What is the Catholic Churches opinion on Nostradamus and his predictions?

-- (dkidw95@msn.com), August 05, 1999

Answers

That is an excellent question as I have never given any thought myself. Will be interesting to see the responces. +Peace+

-- jean bouchardRC (jenab@cwk.imag.net), August 05, 1999.

I could be wrong -- please correct me if I am, but I believe that the Church does not recognize Nostradamus' predictions as inspired or even correct.

IMHO, it will make no difference if Nostradamus' beautifully structured, yet enigmatically puzzling quatrains come about. Every reader of Nostradamus has a different opinion of what his prophecies mean. If we surrender our lives to the hands of God, loving Him first, then our neighbors, and finally ourselves, we will have no need of prophecies. Knowing neither the time nor the place of the coming of the Lord, we must be thus prepared for anything that comes.

-Paul

-- Paul T. O'Brien (paulobrien@i.am), August 08, 1999.

I don't think the Church has ever formally taken a stance on them. However, see the following, from Catechis m of the Catholic Church:

Divination and magic

2115 God can reveal the future to his prophets or to other saints. Still, a sound Christian attitude consists in putting oneself confidently into the hands of Providence for whatever concerns the future, and giving up all unhealthy curiosity about it. Improvidence, however, can constitute a lack of responsibility.

2116 All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to "unveil" the future.[48] Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone.

2117 All practices of magic or sorcery, by which one attempts to tame occcult powers, so as to place them at one's service and have a supernatural power over others - even if this were for the sake of restoring their health - are gravely contrary to the virtue of religion. These practices are even more to be condemned when accompanied by the intention of harming someone, or when they have recourse to the intervention of demons. Wearing charms is also reprehensible. Spiritism often implies divination or magical practices; the Church for her part warns the faithful against it. Recourse to so-called traditional cures does not justify either the invocation of evil powers or the exploitation of another's credulity.

-- Lane Core Jr. (elcore@sgi.net), August 08, 1999.

Lane - Very good referance to divination. Was it in St. Paul's writing Corinthians he spoke of this when having been confronted by a woman who divinated?+Peace+

-- jean bouchardRC, (jenab@cwk.imag.net), August 08, 1999.