Hi, Jan —

• What exactly do you mean when you say the Pope agrees with Protestants on the Rapture?

More so than any other doctrine, the Protestants don't agree amongst themselves with respect to the Rapture!!

The Pope certainly cannot have said anything heretical in the area. He can't change the Church's position.

For this, you need only go to the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It simply states that we believe that Christ will return again at the Resurrection of the Dead. It says nothing about the Church being raptured out of the world seven years to the End, or three and a half years prior or whatever the latest variation of Dispensationalist heresy is being promoted by televangelists.

This whole idea is less than 200 years old. It is a position no one in Church history ever took. It is rooted in a complete misreading of the Scriptures.

Yes, those who are alive at the time of Christ's return will be raptured or transformed in the twinkling of an eye, (1 Corinthians 15:52) but that happens at the End of time.

Nor will there be a literal millennium (1,000 years) after which there is another battle between good and evil. When He comes back next time, it's over. There will be a New Heaven and New Earth.

That is not just the latest Teaching of the Church, it has been the constant Teaching of the Church.

John