The Popes, and The Dawning Era
Photo, Max Rossi/Reuters
THERE can be no doubt that the pontiffs of the last century have been exercising their prophetic office so as to awaken believers to the drama unfolding in our day. It is a decisive battle between the culture of life and the culture of death… the woman clothed with the sun, in labor giving birth to a new era, and the dragon who seeks to destroy (see Rev 12:1-4). Both John Paul II and Benedict XVI have described this battle—indicating both its nearness and perilousness—by comparing it to a gathering storm:
It is precisely at the end of the second millennium that immense, threatening clouds converge on the horizon of all humanity and darkness descends upon human souls. —POPE JOHN PAUL II, prayer in the Piazza, Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, December 8, 1983
We cannot hide the fact that many threatening clouds are gathering on the horizon. We must not, however, lose heart, rather we must keep the flame of hope alive in our hearts… —POPE BENEDICT XVI, Catholic News Agency, January 15th, 2009
Those ‘threatening clouds’ can be summarized in one word: apostasy (see Why Aren’t the Popes Shouting?) At the same time, however, several of the pontiffs in the past century, including the aforementioned, have carried a strong and indomitable word of hope. Speaking in an informal statement given to a group of German Catholics in 1980, Pope John Paul hinted at a coming renewal of the Church:
We must be prepared to undergo great trials in the not-too-distant future; trials that will require us to give up even our lives, and a total gift of self to Christ and for Christ. Through your prayers and mine, it is possible toalleviate this tribulation, but it is no longer possible to avert it, because it is only in this way that the Church can be effectively renewed. How many times, indeed, has the renewal of the Church been effected in blood? This time, again, it will not be otherwise. —Regis Scanlon, Flood and Fire, Homiletic & Pastoral Review, April 1994
"The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church," said early Church Father, Tertullian (160-220 A.D., Apologeticum, n. 50.) Hence, again the reason for this website: to prepare the reader for the days that lay ahead of us.
They are above all times of hope. We are passing from a long spiritual winter into what our recent popes have called a "new springtime." We are, said John Paul II, "crossing the threshold of hope."
[John Paul II] does indeed cherish a great expectation that the millennium of divisions will be followed by a millennium of unifications… that all the catastrophes of our century, all its tears, as the Pope says, will be caught up at the end and turned into a new beginning. —Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (POPE BENEDICT XVI), Salt of the Earth, An Interview With Peter Seewald, p. 237
THE THRESHOLD OF A NEW ERA
While I was gathered with hundreds of thousands at World Youth Day in Toronto, Canada in 2002, we heard John Paul II call upon us to be "watchmen of the morning" of this anticipated "new beginning":
The young have shown themselves to be for Rome and for the Church a special gift of the Spirit of God… I did not hesitate to ask them to make a radical choice of faith and life and present them with a stupendous task: to become "morning watchmen” at the dawn of the new millennium. —POPE JOHN PAUL II, Novo Millennio Inuente, n.9
Benedict XVI continued this appeal to the youth in a message that describes in more detail this coming ‘new age’:
Empowered by the Spirit, and drawing upon faith’s rich vision, a new generation of Christians is being called to help build a world in which God’s gift of life is welcomed,
respected and cherished—not rejected, feared as a threat, and destroyed. A new age in which love is not greedy or self-seeking, but pure, faithful and genuinely free, open to others, respectful of their dignity, seeking their good, radiating joy and beauty. A new age in which hope liberates us from the shallowness, apathy, and self-absorption which deaden our souls and poison our relationships. Dear young friends, the Lord is asking you to be prophets of this new age… —POPE BENEDICT XVI, Homily, World Youth Day, Sydney, Australia, July 20th, 2008
The Holy Father referred to this new age again while speaking to the people of the United Kingdom in his recent trip there:
This nation, and the Europe which [Saint] Bede and his contemporaries helped to build, once again stands at the threshold of a new age. —POPE BENEDICT XVI, Address at Ecumenical Celebration, London, England; September 1th, 2010; Zenit.org
APOSTOLIC TRADITION
I have explained previously how this new era is rooted in the Apostolic Tradition we have received, in part, from the early Church Fathers (see The Coming Dominion of the Church) and, of course, Sacred Scripture (see Heresies and More Questions).
Quite notably, however, is what the Holy Fathers have been saying all along, especially in the last century. That is, John Paul II and Benedict XVI are not proposing a unique hope for the future, but building upon that Apostolic voice that there will indeed come a time when the spiritual reign of Christ will be established, through a purified Church, to the ends of the earth:
The Catholic Church, which is the kingdom of Christ on earth, [is] destined to be spread among all men and all nations… —POPE PIUS XI, Quas Primas, Encyclical, n. 12, Dec. 11th, 1925; cf. Matt 24:14
It will at length be possible that our many wounds be healed and all justice spring forth again with the hope of restored authority; that the splendors of peace be renewed, and the swords and arms drop from the hand and when all men shall acknowledge the empire of Christ and willingly obey His word, and every tongue shall confess that the Lord Jesus is in the Glory of the Father. —POPE LEO XIII, Consecration to the Sacred Heart, May 1899
It is consoling and reassuring to hear this prophetic anticipation of a global period of peace on earth from so many of the popes:
“And they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd.” May God… shortly bring to fulfillment His prophecy for transforming this consoling vision of the future into a present reality…
It is God’s task to bring about this happy hour and to make it known to all… When it does arrive, it will turn out to be a solemn hour, one big with consequences not only for the restoration of the Kingdom of Christ, but for the pacification of… the world. We pray most fervently, and ask others likewise to pray for this much-desired pacification of society. —POPE PIUS XI, Ubi Arcani dei Consilioi “On the Peace of Christ in his Kingdom”, December 23, 1922
Speaking in no less an authoritative document than an encyclical, Pope Pius X wrote:
Oh! when in every city and village the law of the Lord is faithfully observed, when respect is shown for sacred things, when the Sacraments are frequented, and the ordinances of Christian life fulfilled, there will certainly be no more need for us to labor further to see all things restored in Christ… And then? Then, at last, it will be clear to all that the Church, such as it was instituted by Christ, must enjoy full and entire liberty and independence from all foreign dominion… “He shall break the heads of his enemies,” that all may know “that God is the king of all the earth,” “that the Gentiles may know themselves to be men.” All this, Venerable Brethren, We believe and expect with unshakable faith. —POPE PIUS X, E Supremi, Encyclical “On the Restoration of All Things”, n.14, 6-7
Echoing Jesus’ prayer for unification, "that they may all be one" (Jn 17:21), Paul VI assured the Church that this unity would come:
The unity of the world will be. The dignity of the human person shall be recognized not only formally but effectively. The inviolability of life, from the womb to old age… Undue social inequalities will be overcome. The relations between peoples will be peaceful, reasonable and fraternal. Neither selfishness, nor arrogance, nor poverty… [shall] prevent the establishment of a true human order, a common good, a new civilization. —POPE PAUL VI, Urbi et Orbi Message, April 4th, 1971
SEEDS OF THE FUTURE
The Resurrection, however, does not precede the Cross. So too, as we’ve heard, the seeds of this new springtime for the Church will be and are being planted in this spiritual winter. A new time will blossom, but not before the Church has been purified:
The Church will be reduced in its dimensions, it will be necessary to start again. However, from this test a Church would emerge that will have been strengthened by the process of simplification it experienced, by its renewed capacity to look within itself… the Church will be numerically reduced. —Cardinal Ratzinger (POPE BENEDICT XVI), God and the World, 2001; Interview with Peter Seewald
The ‘test’ may very well be the one spoken of in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
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 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. —CCC 675, 676
Perhaps, as no other time in the past 2000 years, has secular messianism been so prevalent. Technology, environmentalism, and the right to take another’s life, or one’s own, has become the "hope of the future," rather than God and a true civilization of love built on His order. Thus, we are indeed "facing the final confrontation" with the spirit of this age. Pope Paul VI seemed to understand the necessary but hopeful dimensions of this confrontation when he canonized the martyrs of Uganda in 1964:
These African martyrs herald the dawn of a new age. If only the mind of man might be directed not toward persecutions and religious conflicts but toward a rebirth of Christianity and civilization! —Liturgy of the Hours, Vol. III, p. 1453, Memorial of Charles Lwanga and Companions
May there dawn for everyone the time of peace and freedom, the time of truth, of justice and of hope. —POPE JOHN PAUL II, Radio message, Vatican City, 1981
