Do Catholics believe in the ‘Rapture’?

by Michael Shackleton · May 22, 2012

I have a non-Catholic friend who belongs to a Bible-study group. She believes in what she calls the Rapture. This seems to mean that Jesus Christ will gather up his chosen ones and take them to heaven, leaving the rest of the human race on earth to face the Anti-Christ before the Last Day. How does the Church view this belief?� R van der Westhuizen

In the Creed we say that on the last day Jesus Christ will come again to judge the living and the dead and his kingdom will have no end. This is the nub of Catholic teaching.

It is expressed in The Catechism of the Catholic Church in this way: �At the end of time, the kingdom of God will come in its fulness. After the universal judgment, the righteous will reign for ever with Christ, glorified in body and soul. The universe itself will be renewed� (1042).

This universal judgment is the Lord�s Second Coming, as mentioned in Matthew 24:29-31.

Belief in the Rapture contradicts this article of faith. Rapturists hold that those among the living who believe in Christ will be taken up to heaven before the universal judgment, while unbelievers will remain behind for a period of persecution by the Anti-Christ. The basis for this is obscurely found in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17.

Catholics cannot take this interpretation seriously. It emerged in the 19th century, promoted by fundamentalists in the United States, such as John Darby and William Blackstone.

Their view, which they claimed was supported in Matthew 24:40, was that believers in Christ would be seized in a �rapture� from this world and taken to heaven by Christ before the rest of humanity. This would occur in the twinkling of an eye and in a non-public way, so that if two persons were working in the same place, one could suddenly be removed abruptly to heaven.

The Catholic Church�s doctrine is that Christ comes into this world only twice: first, to be born of the Virgin, and second, to return to judge the living and the dead publicly, and claim his everlasting Kingdom. The Church understands Matthew 24:40 in this light.

Rapturists see Christ as having three comings into the world: at his birth; his sudden return for the Rapture; his final return at the end of time to judge the living and the dead. There is no evidence of this in either Scripture or Tradition.