Yes Exactly Have you read and have you any thoughts at all on Mark Mallet's Eschatology at all,, dare I ask?
Go to his home page just type in Mark Mallet . I know some Catholic theologians from a certain Archdiocese in the USA have been questioning about his ideas on the millenium, the thousand years. I always consider him Mr Orthodox Here ye go check it out: http://www.markmallett.com/blog/category/millenarianism/
I will have a good read through the blog posts, thanks! A quick point, St. Bonaventure and Venerable Holzhauser among others did not relate the Era of Peace to any "millenium" so far as I am aware. They seem to have fully endorsed Augustine's view that the "millennium" of Revelation refers to the reign of the Saints or Martyrs in the Church Triumphant throughout the entire epoch of the Church's pilgrimage on earth these last 2,000 years. The Era of Peace is an epoch within the life of the Church on earth, it's most glorious phase before the Great Apostasy comes. It's not the millennium IMHO. Using typology, it's related to the Second Temple era after the Babylonian captivity before Christ - one could say that the Era of Peace is the Church's version of this episode in the life of the Chosen People before Christ. (By typology I'm referring to the idea of concordance between the Old and New Covenants.) I wouldn't personally relate it to the "millenium" which I think Augustine's spiritual understanding got pretty much spot on.
Yeah It's a difficult subject , but that's what I thought. What do you think of this? http://www.onepeterfive.com/theologians-scholars-formally-request-correction-amoris-laetitia/
I would say that I have full confidence in the judgement of our Supreme Pontiff and would not believe for a second that he would issue a magisterial document that had significant errors possibly tending towards being construed as heretical. I am with the Holy Father 100%. The Holy Spirit will never fail us.
Well, one medieval pope - a certain John - did teach a heretical statement once regarding the Beatific Vision that his successor corrected but not in a magisterial document. I've never heard of a pope teaching anything magisterial - in a doctrinal document - that is contrary to faith or morals. I tend to think that any perceived errors are due to misinterpretation. I reckon that we always owe our Holy Father the benefit of the doubt if we are in doubt. That said, I'm not against people raising issues so long as they do so respectful of the pope authority and intend to dialogue with him on it while recognising that the Pontiff always has the final say. As before, I will read there critiques - my former post was simply my initial reaction since you inquired
my understaning is that this proposition comes from a grouping of some forty top Cathoic Theologians..Academics.. but lay people... thats why I am asking about your qucik response, these people are hgely qualified...
I don't doubt that they are and they may have perfectly valid points. I only meant what I said as a general rule. The Pope is the Pope after all and a magisterial document is a magisterial document. His off-the-cuff comments do not posses the same authority. But an apostolic exhortation or encyclical is a magisterial text, if you get my drift, so a bit of a different cup of tea. The previous Pope I mentioned stated his heresy in a more off-the-cuff address not related to his office.
They appear to be very respectful .... hmmm I would be very, very interested if I could read your response to their critiiques Bless you... it's great to have you on the forum
Good question! It's perfectly possible, yes - Ratzinger in his older years may have moved away from his adherence to Bonaventure's theology of history. I don't think he did though, as evidenced by his 2010 general audience. Bonaventure seems to have been his favourite Doctor of the Church and interpreting his theology appears to have been a mainstay, lifelong passion for him. That said, if Ratzinger were - hypothetically speaking - to have changed his mind, it doesn't negate the prodigious scholarship he did on St. Bonaventure's work in his youth. St. Bonaventure did expect an era of peace and if you asked the Pope Emeritus this today he'd likely explain it to you in detail, whether he personally subscribes to the Seraphic Doctor's exegesis of scripture and eschatology in this regard or not. As it is, I do concur with St. Bonaventure's belief in a future era of peace for the Church. I think that he was really onto something and it was reflecting on the life and significance of his spiritual master St. Francis of Assisi that led him to his realizations in this regard. The Church has embraced St. Bonaventure's idea of the development of doctrine (later named as such, systematized and further developed by Cardinal Newman) and he is the Seraphic Doctor, so I reckon he's a credible authority to base one's eschatology upon. It should be noted, however, that Bonaventure was a strong opponent of millenarian pseudo-doctrines. He didn't question St. Augustine's understanding of the millennium although he did modify that great Father's thought to incorporate his belief in progression in understanding of the faith with each new generation, the idea of Christ being the centre rather than the end of history (as Augustine thought) and a future era of peace within time - which he called the seventh age of the Church, this being absent from St. Augustine's thought so far as I am aware. Augustine spoke only of ages of creation, I believe, not of the Church. Venerable Holzhauser follows Bonaventure almost exactly (except for calling it the sixth rather than seventh age, I think) but further embellishes his ideas, although I can't say if Holzhauser was influenced by Bonaventure or not. He was a visionary and so might have arrived at the same beliefs enrirely independently of St. Bonaventure's works. Or he could have studied them prior to his visions, I don't know... I'll quote his works later, which come in the form of a Book of Visions and an inspired commentary on the Apocalypse which has been highly praised down the ages and which Venerable Holzhauser claimed to haven written in a sort of divinely induced ecstasy - I'm sure he's probably been quoted on this forum before in regards to the Era of Peace? Benedict, again, is a great fan of Holzhauser. The Venerable Holzhauser actually founded his Order and had its premises in Ratzinger's home- town of Tittmoning, in a building which later became his family home. Rather spooky coincidence I always thought! Cardinal Nichols gave Benedict a gift related to Holzhauser when he visited England in 2010: http://www.thepapalvisit.org.uk/Rep...Nichols-Farewell-Address-to-Pope-Benedict-XVI SPEECH Archbishop Nichols' Farewell Address to Pope Benedict XVI 19/09/2010 5:30 pm One of the gifts we wish to present to you is also intensely personal. It concerns the life of seventeenth century Bartholomew Holzhauser. As you know, Holy Father, Fr Holzhauser began his Institute for Secular Clergy in your home- town of Tittmoning, in a building which later became your family home. You speak of this in your own memoires. In the 19th century, interest in Holzhauser revived. He was declared Venerable by your predecessor Leo XIII. This college, St Mary’s Oscott, became imbued with the spirit of Holzhauser when the rector, Henry Parkinson (1896-1924) formed this house in that spirit. He played a major role in founding the Apostolic Union of Secular Clergy, for the mutual support of priests. He also led the students in a translation of the life of Bartholomew Holzhauser. We have prepared a special edition of that text and we hope that it
Some thoughts from Venerable Holzhauser on the Era of Peace. Later on I'll consider his Visions and Commentary separately, this is just a mixture of quotations culled from his writings: "...There will come a new period, in which two mighty ones will face each other. It will overthrow mountains and silt up rivers. A great change will come to pass, such as no mortal man will have expected; Heaven and Hell will confront each other in this struggle, old states will perish and light and darkness will be pitted against each other with swords, but it will be swords of a different fashion. With these swords it will be possible to cut up the skies and split the earth. A great lament will come over all mankind... And neither of the two adversaries will conquer nor be vanquished. Both mighty ones will lie on the ground, and a new mankind will come into existence.... A great change will come to pass, such as no mortal man will have expected. The Hand of Almighty God will work a marvellous change, something apparently impossible according to human understanding. There will rise a valiant monarch anointed by God. He will be a Catholic... A new mankind will come into existence. God possesses the key to everything. Blessed is he who will then be able to praise him, having obeyed all his commandments. And the great monarch of the world will create new laws for the new mankind and will cause a new age to begin, in which there will be only one flock and one shepherd, and peace will be of long, long duration, for the glory of God in heaven and on earth... The Sixth Age of the Spirit commences with the powerful Monarch and the Holy Pontiff... This will be an age of consolation in which God will console His Spirit of the affliction and the great tribulation of the preceding age... The sacerdocy will flower more than ever, and men will seek the kingdom of God in all solicitude... Many saints and doctors will flourish in the earth. Men will love reason and justice. Peace will reign in all the universe, because the divine power will bind Satan for many years, until the son of perdition will rave anew... It is in that age that the relation of the sixth Spirit of the Lord will be known, that is to say the Spirit of Wisdom that God diffuses over all the surfaces of the globes in those times. For men will fear the Lord their God, they will observe the law and serve it with all their heart. The sciences will be multiplied and complete on the earth. The Holy Scriptures will be unanimously understood, without controversy and without the errors of heresies. Men will be enlightened, so much as in the natural sciences and in the celestial sciences. Finally, the Sixth Church, the Church of Philadelphia, is the type of this sixth age, for Philadelphia signifies friendship of brothers, and again guarding the heritage in union with the Lord. Now all these characters convene perfectly in the sixth age, in which they will have love, concord and perfect peace and in which the powerful Monarch will have to consider almost the entire world as his heritage. He will deliver up the earth, with the aid of the Lord his God from all his enemies, of ruin and of all evil... The kingdoms, the nations, and the people will submit to the Roman Empire, furiously vanquished by the very powerful and very illustrious monarch who will govern during fifty-six years, rendering the peace of the universe... Men will live in peace, each in his own field. They will be reconciled with the one God. They will live in the shadow of the powerful Monarch and of his successors... Man himself will be so astonishingly changed by the hand of God, such that no one can imagine humanity..." - Venerable Bartholomew Holzauser (1613-1658)
Ven. Holzauser's visions are very interesting. I'm looking forward to reading your future comments about them. It is indeed a spooky coincidence that Pope Benedict lived in the same building where Ven. Holzauser founded his order. Reading what you have quoted above, it doesn't look like most of us will live to experience the era of peace. Swords that can cut up the skies and split the earth bring to mind modern weaponry, so looks like he's talking about a world war. Did St. Bonaventure give examples of how doctrine develops in a practical sense vis a vis the day to day practice of the faith?
To your first point, yes...all the prophecies and predictions - whether by doctors of the Church, mystics or popes - indicate that there will be a transitional period of very great and grave suffering. Sadly, there is unanimity on this point - although not all of them go to the extent of Holzhauser's vision of swords that split the sky and silt up rivers with pollution. I would say that the World Wars of the last century and whatever anguish awaits us in the 21st are all part of this slow, painful process towards the new era. Think of poison gas, the Holocaust, the Atomb bomb, terrorism, genocides... When Holzhauser wrote the above, he was living during the Thirty Years War between Catholic forces loyal to the Habsburg Empire and predominantly Protestant nationalist forces that desired independence from it. The result was that the Protestant side won and inaugurated the Peace of Westphalia, ending the Era of the Holy Roman Empire in which the papacy and Catholic monarchs had a privileged position on the continent. See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_of_Westphalia The Peace of Westphalia (German: Westfälischer Friede) was a series ofpeace treaties signed between May and October 1648 in the Westphaliancities of Osnabrück and Münster. These treaties ended the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) in the Holy Roman Empire, and the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648) between Spain and the Dutch Republic, with Spain formally recognizing the independence of the Dutch Republic. The peace negotiations involved a total of 109 delegations representing European powers, including Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand III, Philip IV ofSpain, the Kingdom of France, the Swedish Empire, the Dutch Republic, thePrinces of the Holy Roman Empire and sovereigns of the free imperial cities... The treaties did not restore peace throughout Europe, but they did create a basis for national self-determination. The Peace of Westphalia established the precedent of peaces established by diplomatic congress,[4][5] and a new system of political order in central Europe, later called Westphalian sovereignty, based upon the concept of co-existing sovereign states. Inter-state aggression was to be held in check by abalance of power. A norm was established against interference in another state's domestic affairs. As European influence spread across the globe, these Westphalian principles, especially the concept of sovereign states, became central to international law and to the prevailing world order.[6] The Holy See was very displeased at the settlement, with Pope Innocent X in Zelo Domus Dei reportedly calling it "null, void, invalid, iniquitous, unjust, damnable, reprobate, inane, empty of meaning and effect for all time". Westphalia brought forth the first true nation-states. Holzhauser foresaw that "two mighty" nation-states arising from this order would one day bring the entire planet almost to Armageddon. But in the end, neither state will prevail against the other and two great Catholic figures, a political one representing the temporal order and a Holy Pontiff representing the spiritual, will bring mankind into a new and better system of world governance spurred by a transformation in the hearts of human beings. Westphalia was the beginning of the international order we are still living under right now. It's going to end one day. The Era of Peace is what will arise in the post-Westphalian world. So the death of the Westphalian settlement is necessary. But the dying breathes of the Westphalian order will be very painful, apparently...
Incidentally, Cardinal Turkson authored a Vatican document that was signed by Benedict XVI in 2011 that mentions in passing this very issue: http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/p...way_that_Responds_to_the_Needs_of_all_Peoples PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR JUSTICE AND PEACE TOWARDS REFORMING THE INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL AND MONETARY SYSTEMS IN THE CONTEXT OF GLOBAL PUBLIC AUTHORITY "...3. An Authority over Globalization On the way to building a more fraternal and just human family and, even before that, a new humanism open to transcendence, Blessed John XXIII’s teaching seems especially timely. In the prophetic Encyclical Pacem in Terris of 1963, he observed that the world was heading towards ever greater unification. He then acknowledged the fact that a correspondence was lacking in the human community between the political organization “on a world level and the objective needs of the universal common good”. He also expressed the hope that one day “a true world political authority” would be created.... As Benedict XVI exhorts us, agents on all levels – social, political, economic, professional – are urgently needed who have the courage to serve and to promote the common good through an upright life(21). Only they will succeed in living and seeing beyond the appearances of things and perceiving the gap between existing reality and untried possibilities... Modern States became structured wholes over time and reinforced sovereignty within their own territory. But social, cultural and political conditions have gradually changed. Their interdependence has grown – so it has become natural to think of an international community that is integrated and increasingly ruled by a shared system – but a worse form of nationalism has lingered on, according to which the State feels it can achieve the good of its own citizens in a self-sufficient way. Today all of this seems anachronistic and surreal, and all nations, great or small, together with their governments, are called to go beyond the “state of nature” which would keep States in a never-ending struggle with one another. Globalization, despite some of its negative aspects, is unifying peoples more and prompting them to move towards a new “rule of law” on the supranational level, supported by more intense and fruitful modes of collaboration. With dynamics similar to those that put an end in the past to the “anarchical” struggle between rival clans and kingdoms with regard to the creation of national states, today humanity needs to be committed to the transition from a situation of archaic struggles between national entities, to a new model of a more cohesive, polyarchic international society that respects every people’s identity within the multifaceted riches of a single humanity. Such a passage, which is already timidly under way, would ensure peace and security, development, and free, stable and transparent markets for the citizens of all countries, regardless of their size or power. As John Paul II warns us, “Just as the time has finally come when in individual States a system of private vendetta and reprisal has given way to the rule of law, so too a similar step forward is now urgently needed in the international community”(23). The time has come to conceive of institutions with universal competence, now that vital goods shared by the entire human family are at stake, goods which individual States cannot promote and protect by themselves. The conditions exist for going definitively beyond a ‘Westphalian’ international order in which States feel the need for cooperation but do not seize the opportunity to integrate their respective sovereignties for the common good of peoples. It is the task of today’s generation to recognize and consciously to accept these new world dynamics for the achievement of a universal common good. Of course, this transformation will be made at the cost of a gradual, balanced transfer of a part of each nation’s powers to a world Authority and to regional Authorities, but this is necessary at a time when the dynamism of human society and the economy and the progress of technology are transcending borders, which are in fact already very eroded in a globalized world. The birth of a new society and the building of new institutions with a universal vocation and competence are a prerogative and a duty for everyone, without distinction. What is at stake is the common good of humanity and the future itself. In this context, for every Christian there is a special call of the Spirit to become committed decisively and generously so that the many dynamics under way will be channelled towards prospects of fraternity and the common good. An immense amount of work is to be done towards the integral development of peoples and of every person. As the Fathers said at the Second Vatican Council, this is a mission that is both social and spiritual, which “to the extent that the former can contribute to the better ordering of human society, it is of vital concern to the Kingdom of God”(24). In a world on its way to rapid globalization, orientation towards a world Authority becomes the only horizon compatible with the new realities of our time and the needs of humankind. However, it should not be forgotten that this development, given wounded human nature, will not come about without anguish and suffering..." Notice the last line. A warning of dangers ahead. As I said, Westphalia is dying and will die, as Venerable Holzhauser predicted while it was in the process of being formed in the 17th century. But it appears that it may go out very painfully indeed and not easily either. I know a lot of people can't understand why the popes always bang on about a "true world political authority," "a civilization of love" and so on...The former sometimes seems to scare many Americans in particular. These concepts are not really for our Westphalian age. When mankind becomes imbued with Catholic principles and the Immaculate Heart of Mary reigns, the change in ethical ways of living will lead to different institutions, laws and social structures from the ones we have right now. The Era of Peace reigning in our hearts will make us change the structures of our world for the better (not the reverse, as Utopians think). But of course, it will come to an end with the Son of Perdition and the Great Apostasy...Holzhauser thinks the Peace will last for a very long time though, at least in human terms. So, in essence, Holzhauser prophesies a post-Westphalian future in which the Church will evangelize all nations and in collaboration with a great temporal Catholic leader inaugurate an Era of Peace granted by God and resulting from a change in peoples' souls that eventually changes the entire social order for the better....A God-given peace, not the phony Westphalian one we've lived under for 400+ years of nearly endless wars.... For a "while" anyway but the good times won't last forever....Flawed humanity always finds a way of completely ruining a truly good thing....
Somewhat ominously perhaps, Our Lady of Fatima and Venerable Holzhauser both predict that states will 'perish' before the Peace is granted: "To prevent this, I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of Reparation on the First Saturdays. If my requests are heeded Russia will be converted and will have peace; if not, she (Russia) will spread her errors throughout the world, promoting wars and persecutions of the Church, the good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, various nations will be annihilated: finally my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, which will be converted,and peace will be granted to the world for some time." Holzhauser: "...Heaven and Hell will confront each other in this struggle, old states will perish and light and darkness will be pitted against each other with swords, but it will be swords of a different fashion..."
