Do Catholics believe in the rapture?

No. The Catholic Church does not teach the "rapture" as understood in modern dispensationalist theology (a secret, pre-tribulation removal of believers). Catholics believe in the one, visible Second Coming of Christ, at which the dead will be raised and the living transformed to meet Him — not a separate, earlier event followed by a seven-year tribulation.

The word "rapture" as popularly used today comes from a nineteenth-century Protestant system called dispensationalism, developed by John Nelson Darby and later popularized in works like the Left Behind series. It teaches that believers will be secretly snatched away before a seven-year tribulation, followed later by Christ's visible return. This scheme has no basis in the constant teaching of the Church or the writings of the Fathers; it is a relatively recent theological development absent from the first eighteen centuries of Christian history.

Catholics do believe in a real event described in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, where St. Paul says the dead in Christ will rise and "we which are alive... shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air." But the Church reads this not as a separate secret rapture, but as poetic, apocalyptic language describing the one and only Second Coming (the Parousia), at which the general resurrection and the Last Judgment occur together (CCC 1001, CCC 1038-1041).

What the Church Actually Teaches

The Catechism teaches that Christ will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, an event that is public, visible, and glorious, not hidden (CCC 673-674, CCC 1040). No one knows the day or the hour, as Jesus Himself said: "But of that day and hour no one knoweth... but the Father alone" (Matthew 24:36). This single coming will be preceded by trials and a final testing of the Church's faith (CCC 675-677), but Scripture and Tradition do not support two distinct comings of Christ separated by years of tribulation with believers already removed from earth.

At the resurrection, the just will be raised in glorified bodies, reunited body and soul, to share fully in Christ's victory (CCC 997-1001; John 6:39-40). This is the true Christian hope: not an escape from history before difficulty comes, but perseverance in faith and love until Christ returns to make all things new (Revelation 21:1-4).

A Word of Charity

Many Protestant brothers and sisters who hold rapture theology do so out of a sincere love for Scripture and a longing for Christ's return. The Catholic Church shares that longing intensely, praying at every Mass "we await the blessed hope and the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ." The disagreement is not about whether Christ is coming again, but about how many stages that coming involves and whether it is secret or public, gradual or singular. Catholics hold firmly to the ancient, universal creed: he will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.