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Dear catholic.com visitors: This Catholic Answers website, with all its free resources, is the world’s largest source of explanations for Catholic beliefs and practices. We receive no funding from the institutional Church and rely entirely on your generosity to sustain this website with trustworthy, accessible content. If every visitor this month donated $1, catholic.com would be fully funded for an entire year. If you’ve never made a gift, now is the time. Your donation will be matched dollar for dollar this week only. Thanks and God bless.
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Do Catholics believe in the Rapture?

Question:

Do Catholics believe in the Rapture?

Answer:

The word Rapture is connected to the Latin word rapiemur, which appears in Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians in the Latin Vulgate translation of the Bible. It means to be raised up or caught up:

The dead in Christ will rise first; then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord. (1 Thess. 4:16–17)

Therefore, Catholics believe that those Christians who are still living at the Second Coming of Christ will be gathered together with those who have died in Christ to be forever with the Lord. Catholics do not generally use the term Rapture, nor do they believe in a Rapture that will take place some time before the Second Coming, as do many Evangelicals.

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