Catholic Apocalypticism
The apocalypse has been foretold since ancient biblical times. There were Hebrew Bible prophets then New Testament letters and more recently modern Christian groups that all describe how the spectacular end of the world is going to happen. Each Christian branch has their own version of what is going to happen and what the people need to do in order to make the ending of the earth a peaceful one. On the other hand, there some groups that want the end to come quickly so they can be reunited with Jesus during his second coming. The Catholic Church has official teachings on what is going to happen during the end times and its has the understanding that Jesus will coming again to “judge the living and the dead”, as stated in the Apostles’ Creed. They believe that there will be “the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting” [1]. With Catholic apocalypticism come many visions of Mary where she comes to warn devotees about the impending dooms if people do not repent. These Marian apparitions are explained through Catholic eschatology and the development of the cult of Mary over the centuries. There are a few famous Catholic apocalyptic groups, like the Apostles of Infinite Love, which have many of same ideological characteristics as the Marian visions. Catholic apocalypticism has developed over time and now plays a larger within the church and believers as a whole, throughout the United States and Europe.
American Catholic apocalypticism has grown throughout the modern period with the help of a few Marian apparitions and the second Vatican council, which will be discussed in detail below. But to introduce Catholic apocalypticism is Michael W. Cuneo’s article called The Vengeful Virgin which discusses Catholic American apocalypticism and in his article he describes nine ideological characteristics that links different sightings and groups together from around the world and through centuries. He says that, “Marian apparitions, mystical revelation and scripture are the three most important explicit sources for Catholic apocalypticism in America” [1]. The nine ideological characteristics described by Cuneo are present in most apocalyptic social movements and groups in America. The characteristics are: the approaching chastisement, holy elites, political passivity, anticommunism, conspiracy mentality, Catholicism-in-crisis, the papacy-in-crisis, thaumaturgical authority and sectarian impulse. These characteristics are not “one size fits all” for Catholic apocalyptic movements but many cases tend to have more than one of these listed above.
To explain further the nine ideological characteristics the approaching chastisement is the notion of the world standing on the brink of “catastrophic damnation” sent in messages usually directly from the Virgin Mary to her seers, which are mainly Mary apparitions experienced all over the world. The holy elites refer to a post-Mary apparition when she was said to call for a special community that would be entrusted with preaching for the conversion of the entire world and the leaders will be the “apostles of the last time”. Catholic apocalyptic movements in America adopted this and lead to many groups claiming they were correct. Next was political passivity, which called its “right-winged” Catholic members to withdraw form worldly things that would disrupt their salvation. Anticommunism is always common with Marian-based movements because they believe it’s a dangerous force that is a major issue even more now than before. Most apocalyptic groups have some sort of conspiracy mentality which means they cannot take anything that face value and must probe beneath the surface to find the real causes of happenings. The most common Marian apocalyptic vision depicts Catholicism-in-crisis and the papacy-in-crisis. The Virgin Mary and other catholic apocalyptic preachers talk about the priesthood, new teachings and ritual life which have become extremely corrupt. Then to develop is the thaumaturgical authority, which means that these believers say that the authority no longer comes from the corrupt church but some the sacred apparitions and seers. Lastly to develop is the sectarian impulse, which has these groups completely define themselves apart from the institution of the church.
A Catholic apocalyptic group that shows many of these ideologies stated above is the Apostles of Infinite Love. This radical monastic community based out of St. Jovite, Quebec began in 1963 by a preacher named Brother John. These Apostles ordained married men as well as single and married women. On September 10, 2968 the community announced that its founder mystically ordained a new reign of papacy that was Brother John with the new of Pope Gregory XVII. This group considered itself to be the real Catholic Church but started their own rules and apocalyptic teachings because the other church was corrupt. They follow mystics and seers with the supernatural as their authority. However, the members did have heavy demands brought upon them by Gregory XVII, which began with complete allegiance to him, celibacy and to turn over all world possession to the larger community. The Apostles of Infinite Love have a three-stage scenario doomsday theology. Being with a chastisement, which is the current time then a brief period of peace to a second chastisement, which is full of war and calamity leading to the end of the world. [1]
The Apostles of Infinite Love is not the only “cult” like apocalyptic group around with a history of authority from the Catholic Church, or their version of the true church. The official Catholic Church teachings have developed over time in efforts to update to the current times as described the Oxford Handbook of Eschatology. This Handbook describes Catholic eschatology into a pre-Vatican II and post- Vatican II stages in order to show the clear distinction in developments for doctrines on eschatology. As brief history, Pope Benedict XII called the second Vatican council in 1963 in hopes of bringing the church into modern times. Before the second Vatican council, many beliefs about the end of the world came from the Bible and creeds that stated their faith as the body of the Catholic Church. There was a literal understanding of the bible, Jesus’ second coming and concepts of heaven, hell and purgatory. The afterlife was an exciting idea to the early Catholic Church but there was controversy about what was truly in store for believes in the after until the Council of Constantinople in 543 that affirmed the eternity of hell. This council decision began to define the difference between heaven, hell and eventually leading to the understanding of purgatory. To them, heaven was for the blessed, hell was filled with eternal punishments and purgatory was for the spiritual cleaning and temporary punishment of the soul. There were about four different councils that were called to discuss the existence of purgatory beginning in 1274 until 1536 and all confirmed the existence of purgatory. Even through all these debates, there was still much controversy on correct eschatology dogma within the church. [1]
The Second Vatican council was called in order to iron out some of these different understandings of not just eschatology but for the church as a whole. However, the apocalyptic teachings were moved from the margins to the center of dogmatic understandings. The end times have become more than just an afterlife and became something that described the nature of the church entirety. These understandings have become the thread that is woven through the entire church. This revelation is shown in the new rules made in the second Vatican council one of the orders states,
“Until arrival of the new heavens and the new earth in which justice dwells the pilgrim Church, in its sacraments and institutions, which belong to this present age, carries the mark of this world which will pass, and takes its place among the creatures which groan and until now suffer the pains of childbirth and await the revelation of children of God” (no. 48) [2].
This ideology is based upon 2 Peter 3:13 and Romans 8:19-22 which are quoted almost directly within this new doctrine. While the church brings in new doctrines, it also reaffirms the old ones in order to reiterate the traditional teachings. The traditional teachings that the council reaffirmed were: the concepts of heaven, hell and purgatory, Christ’s glorious return, resurrection of all the dead at the end of time, the impending universal judgment, the communion of saints, the suffrages for the dead and the cult of the angles and saints, especially Mary. [1]
The Cult of Mary has been around since the beginning of Christianity and has been reaffirmed by the Church over time and through different ecumenical councils. This cult was not really mentioned in the New Testament and was noted to be an underground movement until the 4th and 5th century. The followers of the Cult of Mary found her relatable as the mother of Jesus who was perfectly pious and devoted to her son [3]. Throughout the fourth and fifth century, there was the paradox about Mary as the virgin human mother of God or what came to be known as Theotokos, which means Mother of God. The Council of Ephesus in 431 confirmed Mary as the humanly mother of God, which increased her following throughout the 5th, 6th and 7th century. The first church in Rome as dedicated to her and the introduction of feasts around Mary became widely celebrated. [7]
These Marian Cults have been found all over the world and many have received messages from the Virgin Mary herself, which proclaim variety apocalyptic messages. These visions of Mary called apparitions. An apparition is best describe in a text called Pontmain, Prophecy and Protest and states that an apparition is, ““an extraordinary, sensible manifestation of a person or object not normally visible to the senses, yet there are many different explanations of the basic causes and fundamental nature of apparitions” [6].
There have been many famous Marian apparitions from all over the world but there are three with very predominate apocalyptic messages. The first two are from La Salette, France and the other is form Fatima, Portugal and the last message is from a mystic seer from Bayside, New York. At each of these locations young men and women have seen the Virgin Mary who gave them apocalyptic messages. There was much controversy around these stories but many sources claim to have been true messages from the Virgin Mary while only the Catholic Church has claimed a few of these messages.
La Salette, France and Fatima, Portugal have lead to many complicated investigations about the children who saw the Virgin Mary and reasons behind her apocalyptic messages. To look into these apparitions there have been studies done by Scientists, Sociologists and Anthropologies who have been trying to understand these phenomena and countless articles writing to investigate the authenticity of the children seers [5]. These apparitions are important to recognize because there have many visions of Mary but the appearances in La Salette and Fatima are extremely apocalyptic and have cause the Catholic Church much controversy.
Not only where there visions of Mary but there were Marian seers who began preaching about there visions and calling out the Catholic Church as immoral and corrupt. An example of these types of apparitions is from the 20th century and was woman seer named Veronica Lueken from Bayside, New York. She had mystic visions of the Virgin Mary who came to tell her about the corruption within the Catholic Church and the importance of repentance. She has a very interesting and detailed website which details all of her apparitions and commentaries upon visions. Her story is very unique and has caused much controversy within the Catholic Church [10].
Mystic seers, Marian apparitions, the cult of Mary, the Apostles of Infinite Love and the second Vatican council are only a few examples of Catholic apocalypticism teachings and groups. There is so much detail and descriptions given to all the different types of groups and “Church approved apparitions” that have been discovered throughout the history of Catholicism. The Cult of Mary and early Catholic eschatology from the 4th and 5th centuries brought about teachings and ideas that would come to have a major influence upon on all of Catholic apocalyptic ideas. Throughout time the Marian cult lead to Mary apparitions, which gave authority to mystic seers who would later have direct contact with the Virgin Mary. Modern Catholic apocalypticism is ever developing and is always interesting through the new visions and apparitions of the Virgin who calls upon her people to repent before the return of her son.
View My Prezi about the Catholic Apocalypse
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Annotated Bibliography
[1] Phan, Peter C. 2008. “Roman Catholic Theology” in The Oxford Handbook of Eschatology. Edited by Jerry L. Walls. Oxford University Press (215-225).
This source was one of the most useful to me and really helped me understand the history of Catholic Eschatology. The structure of this article helped me structure my own arguments because it gave a general outline then broke the history into Pre-Vatican II and Post- Vatican II. It also went into Post-Vatican II Magisterium to expand more traditional church teachings. This source also went a little more in detail than I used but was very helpful in a general understanding of the topic. The general summary I used from this chapter was the beginning of eschatology beliefs from the Apostles’ Creed to the Council of Constantinople through the Council of Trent. It went into detail about many debates of the afterlife and the correct bible interpretations. Then continuing to Post Vactian II beginning with Pope John XXII, the reaffirmations of the church of old doctrine until 1979 and 1992 confirmation of the souls debates.
[2] Cuneo, Michael W. 1997. “The Vengeful Virgin” in Millennium, Messiah, and Mayhem: Contemporary Apocalyptic Movements. Edited by Thomas Robbins and Susan J. Palmer. New York, NY: Routledge. (175-194).
Michael Cuneo’s article was probably the most useful article to me throughout the entire research process. This source was basically my starting point for my paper and understanding of American Catholic apocalyptic movements. Within this article I found all about the Apostles of Infinite Love, Fatima and Veronica Lueken. From there I went into Cuneo’s resources to continue my own research. Also, I discovered the nine ideologies of apocalyptic groups that I used as a starting point in my paper. I thought this article was very well written, very easy to follow and really got me interested in this topic.
[3] Carroll, Michael P. 1986. The Cult of the Virgin Mary. Princeton, NJ; Princeton University Press.
From this source, I drew from many chapters to help me understand the history of the Cult of the Virgin Mary. It gave me great detail about entire history of the Cult leading into Marian apparitions. It gave details of the widespread devotions because Mary was disassociated from sexuality and the author compared and contrasted Mary to the popular Greco-Roman “mother goddess during the time of early Christianity. Then it went into 4th and 5th century and tracked the Cult’s movements through Europe. It tracked how large the cult was by tracking the shrines to Mary throughout Europe. Most chapters gave historical origins from the 1st – 4th century of the Roman Empire and its domination over the Jesus movement and leading into the Council of Chalcedon. Next the text explored Marian apparitions and the way Mary came to talk to everyday Catholics. This text was very useful to me and really helped me understand the evolution of the Cult of Mary, which was the main part of my research.
[4] Zimdars-Swartz, Sandra L. 1991. Encoutering Mary: From La Salette to Medjugorje Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
This was the first text I read that focused predominately on Marian apparitions. It gave almost all the detailed accounts of the Virgin Mary and tracked her appearances within the Roman Catholic Church. The most useful part to me was tracking the developments from the 11th century all the way until 20th century helping me see all the different places that Marian apparitions. I learned that the 18th and 19th centuries were the most documented Marian apparitions and the church had to commission the local diocesans to prove these visions true. This source also helped me read in detail about La Salette and Fatima, which became focused throughout my research because of their apocalyptic visions.
[5] Apolito, Paolo. 1998. Apparitions of the Madonna at Oliveto Citra. Translated by William A. Christian Jr. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press.
I did not draw upon this source as much because it focused upon an apparition that I did not really focus upon in my research but it did give me broad understand of the importance of apparitions within Catholicism. It helped be understand the more scientific understand behind these visions. It focused upon scientific, sociological and anthropologic understand. It explained the difference between the “true” and “false” visions, the popularity within the Cult of Mary and identified the psychological process of visions. An example that stuck at to me the most was the visions from 1100-1896 showed that seers showed a strong sexual desire for the opposite-sex parent and had equal frequency between males and females. Meaning that the visions were usually by individuals who were lacking the opposite-sex parent which made them see the Virgin Mary. I am not sure how many other studies have been done around this types of finding but it was very interesting to learn about.
[6] Porte, Cheryl A. 2005. Pontmain, Prophecy and Protest: A Cultural-Historical Study of a Nineteenth-Century Apparition. New York, NY: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc.
This was another source that I only used one chapter from but it was very important in my understanding of Marian devotion within the Catholic faith. It was another source that detailed many accounts of Marian visions from around the world but focused mainly in France. However, this article gave me the best definition of what an apparition really was. This definition did a good job of helping me understand an apparition was spiritual but in a scholarly understanding.
[7]Pelikan, Jaroslav. 1996. Mary Through the Centuries, Her Place in the History of Culture. New Heaven, CT: Yale University Press.
This source had a great article about Mary the mother of God but the Theotokos understanding. It gave a great history many debated between the different councils and the outcome. It was another great source to further my understand of the history of the cult of Mary as well as the paradox believers were facing. This paradox was the acceptance of Mary the mother of God while also still being human and a virgin.
[8] Echeverria, Loreto and Perry, Nicholas. 1988. Under the Heel of Mary. New York, NY and London: Routledge.
This was source that I didn’t not draw upon as much as I had hoped because it went into extreme detail upon events that I did not have much interest in. However, I did call upon it when it came to explanations of La Salette because of its detail. I would love to come back to this text just to learn about all different aspects of Marianism but I only used a few parts for my own research project.
[9] Introvigne, Massimo. 2011. “Modern Catholic Millennialism” in The Oxford Handbook of Eschatology. Edited by Catherine, Wessinger. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
This was another text that was full of detail but did not exactly comment on my specific needs within Catholic apocalyptic because had too broad of focus for my own personal needs. It was a very interesting commentary upon different Marian movements but just went a little to broad for my needs.
[10] Brasher, Brenda. 2001. Give Me That Online Religion. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
I really loved reading this article from the first time I picked it up. It was so interesting because it is about the Internet and apocalypse. This ended up fitting perfectly with my topic because of the really interesting insight it gave on Veronica Lueken and her following. This was one of my main starting points in looking into Catholic apocalypticism and gave me a starting point. This article was extremely easy to read and gave good resources for websites that told all about Veronica’s story and apparitions. It gave me the idea of looking into the Cult of Mary and the Marian apparitions from Ancient times until now.
American Catholic apocalypticism has grown throughout the modern period with the help of a few Marian apparitions and the second Vatican council, which will be discussed in detail below. But to introduce Catholic apocalypticism is Michael W. Cuneo’s article called The Vengeful Virgin which discusses Catholic American apocalypticism and in his article he describes nine ideological characteristics that links different sightings and groups together from around the world and through centuries. He says that, “Marian apparitions, mystical revelation and scripture are the three most important explicit sources for Catholic apocalypticism in America” [1]. The nine ideological characteristics described by Cuneo are present in most apocalyptic social movements and groups in America. The characteristics are: the approaching chastisement, holy elites, political passivity, anticommunism, conspiracy mentality, Catholicism-in-crisis, the papacy-in-crisis, thaumaturgical authority and sectarian impulse. These characteristics are not “one size fits all” for Catholic apocalyptic movements but many cases tend to have more than one of these listed above.
To explain further the nine ideological characteristics the approaching chastisement is the notion of the world standing on the brink of “catastrophic damnation” sent in messages usually directly from the Virgin Mary to her seers, which are mainly Mary apparitions experienced all over the world. The holy elites refer to a post-Mary apparition when she was said to call for a special community that would be entrusted with preaching for the conversion of the entire world and the leaders will be the “apostles of the last time”. Catholic apocalyptic movements in America adopted this and lead to many groups claiming they were correct. Next was political passivity, which called its “right-winged” Catholic members to withdraw form worldly things that would disrupt their salvation. Anticommunism is always common with Marian-based movements because they believe it’s a dangerous force that is a major issue even more now than before. Most apocalyptic groups have some sort of conspiracy mentality which means they cannot take anything that face value and must probe beneath the surface to find the real causes of happenings. The most common Marian apocalyptic vision depicts Catholicism-in-crisis and the papacy-in-crisis. The Virgin Mary and other catholic apocalyptic preachers talk about the priesthood, new teachings and ritual life which have become extremely corrupt. Then to develop is the thaumaturgical authority, which means that these believers say that the authority no longer comes from the corrupt church but some the sacred apparitions and seers. Lastly to develop is the sectarian impulse, which has these groups completely define themselves apart from the institution of the church.
A Catholic apocalyptic group that shows many of these ideologies stated above is the Apostles of Infinite Love. This radical monastic community based out of St. Jovite, Quebec began in 1963 by a preacher named Brother John. These Apostles ordained married men as well as single and married women. On September 10, 2968 the community announced that its founder mystically ordained a new reign of papacy that was Brother John with the new of Pope Gregory XVII. This group considered itself to be the real Catholic Church but started their own rules and apocalyptic teachings because the other church was corrupt. They follow mystics and seers with the supernatural as their authority. However, the members did have heavy demands brought upon them by Gregory XVII, which began with complete allegiance to him, celibacy and to turn over all world possession to the larger community. The Apostles of Infinite Love have a three-stage scenario doomsday theology. Being with a chastisement, which is the current time then a brief period of peace to a second chastisement, which is full of war and calamity leading to the end of the world. [1]
The Apostles of Infinite Love is not the only “cult” like apocalyptic group around with a history of authority from the Catholic Church, or their version of the true church. The official Catholic Church teachings have developed over time in efforts to update to the current times as described the Oxford Handbook of Eschatology. This Handbook describes Catholic eschatology into a pre-Vatican II and post- Vatican II stages in order to show the clear distinction in developments for doctrines on eschatology. As brief history, Pope Benedict XII called the second Vatican council in 1963 in hopes of bringing the church into modern times. Before the second Vatican council, many beliefs about the end of the world came from the Bible and creeds that stated their faith as the body of the Catholic Church. There was a literal understanding of the bible, Jesus’ second coming and concepts of heaven, hell and purgatory. The afterlife was an exciting idea to the early Catholic Church but there was controversy about what was truly in store for believes in the after until the Council of Constantinople in 543 that affirmed the eternity of hell. This council decision began to define the difference between heaven, hell and eventually leading to the understanding of purgatory. To them, heaven was for the blessed, hell was filled with eternal punishments and purgatory was for the spiritual cleaning and temporary punishment of the soul. There were about four different councils that were called to discuss the existence of purgatory beginning in 1274 until 1536 and all confirmed the existence of purgatory. Even through all these debates, there was still much controversy on correct eschatology dogma within the church. [1]
The Second Vatican council was called in order to iron out some of these different understandings of not just eschatology but for the church as a whole. However, the apocalyptic teachings were moved from the margins to the center of dogmatic understandings. The end times have become more than just an afterlife and became something that described the nature of the church entirety. These understandings have become the thread that is woven through the entire church. This revelation is shown in the new rules made in the second Vatican council one of the orders states,
“Until arrival of the new heavens and the new earth in which justice dwells the pilgrim Church, in its sacraments and institutions, which belong to this present age, carries the mark of this world which will pass, and takes its place among the creatures which groan and until now suffer the pains of childbirth and await the revelation of children of God” (no. 48) [2].
This ideology is based upon 2 Peter 3:13 and Romans 8:19-22 which are quoted almost directly within this new doctrine. While the church brings in new doctrines, it also reaffirms the old ones in order to reiterate the traditional teachings. The traditional teachings that the council reaffirmed were: the concepts of heaven, hell and purgatory, Christ’s glorious return, resurrection of all the dead at the end of time, the impending universal judgment, the communion of saints, the suffrages for the dead and the cult of the angles and saints, especially Mary. [1]
The Cult of Mary has been around since the beginning of Christianity and has been reaffirmed by the Church over time and through different ecumenical councils. This cult was not really mentioned in the New Testament and was noted to be an underground movement until the 4th and 5th century. The followers of the Cult of Mary found her relatable as the mother of Jesus who was perfectly pious and devoted to her son [3]. Throughout the fourth and fifth century, there was the paradox about Mary as the virgin human mother of God or what came to be known as Theotokos, which means Mother of God. The Council of Ephesus in 431 confirmed Mary as the humanly mother of God, which increased her following throughout the 5th, 6th and 7th century. The first church in Rome as dedicated to her and the introduction of feasts around Mary became widely celebrated. [7]
These Marian Cults have been found all over the world and many have received messages from the Virgin Mary herself, which proclaim variety apocalyptic messages. These visions of Mary called apparitions. An apparition is best describe in a text called Pontmain, Prophecy and Protest and states that an apparition is, ““an extraordinary, sensible manifestation of a person or object not normally visible to the senses, yet there are many different explanations of the basic causes and fundamental nature of apparitions” [6].
There have been many famous Marian apparitions from all over the world but there are three with very predominate apocalyptic messages. The first two are from La Salette, France and the other is form Fatima, Portugal and the last message is from a mystic seer from Bayside, New York. At each of these locations young men and women have seen the Virgin Mary who gave them apocalyptic messages. There was much controversy around these stories but many sources claim to have been true messages from the Virgin Mary while only the Catholic Church has claimed a few of these messages.
La Salette, France and Fatima, Portugal have lead to many complicated investigations about the children who saw the Virgin Mary and reasons behind her apocalyptic messages. To look into these apparitions there have been studies done by Scientists, Sociologists and Anthropologies who have been trying to understand these phenomena and countless articles writing to investigate the authenticity of the children seers [5]. These apparitions are important to recognize because there have many visions of Mary but the appearances in La Salette and Fatima are extremely apocalyptic and have cause the Catholic Church much controversy.
Not only where there visions of Mary but there were Marian seers who began preaching about there visions and calling out the Catholic Church as immoral and corrupt. An example of these types of apparitions is from the 20th century and was woman seer named Veronica Lueken from Bayside, New York. She had mystic visions of the Virgin Mary who came to tell her about the corruption within the Catholic Church and the importance of repentance. She has a very interesting and detailed website which details all of her apparitions and commentaries upon visions. Her story is very unique and has caused much controversy within the Catholic Church [10].
Mystic seers, Marian apparitions, the cult of Mary, the Apostles of Infinite Love and the second Vatican council are only a few examples of Catholic apocalypticism teachings and groups. There is so much detail and descriptions given to all the different types of groups and “Church approved apparitions” that have been discovered throughout the history of Catholicism. The Cult of Mary and early Catholic eschatology from the 4th and 5th centuries brought about teachings and ideas that would come to have a major influence upon on all of Catholic apocalyptic ideas. Throughout time the Marian cult lead to Mary apparitions, which gave authority to mystic seers who would later have direct contact with the Virgin Mary. Modern Catholic apocalypticism is ever developing and is always interesting through the new visions and apparitions of the Virgin who calls upon her people to repent before the return of her son.
View My Prezi about the Catholic Apocalypse
<iframe src="http://prezi.com/embed/-_rk4_acje0e/?bgcolor=ffffff&lock_to_path=0&autoplay=0&autohide_ctrls=0&features=undefined&disabled_features=undefined" width="550" height="400" frameBorder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozAllowFullscreen allowfullscreen></iframe>
Annotated Bibliography
[1] Phan, Peter C. 2008. “Roman Catholic Theology” in The Oxford Handbook of Eschatology. Edited by Jerry L. Walls. Oxford University Press (215-225).
This source was one of the most useful to me and really helped me understand the history of Catholic Eschatology. The structure of this article helped me structure my own arguments because it gave a general outline then broke the history into Pre-Vatican II and Post- Vatican II. It also went into Post-Vatican II Magisterium to expand more traditional church teachings. This source also went a little more in detail than I used but was very helpful in a general understanding of the topic. The general summary I used from this chapter was the beginning of eschatology beliefs from the Apostles’ Creed to the Council of Constantinople through the Council of Trent. It went into detail about many debates of the afterlife and the correct bible interpretations. Then continuing to Post Vactian II beginning with Pope John XXII, the reaffirmations of the church of old doctrine until 1979 and 1992 confirmation of the souls debates.
[2] Cuneo, Michael W. 1997. “The Vengeful Virgin” in Millennium, Messiah, and Mayhem: Contemporary Apocalyptic Movements. Edited by Thomas Robbins and Susan J. Palmer. New York, NY: Routledge. (175-194).
Michael Cuneo’s article was probably the most useful article to me throughout the entire research process. This source was basically my starting point for my paper and understanding of American Catholic apocalyptic movements. Within this article I found all about the Apostles of Infinite Love, Fatima and Veronica Lueken. From there I went into Cuneo’s resources to continue my own research. Also, I discovered the nine ideologies of apocalyptic groups that I used as a starting point in my paper. I thought this article was very well written, very easy to follow and really got me interested in this topic.
[3] Carroll, Michael P. 1986. The Cult of the Virgin Mary. Princeton, NJ; Princeton University Press.
From this source, I drew from many chapters to help me understand the history of the Cult of the Virgin Mary. It gave me great detail about entire history of the Cult leading into Marian apparitions. It gave details of the widespread devotions because Mary was disassociated from sexuality and the author compared and contrasted Mary to the popular Greco-Roman “mother goddess during the time of early Christianity. Then it went into 4th and 5th century and tracked the Cult’s movements through Europe. It tracked how large the cult was by tracking the shrines to Mary throughout Europe. Most chapters gave historical origins from the 1st – 4th century of the Roman Empire and its domination over the Jesus movement and leading into the Council of Chalcedon. Next the text explored Marian apparitions and the way Mary came to talk to everyday Catholics. This text was very useful to me and really helped me understand the evolution of the Cult of Mary, which was the main part of my research.
[4] Zimdars-Swartz, Sandra L. 1991. Encoutering Mary: From La Salette to Medjugorje Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
This was the first text I read that focused predominately on Marian apparitions. It gave almost all the detailed accounts of the Virgin Mary and tracked her appearances within the Roman Catholic Church. The most useful part to me was tracking the developments from the 11th century all the way until 20th century helping me see all the different places that Marian apparitions. I learned that the 18th and 19th centuries were the most documented Marian apparitions and the church had to commission the local diocesans to prove these visions true. This source also helped me read in detail about La Salette and Fatima, which became focused throughout my research because of their apocalyptic visions.
[5] Apolito, Paolo. 1998. Apparitions of the Madonna at Oliveto Citra. Translated by William A. Christian Jr. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press.
I did not draw upon this source as much because it focused upon an apparition that I did not really focus upon in my research but it did give me broad understand of the importance of apparitions within Catholicism. It helped be understand the more scientific understand behind these visions. It focused upon scientific, sociological and anthropologic understand. It explained the difference between the “true” and “false” visions, the popularity within the Cult of Mary and identified the psychological process of visions. An example that stuck at to me the most was the visions from 1100-1896 showed that seers showed a strong sexual desire for the opposite-sex parent and had equal frequency between males and females. Meaning that the visions were usually by individuals who were lacking the opposite-sex parent which made them see the Virgin Mary. I am not sure how many other studies have been done around this types of finding but it was very interesting to learn about.
[6] Porte, Cheryl A. 2005. Pontmain, Prophecy and Protest: A Cultural-Historical Study of a Nineteenth-Century Apparition. New York, NY: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc.
This was another source that I only used one chapter from but it was very important in my understanding of Marian devotion within the Catholic faith. It was another source that detailed many accounts of Marian visions from around the world but focused mainly in France. However, this article gave me the best definition of what an apparition really was. This definition did a good job of helping me understand an apparition was spiritual but in a scholarly understanding.
[7]Pelikan, Jaroslav. 1996. Mary Through the Centuries, Her Place in the History of Culture. New Heaven, CT: Yale University Press.
This source had a great article about Mary the mother of God but the Theotokos understanding. It gave a great history many debated between the different councils and the outcome. It was another great source to further my understand of the history of the cult of Mary as well as the paradox believers were facing. This paradox was the acceptance of Mary the mother of God while also still being human and a virgin.
[8] Echeverria, Loreto and Perry, Nicholas. 1988. Under the Heel of Mary. New York, NY and London: Routledge.
This was source that I didn’t not draw upon as much as I had hoped because it went into extreme detail upon events that I did not have much interest in. However, I did call upon it when it came to explanations of La Salette because of its detail. I would love to come back to this text just to learn about all different aspects of Marianism but I only used a few parts for my own research project.
[9] Introvigne, Massimo. 2011. “Modern Catholic Millennialism” in The Oxford Handbook of Eschatology. Edited by Catherine, Wessinger. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
This was another text that was full of detail but did not exactly comment on my specific needs within Catholic apocalyptic because had too broad of focus for my own personal needs. It was a very interesting commentary upon different Marian movements but just went a little to broad for my needs.
[10] Brasher, Brenda. 2001. Give Me That Online Religion. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
I really loved reading this article from the first time I picked it up. It was so interesting because it is about the Internet and apocalypse. This ended up fitting perfectly with my topic because of the really interesting insight it gave on Veronica Lueken and her following. This was one of my main starting points in looking into Catholic apocalypticism and gave me a starting point. This article was extremely easy to read and gave good resources for websites that told all about Veronica’s story and apparitions. It gave me the idea of looking into the Cult of Mary and the Marian apparitions from Ancient times until now.