Imagine a first century Christian seeing in a vision a flying creature. That creature spew flames of fire from its mouth. It’s head was like a man but had teeth like a shark.

Knowing who Jesus was, I can only imagine what the Apostle John might have thought if he saw a “bishop dressed in white” bring a pachamama idol onto the very altar where God is reminded of His promise in the sacrifice of His Only Begotten Son.

After the supposed highest ranking official in the Catholic Church performs this worship ceremony of an idol, a virus is unleashed on the public and this “bishop in white” coming as an image of Christ halts the very Sacrifice of the Mass which takes “away the continual burnt offering” the Catholic Church celebrates.

A very well known bishop in the Catholic Church was Bishop Fulton Sheen. Speaking on the Devil, the Antichrist and the antichurch he said the Antichrist will come disguised as a Great Humanitarian and that he obviously would not be called an Antichrist lest he have no followers at all. No, Our Lord tells us that he will be so much like Himself that he would deceive even the elect. Surely one posing as a vicar of Christ might deceive even the elect.

The new era into which we are entering is what might be called the religious phase of human history. From now on the struggle will be not for the colonies and national rights, but for the souls of men. There will be no more half-drawn swords, no divided loyalties, no broad strokes of sophomoric tolerances; there will not even be any more great heresies, for heresies are based on a partial acceptance of truth. The battle lines are already being clearly drawn and the basic issues are no longer in doubt. From now on men will divide themselves into two religions-understood again as surrender to an absolute. The conflict of the future is between the absolute who is the God-man, and the absolute which is man-God; the God who became man, and the man who makes himself God; brothers in Christ and comrades in Antichrist.

The Antichrist will no be so called; otherwise he would have no followers. He will not wear red tights, no vomit Sulphur, nor carry a trident nor wave an arrowed tail as Mephistopheles in Faust. This masquerade has helped the Devil convince men that he does not exist. When no man recognizes, the more power he exercises. God has defined Himself as “I am who am,” and the Devil as “I am who am not.”

Nowhere in Sacred Scripture do we find warrant for the popular myth of the Devil as a buffoon who is dressed like the first “red.” Rather is he described as an angel fallen from heaven, and as “the Prince of this world,” whose business it is to tell us that there is no other world. his logic is simple: if there is no heaven there is no hell; if there is no hell, then there is no sin; if there is no sin, then there is no judge, and if there is no judgement then evil is good and good is evil. But above all these descriptions, Our Lord tells us that he will be so much like Himself that he would deceive even the elect-and certainly no devil ever seen in picture books could deceive even the elect. How will he come in this new age to win followers to his religion?

The pre-Communist Russian belief is that he will come disguised as the Great Humanitarian; he will talk peace, prosperity and plenty not as means to lead us to God, but as ends in themselves. He will write books on the new idea of God, to suit the way the people live; induce faith in astrology so as to make not the will but the stars responsible for sins; he will explain guilt away psychologically as inhibited eroticism, make men shrink in fame if their fellow men say they are not broad-minded and liberal; he will be so broad-minded as to identify tolerance with indifference to right and wrong, truth and error; he will spread the lie that men will never be better until they make society better and thus have selfishness to provide fuel for the next revolution; he will foster science. but only to have armament makers use one marvel of science to destroy another; he will foster more divorces under the disguise that another partner is “vital”; he will increase love for love and decrease love for person; he will invoke religion to destroy religion; he will speak of Christ and say that He was the greatest man who ever lived; his mission, he will say, will be to liberate men from the servitudes of superstition and Fascism, which he will never definer; he will organize children’s games, tell people whom they should and should not marry and unmarry, who should bear children and who should not; he will benevolently draw chocolate bars from his pockets for the little ones, and bottled of milk for the Hottentots.

Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, Communism and the Conscience of the West (1948), page 18-21

Most certainly the conditions of modern day are ripe for an Antichrist to appear.

He will tempt Christian with the same three temptations with which he tempted Christ. The temptation to turn stones into bread as an earthly Messiah will become the temptation to sell freedom for security, making bread a political weapon which only those who think his way may eat. He wants mass organization through propaganda where only a common man directs the idiosyncrasies of common men. Opinions not truth, commentators not teachers, Gallup polls not principles, nature not grace-to these golden calves will men toss themselves from their Christ. The third temptation in which Satan asked Christ to adore him and all the kingdoms would be His, will become the temptation to have a new religion without a Cross, a liturgy without a world to come, a religion to destroy a religion, or a politics which is a religion-one that renders unto Ceasar even the things that are God’s.

Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, Communism and the Conscience of the West (1948), page 20-21

Another characteristic of this man that Our Lord said would imitate Him in appearance is that he has a great secret, “he will not believe in God” ¹

Because his religion will be brotherhood without the fatherhood of God, he will deceive even the elect. He will set up a counter church which will be the ape of the Church because he, the Devil, is the ape of God. It will have all the notes and characteristics of the Church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content. It will be the mystical body of the Antichrist that will in all externals resemble the mystical body of Christ.

Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, Communism and the Conscience of the West (1948), page 21

Knowing that an Antichrist with these characteristics is coming, all Christians should be on watch for any cleric who promotes fraternity over Eucharistic Adoration, who supports brotherhood over veneration to Our Lady, who supports welcoming the faith of others over instilling the belief of the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, and the sacred liturgy of the eternal mass over a watered down Catholicism where the sign of peace to your brother is more important than bending a knee to the Agnus Dei.

References

1. Communism and the Conscience of the West (1948)
   Sheen, Fulton J.