ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on modern and contemporary statements by the Church's ordinary Magisterium that treat the topic of millenarianism. Pope Pius XII's post-Second World War statement was the first papal or magisterial declaration on the issue of millenarianism. Up until that declaration, the history of millenarianism in the Church vacillated between embracing this understanding of eschatology and fearing it, but never formally rejecting it. In 1990, eminent Catholic theologian Fr. Marino Penasa asked Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger about an imminent, intermediate, millenary reign of Jesus Christ, prior to the final judgment. The millenarian eschatology has never been formalized as a theology that cannot be explored by theologians, or even held as a private opinion, despite the Magisterium's most recent denunciations. Though theologians cannot teach chiliasm as the official doctrine of the Catholic Church, its ancient tenets offer multiple points for dialogue in relation to Jewish-Catholic dialogue and supersessionism.
