Secret Vatican Document on the Last Things *Revealed*!

I have some rather exciting news. The short version is: I have received a previously-confidential document of the Holy See that sheds important light on the Last Things (what theologians call “eschatology”), and I will be publishing the full text of it in English soon.

Now let me give you a somewhat longer version.

One of the things I try to do whenever I can is study documents issued by the Holy See that have not come to the attention of the public. There are often fascinating things to be found within them. Lately I’ve been reading documents by the International Theological Commission, which is an advisory body working for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

While their document’s aren’t official Church teaching, they must receive the approval of the head of the CDF, which according to the statutes laid down by John Paul II, means that the Holy See does not have any problem with them. At a minimum, therefore, the approved documents of the ITC represent legitimate Catholic opinion, and they go into some fascinating areas.

Over the last few years I have been able to publish some obscure Vatican documents in English translation. One of these was the 1970s document that was privately circulated to the world’s bishops concerning how they were to evaluate reports of apparitions in their dioceses.

Just in my work for the Register I have published and commented on multiple little-known documents connected with the sexual abuse scandal, some of them not originally published in English.

In fact, I’ve tried to make the publication and analysis of official Church documents one of the signatures of my efforts.

I’m therefore pleased to announce that I’ve obtained a new document that, up to now, has been privately circulated to the world’s bishops and that will be appearing in English for the first time.

The document is too long to present in a blog post (even a post of the prodigious length I tend to go to when analyzing Church documents). The publication of the full text will have to wait, but I wanted to preview it now so that people will have an idea of what’s coming.

The document was provided to me by Cardinal Archibald (“Archie”) Vescovo, one of the little-known American cardinals who works in the Roman curia rather than heading an archdiocese here in the United States. Cardinal Vescovo was appointed a cardinal by John Paul II in 2003, making him one of the last cardinals the former holy father appointed. What is more noteworthy is that he was appointed in pectore (Latin, “in the breast,” “in the heart”). This is a practice that popes from the last several centuries have used to name cardinals but keep their identities secret, at least for a time.

Often their identities are eventually announced, but sometimes they are not. The reason for the “in pectore” naming is usually that the cardinal or those under his care could face persecution (e.g., in Soviet Russia or Communist China or post-Revolutionary France), if his identity were revealed. In this case there is another reason: the sensitivity of Cardinal Vescovo’s job.

He heads a Vatican dicastery (department) that dates back several centuries. It has operated under various names, just like the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), which used to be called “the Holy Office” and before that began as “the Roman Inquisition.” Unlike the CDF, however, it has kept a low profile, chiefly to avoid disturbing the faithful unnecessarily (which is why its head has typically been a cardinal appointed “in pectore”).

In a way, it is a sort of mirror image to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Whereas the latter deals with threats to the faith and thus of a purely spiritual nature, the CEPM deals with threats of a more directly tangible nature.

These threats have been multiplying in recent years, which is why the current holy father has allowed Cardinal Vescovo and his dicastery to “go public,” letting their existence be more broadly known. Knowledge of them is growing slowly, but with the release of the new document in English you may soon see them discussed on FOX or CNN or in the major newspapers.

The document itself has existed, in various versions, for several centuries. As the Church has learned more about the phenomenon it deals with, it has been revised and expanded. A major revision was undertaken in the 1970s to bring it into accord both with new findings and with the reforms initiated by the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965).

Another major revision was undertaken starting in 2004, after Cardinal Vescovo became head of the congregation, and this was completed in 2010 and approved by the present holy father.

Yes, I know. It takes the Vatican years to make revisions of any sort. Go figure. That’s just the way it is. They like to do things slow and careful over there, which is one reason it took so long for the reforms following the sexual abuse crisis to be formulated and implemented. The fact that patience is a virtue is more appreciated in Rome than here in America–and it’s a virtue that Americans often perceive Rome as carrying to a fault.

John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter has often compared America’s swiftly-moving “fast food” culture to Rome’s slow-going “crockpot” culture. Both systems have their advantages and disadvantages, but they’re what we’re stuck with.

In any event, the newly public document deals with the field that theologians refer to as eschatology, which is the study of the “last things.” This field has two principal divisions, which are sometimes called personal eschatology (i.e., death, judgment, hell, heaven and related topics) and general eschatology (i.e., the last days, how the world will end).

Both divisions of the subject of eschatology has been important to Christians ever since the first century.

What happens to us as individual after death (personal eschatology) was something the ancient Jewish people speculated upon, as recorded in various passages of the Old Testament or the Hebrew Scriptures (e.g., Daniel 12 and 2 Maccabees 14, both which have clear mentions of the Resurrection of the dead).

The subject came into clearer focus in the early Christian community and in the writings of the New Testament. Indeed, some in the ancient Greco-Roman world viewed the early Christian community as a funerary society that was chiefly concerned with the fate of the soul after death–how one could achieve salvation and avoid damnation.

General eschatology or the issue of the last days of the world (also touched upon in some Old Testament texts) came into clear focus in the New Testament, both in the preaching of Jesus and in works such as the book of Revelation (“the Apocalypse”).

Over the course of time many Catholic thinkers and Bible scholars have written extensively on both kinds of eschatology, and the magisterium of the Church has touched upon them as well.

It has said more about personal eschatology than general, both because the subject of what will happen to us as individuals is more directly relevant and more practical (since only one generation will be the last, compared to all previous generations of Christians) and because the data concerning the last days is less clear in Scripture and Tradition, resulting in the magisterium being more cautious on that subject.

Among the more noteworthy recent documents on the subject were a statement in the 1940s from the Holy Office (now the CDF) that said “chiliasm” or “millenarianism” could not be safely taught (meaning that the premillennial ideas common in Evangelical Protestantism are considered unsafe).

More recently, in 1979 the CDF itself published a Letter on Certain Questions Regarding Eschatology, which covered some of the basic teachings of the Church on the subject, especially as opposed to unusual and potentially faith-denying ideas that were in circulation following Vatican II.

In 1992 the International Theological Commission published a document titled Some Current Questions in Eschatology, which bizarrely is not on the Vatican’s web site yet (c’mon, guys!). It is, however, available in volume 2 of the ITC’s documents published by Ignatius Press (You can get it here! It’s a fascinating read!).

By the time this document was released, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict) was head of the CDF and, by law, the president of the ITC. It’s not surprising, then, that the work shows traces of the thoughts on eschatology he wrote about when he was a theology professor in 1977. In that year he wrote a whole book on eschatology that was eventually published in English as Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life (Wow! I just discovered as I was typing this post that it’s back in print! Cool! I’d thought I’d have to link you to a used book service. This is a fascinating–if highly technical–presentation of Pope Benedict’s personal thought concerning eschatology.)

Traces of the early Ratzinger’s thought also appear in Pope Benedict’s 2007 encyclical Spe Salvi which as an encyclical is the highest-level recent document largely devoted to eschatology.

Like these recent documents, the newly announced one principally concerns personal eschatology (the afterlife) rather than general eschatology (the end of the world), but it explores some fascinating aspects of this that have not been treated in any recent public document.

One of the chief things it does–early on–is to distinguish between the classical Christian view of the afterlife and certain other alternatives. For Christians, the paradigm is set by the Resurrection of Our Lord, Jesus Christ. Just as he died and then rose from the dead in glorious form, so shall we.

In his first letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul so links our fate to that of Christ as to say, “if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith ” (1 Corinthians 15:12-14).

While the full, glorious resurrection of the dead is the ultimate fate that awaits all of the saved, it is not the only thing that can happen after death. At least on some occasions, other things can take place.

Thus the Bible also records occasional instances in which individuals have been resuscitated to an earthly, non-glorified state of existence. This occurs in the Old Testament in the case of the widow’s son that Elijah raised (1 Kings 17-18), and in the New Testament regarding the daughter of Jairus (Matthew 8, Mark 5, Luke 8), the widow of Nain (Luke 7), the raising of Lazarus (John 11), and the raising of Eutychus which was done by Paul after the former fell out of a window because he fell asleep during Paul’s long-winded preaching (Acts 20; love that story!). (The status of the “saints” who were raised at the death of Jesus–per Matthew 27:52-53–is less clear; they could have been raised either to a glorified or a normal state of existence.)

So Scripture testifies that there are at least two ways in which the deceased are brought back: either in an enhanced, glorified state or at least returned to a normal state of biological functioning (from which they later presumably passed on, naturally, for a second time).

However, at various points in Church history there have been reported cases in which the deceased returned in what may be seen as a sub-normal state.

This was alleged to be the case, for example, in the Middle Ages, when accounts of so-called “Revenants” appeared.

For example, in the 1100s, the English author William of Newburgh wrote in his Historia Rerum Anglicanorum (Latin, “History of English Affairs”) wrote:

It would not be easy to believe that the corpses of the dead should sally (I know not by what agency) from their graves, and should wander about to the terror or destruction of the living, and again return to the tomb, which of its own accord spontaneously opened to receive them, did not frequent examples, occurring in our own times, suffice to establish this fact, to the truth of which there is abundant testimony. . . .

[W]ere I to write down all the instances of this kind which I have ascertained to have befallen in our times, the undertaking would be beyond measure laborious and troublesome; so I will fain add two more only (and these of recent occurrence) to those I have already narrated, and insert them in our history, as occasion offers, as a warning to posterity.

A few years ago the chaplain of a certain illustrious lady, casting off mortality, was consigned to the tomb in that noble monastery which is called Melrose. This man, having little respect for the sacred order to which he belonged, was excessively secular in his pursuits, and — what especially blackens his reputation as a minister of the holy sacrament — so addicted to the vanity of the chase as to be designated by many by the infamous title of “Hundeprest,” or the dog-priest; and this occupation, during his lifetime, was either laughed at by men, or considered in a worldly view; but after his death — as the event showed — the guiltiness of it was brought to light: for, issuing from the grave at night-time, he was prevented by the meritorious resistance of its holy inmates from injuring or terrifying any one with in the monastery itself; whereupon he wandered beyond the walls, and hovered chiefly, with loud groans and horrible murmurs, round the bedchamber of his former mistress.

She, after this had frequently occurred, becoming exceedingly terrified, revealed her fears or danger to one of the friars who visited her about the business of the monastery; demanding with tears that prayers more earnest than usual should be poured out to the Lord in her behalf as for one in agony. With whose anxiety the friar — for she appeared deserving of the best endeavors, on the part of the holy convent of that place, by her frequent donations to it — piously and justly sympathized, and promised a speedy remedy through the mercy of the Most High Provider for all [SOURCE].

William of Newburg records several incidents from his own day of the same sort, and other authors of the period do as well. See the article on Revenants linked above for more examples.

In view of such distressing situations–in which an apparently damned person was temporarily raised to life in a sub-normal state of existence (neither the glorified state of Christ’s resurrection nor the normal state of existence that figures such as Lazarus was raised to)–ecclesiastical authorities were invariably consulted about what to do.

Local bishops recommended various remedies for dealing with these situations, and some were found effective.

The continued occurrence of these down through history led to the creation of the dicastery that Cardinal Archie Vescovo heads, the Congregation for the Extirpation of Paranormal Menaces (CEPM), but due to the sensitivity of the nature and the desire not to alarm the public, this has largely been kept on what we would today call a “need to know” basis, as opposed to the more public work of the Church’s exorcists.

Over time the Church has learned more about the phenomenon, as has society at large. As knowledge of it has grown, so has the previously-confidential document dealing with it.

Language has also changed. In the Middle Ages, such returns from the grave were known as “Revenants,” a word borrowed from French, which it was itself borrowed from the Latin word revenans (“returning”).

Today another term is more commonly used: zombie. This is taken from the Hatian Creole word zonbi (this spelling is exact; it’s an “n,” not an “m”), which as roots in west African languages.

The CEPM’s document has been fully updated to what is known about the phenomenon as of 2010, and it covers a wide range of issues, such as the different types and causes of zombiism, basic information about defense against zombies, how to prevent and (in some cases) cure the disorder, and historical information about the phenomenon (including the example cited above as well as others).

One of the most important sections deals with moral and pastoral theology concerning zombiism. On the moral front, questions are dealt with such as, “When is it morally licit and illicit to kill zombies?” “Do you have a responsibility to try to cure them?” “Can they be used as a source of labor?” “When can zombies be given the sacraments?” and “Can you kill a person–or yourself–who is in the process of turning into a zombie?”

On the pastoral front a number of questions are dealt with concerning the counseling and pastoral care of those who are the survivors of zombie attacks, those who have lost loved ones to the disease of zombiism, a discussion of zombiism as a subcase of the greater “problem of evil,” and how to counsel those in the special situation in which the zombie attacker was a priest who preyed upon the innocent and whether the Church has taken measures that are tough enough against zombie priests (always a sensitive subject for the Church).

Though the document is primarily oriented toward the pastoral work of a priest, it also includes a discussion of lay efforts against zombies, in accord with the greater role for the laity envisioned by the Second Vatican Council.

This was part of why it was decided that the document should be publicly released, for the laity will inevitably have a large role to play in the coming “zombie apocalypse,” which is now widely recognized (e.g., see here) as an inevitability given the mutation of disease organisms and the interconnectedness of the globe, allowing pathogens to spread rapidly–e.g., by being carried by modern air travelers.

The document is quick to point out, whoever, that the so-called “zombie apocalypse” is not necessarily the same as the actual apocalypse described in the Bible (the document urges pastoral counselors to inform those who ask during the zombie apocalypse that the event does not necessarily represent the end of the world, though it might, and one should always be prepared for the imminent coming of the Lord, for we do not know either when the world or our own lives will end–possibly by being bitten by a zombie).

In closing, I’d like to once again thank Cardinal Archie Vescovo for making this document available to the public for the first time, and I look forward to being able to bringing it to print in the English language, where it can do an enormous amount of good, especially given the prominence of English as an international language.

The official name (in Latin) of the congregation’s document is the Enchiridion Zomborum. The word Enchiridion is of Greek origin and means “Handbook” (as in the Church’s official book of indulgences, the Enchiridion Indulgentiarum or “Handbook of Indulgences”). Zomborum literally means “of Zombies” (taking Zombus or “Zombie” as a standard masculine singular 2nd declension noun).

While “The Handbook of Zombies” is a perfectly literal title, my thought is that for promotional purposes it should be published under a more commercial title, such as, “The Secret Vatican Zombie Hunter’s Guide.”

This is quite an unusual document, and I can imagine many having a startled reaction to its announcement. However, regarding me releasing this document in English, I am not kidding.

What do you think?