Beware Prophets of Doom!

In last Sunday's homily (Gaudete! - Rejoice! Sunday, the third Sunday in Advent), the priest took the opportunity to dismiss the "prophets of doom." Rejecting "prophets of doom," for those unfamiliar with the term, is originally a Pope John XXIII thing (albeit in a questionable translation), and has since become a key "spirit of Vatican II" thing (i.e., a favourite slogan of those who want to promote a "progressive" remake of the Catholic Church). According to Pope John:

"At times we have to listen, much to our regret, to the voices of people who, though burning with zeal, lack a sense of discretion and measure [prudentique iudicio (and prudent judgment)]. In this modern age they can see nothing but prevarication and ruin … We feel that we must disagree with those prophets of doom [his rerum adversarum vaticinatoribus (these prophets of adversity, opposition, hostility)] who are always forecasting disaster [deteriora (deterioration)], as though the end of the world were at hand. In our times, [in which] divine Providence is [seems to be] leading us to a new order of human relations which, by human effort and even beyond all expectations, are directed to the fulfilment of God’s superior and inscrutable designs, in which everything, even human setbacks, leads to the greater good of the Church." (Opening Address To the Council)

Sure, okay. But the problem with this claim is that (a) it looks like decidedly false optimism (especially the last bit -- which is, however, a bad translation of John XXIII's words, whether in the Latin or the Italian version); and that (b) who exactly those are who "lack a sense of discretion and measure" is open to highly divergent and conflicting interpretations, so that the claim in itself about "prophets of doom," especially taken out of context (as it almost always is), becomes more or less empty verbiage, just waiting to be abused precisely by those who "lack a sense of discretion and measure" (i.e., most people, perhaps including on occasion John XXIII himself -- for further examples just read the whole address at the link above, though again with the caveat: it's a bad translation).

The priest on Sunday, in any case, insisted that the Second Coming of Christ is a time of joy, not a time of Armageddon as the "prophets of doom" would have it. In other words -- he implied -- we should pay no heed to Holy Scripture (that's where the Armageddon stuff comes from, John's Apocalypse, the Book of Revelation). Indeed, we should pay no heed to Christ! For in the Christian faith it is Christ himself who is the foremost among the prophets and who is unquestionably himself a "prophet of doom." (See Matthew 24 & 25, for example, noting that "doom" is an old English word for "judgment" -- i.e., precisely what Christ promises will take place at the Second Coming.) And so it goes! Such "in our times" is "the new order" (although frankly it's gotten a little stale by now).