Monday, September 24th, 2012
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will address a meeting at the U.N. on the rule of law.

Wednesday, September 26th, 2012
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will speak to the United Nations general assembly.

President Ahmadinejad has made controversial and provocative remarks at the U.N. in past years. In the context of the current threats from the U.S. and Israel against Iran over its nuclear program, his remarks are like to be more provocative than in past turns. The violent protests in the Muslim world that began 9/11/2012 could be further inflamed by his remarks. I suggest that he might deliberately attempt to inflame further violence. There is also an outside chance that he might make some type of announcement about Iran’s nuclear program, such as ending IAEA inspections, or claiming that Iran has enough uranium for a bomb.

Thursday, October 11th, 2012
The start of the Year of Faith in the Catholic Church.

This date is significant in eschatology because I expect the great apostasy, in which most Catholics and very many priests and religious leave the Church, to occur during the Year of Faith. The Church will use this year to call Catholics to believe and practice what the Church teaches. But many of the weak in faith will respond by rejecting the Church altogether. The great apostasy is one of the events that Scripture predicts to occur during the tribulation. I believe that we will have a new Pope soon, and he will be the one to spur Catholics to believe what the Church teaches.

October 24th to 29th, 2012
In 2012, the Hajj is expected to occur about October 24-29.

An estimated 3 million persons are expected to travel to Mecca for the Hajj this year. Some years ago, in 1987, there were protests at the Hajj, which turned violent, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of persons. With the Hajj occurring just after the violent protests that began 9/11/2012, it is highly likely that violent protests will occur during this time. These could spread to the rest of the Muslim world, and to Muslims in Europe and other areas. I expect that these violent protests will be part of the process that leads to a unification of the Arab/Muslim nations of the Middle East and northern Africa. Once unified, those nations, led by a nuclear Iran, will undertake a war against the West, World War 3.

November, 2012
Iran is expected to have accumulated enough 20% uranium for one nuclear bomb, according to this ISIS report: PDF file, see Figure 4. I’m skeptical that the IAEA and ISIS estimates of Iranian uranium purification are accurate. I think that the Iranian government could easily figure out a way to cheat the IAEA inspections, purifying and storing more 20% uranium than they report. Also, it is conceivable that Iran may have a covert uranium purification facility, unknown to the IAEA and the West. So it is possible that Iran may have enough uranium for more than one nuke before the end of 2012.

by
Ronald L. Conte Jr.
Roman Catholic theologian and
translator of the Catholic Public Domain Version of the Bible.