I covered that passage in detail in
Future History, chapter 18: "No More Mr. Nice Guy."
http://www.futuretruth.n...ore_Mr_Nice_Guy.Prophecy . The last section in the chapter.
You'd have to work really hard to apply the symbols to anything in Roman Catholicism. They
just don't fit. The woman is Israel; the sun is Yahshua and the garment of light His sacrifice provides---imputed righteousness. The twelve stars are Israel's twelve tribes. The Child to whom the woman gave birth (and who was destined to rule the nations with a rod of iron) is Yahshua. (Yes, Mary gave birth to His physical body, but as Yada points out somewhere in YY, the Messiah's first-century advent was actually the
sixth of His seven scheduled human appearances---Mary was
in no sense "the mother of God.")
The fiery red dragon, of course, is Satan (see v9), and the stars he drew with his tail are apparently the angelic hosts of heaven, now demons, who bought into his lie. The woman cannot be Mary, for Satan
never persecuted her (or the RCC) or drove her into the wilderness. That has happened several times to Israel however, though the definitive occurrence will take place during the second half of the Tribulation (the time of
Jacob's trouble), after the Abomination of Desolation. Yahshua
told Israel precisely what to do when they see the A of D---see Matthew 24:15-16.
Oh, and if "the woman"
was Mary, how is it that v17 flatly states that the dragon went to make war with the "rest of her offspring"? Catholics insist that Mary remained a virgin after "Jesus" was born. The RCC can't have it both ways. No, these offspring are the neo-ekklesia, those gentiles who have come to faith in the "Jewish Messiah" after the rapture---the Church of Repentant Laodicea, if you will.
kp