Pope Pius XII in his Easter address to the
world, to the Church and to the World, in
1957, said: come Lord Jesus, there are numerous
signs that Your return is not far off.
John XXIII even said, he gave a speech where
he said, that he chose the name John because
he viewed his role similar to John the Baptist
in preparing for the coming of Jesus.
We also have Pope Paul VI saying something
very similar: it seems God's time is near,
there are signs, the signs of the end are
emerging in our era. Pope Paul VI was very
adamant about that.
And then we have Pope John Paul II. In his
very first encyclical he says we are living
in a new Advent, a period of preparation to
prepare us for the Second Coming.
And Pope Benedict XVI also he carried on that,
in that vein, in telling the Church: you
have to be converted, you know, the Church
cannot live in a triumphalist way, we have
to prepare, we have to go back, to be a, you
know, a poor Church, a Church that is Evangelical,
but that holds to the truth.
To me, the Holy Spirit has guided a whole
succession of Popes to proclaim in a prophetic
way that the coming of the Kingdom is not
far off.
So my real reason for writing Heralds of the
Second Coming is to offer to Catholics, but
anybody, Christians, non-Christians, to sort
of see that... perhaps have a more deeper
understanding of where we are in Salvation
History. And what I was very keen to do was
to not to try to put a personal slant on it
open to interpretation but to present the
Papal Magisterium, you know, those who were
chosen by the Holy Spirit, the successors
of Saint Peter, what have they told about
this, of what is happening.
So that rather than people being influenced
by private sort of interpretations, they actually
get the clear picture from the Popes. And
that is why I hope that people, reading it,
will be surprised, I'm sure, to sort of see
just how, you know, a deep sense, eschatological
sense that these Popes have, especially in
the past century.
