinsically perverse" political form of a secular messianism.578
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.579 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.580 God's triumph over the revolt of evil will take the form of the Last Judgment after the final cosmic upheaval of this passing world.581
566. Cf. Rev 22:20.
567. Acts 1:7; cf. Mk 13:32.
568. Cf. Mt 24:44; 1 Thess 5:2; 2 Thess 2:3-12.
569. Rom 11:20-26; cf. Mt 23:39.
570. Acts 3:19-21.
571. Rom 11:15.
572. Rom 11:12, 25; cf. Lk 21:24.
573. Eph 4:13; 1 Cor 15:28.
574. Cf. Lk 18:8; Mt 24:12.
575. Cf. Lk 21:12; Jn 15:19-20.
576. Cf. 2 Thess 2:4-12; 1 Thess 5:2-3; 2 Jn 7; 1 Jn 2:18, 22.
577. Cf. DS 3839.
578. Pius XI, Divini Redemptoris, condemning the "false mysticism"
of this "counterfeit of the redemption of the lowly"; cf. GS 20-21.
579. Cf. Rev 19:1-9.
580. Cf. Rev 13:8; 20:7-10; 21:2-4.
581. Cf. Rev 20:12; 2 Pet 3:12-13.
A Baptist friend of mine told me recently, after years of religious discussion and proselytizing (mostly on my part!), that he is quite sure that the Catholic Church is very close to this end-time, "great apostasy". He misunderstands the meaning of the word!
Apostasy means a desertion, renunciation or abandonment of the Christian faith, the Greek word apostasia is translated as “rebellion” or “falling away” in many modern translations, only the New American Standard Version (and the Catholic NAB) transliterates in 2 Thess. 2:3.
Paragraph 2089 in the Catechism gives a working definition: apostasy is the total repudiation of the Christian faith.
His real charge may be that the Catholic Church is heretical and, as a non-Catholic Christian, he may be obliged to label her thus, for as soon as he suspects that Catholicism is true, he is under moral compulsion to join. But the Catholic Church is not bordering on apostasy because she preaches salvation through Jesus Christ; she has not abandoned the Gospel.
hairesis is often translated “sect” but can also be transliterated.
Easton’s Bible dictionary (1897) has this: "heresy" from a Greek word signifying (1) a choice, (2) the opinion chosen, and (3) the sect holding the opinion. In the Acts of the Apostles (5:17; 15:5; 24:5, 14; 26:5) it denotes a sect, without reference to its character. Elsewhere, however, in the New Testament it has a different meaning attached to it. Paul ranks "heresies" with crimes and seditions (Gal. 5:20). This word also denotes divisions or schisms in the church (1 Cor. 11:19). In Titus 3:10 a "heretical person" is one who follows his own self-willed "questions," and who is to be avoided. Heresies thus came to signify self-chosen doctrines not emanating from God (2 Pet. 2:1).
Again, paragraph 2089 in the Catholic Catechism gives another useful definition: Heresy is the obstinate post-baptismal denial of some truth which must be believed with divine and catholic faith, or it is likewise an obstinate doubt concerning the same.
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