The John-Henry Westen Show - The Antichrist and Catholic Teaching： What YOU Need To Know

00:00:00.000 At some point, Antichrist will declare that he is himself God and will be worshipped as such

00:00:06.060 in the temple. Let's see what St. Paul says in the Bible,

00:00:10.940 talking about the Antichrist coming before the second coming of Christ.

00:00:21.440 Hey my friends, did you see the show I did recently where I touched on the Catholic

00:00:25.620 conception of the Antichrist and how it relates to the rebuilding of the Jerusalem temple

00:00:30.920 and the special cow called a red heifer? Well, in this show, we're going to start a deep,

00:00:37.560 deep dive into how all these matters are linked and why. Who or what is Antichrist? Wasn't that

00:00:45.400 Hitler or Stalin or is it AI or something yet to come? This show is part of a series based on the

00:00:54.160 research and writing of Dr. Micah Hickson and Paul Cahill, which you will find exclusively at

00:00:59.980 lifesitenews.com. Stick around. You're not going to want to miss this one.

00:01:05.680 We are about to come upon May 9th in very short order. You got to get yourself out to Ottawa to

00:01:11.600 the National March for Life, which is taking place on May the 9th. Make sure you're there.

00:01:16.600 Aren't you sick of Trudeau, the most abortion pushing prime minister we've ever had? It's time.

00:01:22.740 It's time to show the politicians in Ottawa. We're not going to take it anymore. We're there to show

00:01:27.200 that we are for life. And these are not the Canadian values. He always says they are. No,

00:01:31.860 the Canadian values are to stand for life from sea to shining sea. This is still a Christian nation.

00:01:37.060 Let's show them that. We'll see you at the March for Life on May 9th. God bless you.

00:01:41.980 Let's begin as we always do with the sign of the cross. In the name of the Father and of the Son

00:01:47.420 and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. The Antichrist. What a sensationalist topic. Over the years,

00:01:56.220 in fact, over the centuries, so much ink has been spilled writing about Antichrist. Movies have been

00:02:01.960 made about him, some of which have been really terrifying. Rivals have claimed that their rivals

00:02:07.460 have been the Antichrist. For instance, during the Protestant Reformation, many of the most important

00:02:12.840 names tried to claim that the papacy itself was the Antichrist prophesied in Holy Scripture.

00:02:19.640 But today, we're going to look at some exclusive theological research LifeSite News has published,

00:02:25.660 cut through the media sensationalism, and see what we can know for sure about this terrifying figure

00:02:32.380 of evil. First things first, while there have been many foreshadowings in both historical figures

00:02:39.700 and systems, the Antichrist will be a single man, a single human person. He'll be a mere man,

00:02:47.580 that is, he won't be Satan incarnate like our Lord was God incarnate. But nonetheless, he will have

00:02:53.140 amazing charism and powers of seduction and deception such that he will draw almost the whole world to

00:03:00.160 himself. Many authors say, based on Scripture, that he will start his career in a lowly and obscure way,

00:03:06.740 but because of his personal powers and diabolical assistance, he will rocket to a position of great

00:03:13.460 power and influence, even unto worldwide rule. In the Apocalypse, or Revelations, the last book of the

00:03:20.260 Bible, St. John writes concerning Antichrist, and I quote,

00:03:24.440 power was given him over every tribe and people and tongue and nation, end quote. He will also perform

00:03:32.820 amazing feats which many will take to be miracles. Over time, the Antichrist will declare that he is

00:03:39.540 the true Christ or Messiah, and according to the fathers and doctors of the Church, he will sadly

00:03:45.020 deceive the Jewish people into believing this claim and accepting him as their long-awaited Messiah.

00:03:52.280 Many of the fathers teach this sad fact, such as St. Jerome, St. Gregory the Great, St. Ambrose,

00:03:59.000 and others, based on the words of our Lord himself in the Scriptures. Jesus said,

00:04:04.460 I am come in the name of my Father, and you receive me not. If another shall come in his own name,

00:04:11.580 him you will receive. And that's from the Gospel of John, chapter 5, verse 42.

00:04:17.220 This is also the view held by mystics such as Bartholomew Holtshauser and Mary of Agreda,

00:04:23.400 who wrote the great works The City of God. This mystic, Mary of Agreda, is said to have talked

00:04:28.100 about a difficult period for the Jewish people, she saw the future, of course, who will in the end

00:04:34.060 approach the Antichrist for help, and presumably at that time the Antichrist will be seen simply as a

00:04:40.060 great statesman or some kind of leading politician or whatever. But Mary of Agreda writes this, and I

00:04:45.620 quote, he will now declare himself ready to fulfill their wishes, talking to the Jewish people's wishes,

00:04:50.340 while at the same time he will arouse the neighboring nations to revolution.

00:04:56.800 The Jews will finally bring him a costly crown and a kingly garment, as well as a scepter, and declare him

00:05:05.000 as their freely elected king. End quote. But as I've said, this isn't just based on the words of one or two

00:05:12.860 mystics. It's what the fathers and doctors and the great theologians of the church thought was going to

00:05:20.640 happen. So we're on safe ground thinking that the Jewish people will be deceived into accepting the

00:05:27.560 Antichrist as their Moshiach. Moshiach, that's the Hebrew word for Messiah, and it's a handy way to mark

00:05:34.560 when we're talking about the idea of the earthly Messiah and thinking about these matters from their

00:05:40.320 perspective. The Antichrist will probably himself be of Jewish origin. Some say that he will be of the

00:05:46.860 tribe of Dan, but others disagree, and it's an open question. However, once he's acclaimed, he will

00:05:54.100 quickly use his worldwide power to persecute the church of our Lord Jesus Christ and wage war on God.

00:06:01.300 Most authors think that he will begin with a deceptive show of kindness and greatness, but even then he will

00:06:08.440 be persecuting the church and denying the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ and moving towards setting

00:06:14.580 himself in the place of Jesus Christ. At some point, Antichrist will declare that he is himself God and

00:06:22.280 will be worshipped as such in the temple. Let's see what St. Paul says in the Bible, talking about the

00:06:29.880 Antichrist coming before the second coming of Christ. You'll read this in 2 Thessalonians 2 verses 3 and 4,

00:06:37.200 and I quote,

00:06:37.900 Let no man deceive you by any means, for unless there come a revolt first, and the man of sin, that's the

00:06:44.580 Antichrist, man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and is lifted up above all that is

00:06:51.040 called God or that is worshipped, so that he sits in the temple of God, showing himself as if he were God.

00:07:00.180 So there it is, the temple. So as I mentioned before, there isn't a consensus on where this

00:07:06.120 temple will be. Some authorities say that the temple in which the Antichrist will sit will be

00:07:11.480 either the church or perhaps a church, a significant one, maybe like St. Peter's Basilica in Rome or

00:07:17.680 elsewhere. Some think that he will reign from Rome itself, although it seems more common to think

00:07:22.540 that Rome will be the seat of something called the false prophet during a vacancy in the Holy See.

00:07:27.900 And that's what some 20th century theologians said before Vatican II. Others, in fact most, it seems,

00:07:36.020 say that the temple refers to a literal temple in Jerusalem, which Antichrist will rebuild after it

00:07:43.720 was destroyed in 70 AD by the Romans. Before we go on, I want to do just a really quick detour on that

00:07:50.620 because there's a really amazing story. In the fourth century, Julian the Apostate was an emperor

00:07:56.580 of Rome. He actually knew two saints, Gregory of Nanciansus and Basil the Great. When he became

00:08:04.200 emperor, he unveiled his true views and tried to take Rome back to paganism. He struck up an odd

00:08:11.100 alliance with some Jewish groups and tried to rebuild the Jerusalem temple as a means of disproving

00:08:17.900 Christ's prophecy that the temple would be destroyed. And that did not go very well.

00:08:23.000 A Roman historian, who was himself a soldier under Julian, tells us the following, and I quote,

00:08:28.280 The undertaking was frustrated in a miraculous manner. The place was made inaccessible by fearful

00:08:35.020 balls of fire that broke out near the foundations and so scorched and burned the workmen that they were

00:08:41.640 forced to retire. The frequent attacks finally caused the work to be abandoned, end quote.

00:08:47.900 The miraculous events which prevented Julian's rebuilding of the temple have been understood

00:08:53.320 as vindicating Christ's prophecy. Some take it as an indication that the temple will never be rebuilt.

00:09:01.080 Others, however, say that it is possible that the rebuilding of the temple was simply not to happen

00:09:05.900 at that time. Rebuilding this temple in Jerusalem is held to be a key means by which the Antichrist will

00:09:12.680 deceive the Jewish people into accepting him as Moshiach. That's the opinion of some very big names,

00:09:19.220 Saints Arrhenius, Saint Hippolytus, Saint Cyr of Jerusalem, Saint Damascene, and others.

00:09:25.800 It's a pretty reasonable thing to think. From the Jewish perspective, rebuilding the temple and

00:09:31.300 re-establishing the sacrifice is one of their central conditions for recognizing that their earthly

00:09:36.840 Moshiach has come. In fact, it's the definitive confirmation that he has come according to the

00:09:43.460 enormously influential 12th century Jewish sage, Maimonides. He writes about a possible Moshiach this

00:09:51.060 way. He says, and I quote,

00:09:52.040 If he succeeds in the above, builds the temple in its place, and gathers the dispersed of Israel,

00:09:58.720 he is definitely the Moshiach, end quote. Not all the fathers and doctors of the church agree that

00:10:07.040 the Antichrist actually needs to succeed in doing this, that is, rebuilding the temple. You can see

00:10:12.600 that, for example, in Saint Robert Bellarmine, the doctor of the church who says that of the Antichrist

00:10:17.060 that he will attempt to restore the temple and that he would not be accepted by the Jews if he did not,

00:10:23.220 quote, in some way, restore the temple, end quote. So there is a reason that the temple was

00:10:28.120 destroyed in 70 AD and why Christ went out of his way to prophesy this event. We're used to a world

00:10:35.380 in which the Jewish religion exists without the temple, but at the time of Christ, it was

00:10:40.700 completely central to the Jewish religion. When it was destroyed, all of the different temple

00:10:47.420 mitzvot, it's called, that means the commandments or good deeds, became impossible because they were

00:10:53.540 predicated on having a temple and temple sacrifice. This was such a radical change, the ending of the

00:10:59.880 temple sacrifice, that even Jewish authors say that this destruction led to the birth of a new religion

00:11:06.460 focused on the law and learning rather than the temple and sacrifice. And that religion is commonly

00:11:13.160 called rabbinic Judaism. These aren't my words, by the way. They're the words of Alieza Salzberg and

00:11:20.680 myjewishlearning.com, and many history books will tell you the same thing. The destruction of the temple

00:11:26.460 in 70 AD marked the conclusion of what had started with the tearing of the veil in the temple at Christ's

00:11:34.060 death. That tearing of the temple veil was divine proof that the promises of the old covenant had been

00:11:40.340 fulfilled. It was the time for what God promised to Jeremiah, a new covenant. St. Thomas Aquinas says

00:11:49.460 that when Christ died, the rites of the old law also died, in that they could still be observed,

00:11:56.380 but they were no longer effective or obligatory. But at a certain point, once the gospel had been spread

00:12:03.960 sufficiently, these rites became deadly too, in that they couldn't be observed without mortal sin.

00:12:10.340 This is because what these rites pointed to, Christ and redemption, had actually already come.

00:12:17.660 Their continued observation was basically a denial that everything had been fulfilled by Christ.

00:12:24.440 That's why, by the way, some warn that the Christian Seder meals at Passover are problematic.

00:12:31.460 And I know that everyone who does this has good intentions, but it would probably have horrified

00:12:36.320 St. Thomas Aquinas and other great lights of the church. It's also why Christians should not be

00:12:43.680 getting involved in the restoring of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem. A few weeks ago, we looked at

00:12:50.400 Byron Stinson, the self-proclaimed Judeo-Christian who had raised some red heifers and taken them out to

00:12:56.980 Israel in preparation for the building of the temple. Again, Stinson obviously has good intentions too,

00:13:03.820 but this attempt to resurrect Jewish rites was always understood as a denial that Christ had

00:13:09.820 already come in the flesh and fulfilled the law. And that's precisely how St. John describes the

00:13:16.940 Antichrist. And I quote,

00:13:19.360 For many seducers are gone out into the world who confess not that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh.

00:13:24.640 This is a seducer and an Antichrist. End quote. And that's from 2 John 1.7.

00:13:30.500 And then there's huge geopolitical problems. Imagine, they're trying to rebuild the Jerusalem temple.

00:13:36.880 Well, currently, on Temple Mount, there stands the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam.

00:13:44.180 It's simply impossible to rebuild the Jewish temple without destroying the mosque,

00:13:48.620 and the Islamic world is not going to tolerate such destruction without further violence.

00:13:53.840 But it's important to remember that some of the Jewish authorities think that Mosheach's reign

00:14:00.060 will commence with a great war between two powers symbolically called Gog and Magog. And this talk

00:14:07.500 of bloodshed actually leads us to the fact that the Antichrist will bring about the cruelest,

00:14:13.460 most brutal, most thorough, and most horrible persecution in the history of the Church,

00:14:18.980 or indeed the history of the world. But what exactly is going to happen?

00:14:22.620 Well, in the later stages of Antichrist, it will be a direct and bloody persecution.

00:14:29.180 We can get an eye for what it'll be like in the Gospels and in the events that served as

00:14:33.800 foreshadowings of this time to come. For example, the persecution of the Jews leading up to the

00:14:39.840 Maccabean Revolt, the persecution of Catholics by the pagan Roman Empire, the Aryans, the Protestant

00:14:45.720 Reformation, Nazi Germany, and Communist Russia. Theologians and mystics say that the Antichrist

00:14:52.500 persecution will surpass and combine these terrible times. Saint Robert Bellarmine says that there will

00:14:59.540 be four broad stages of Antichrist. Number one, the Antichrist will start by prohibiting Christian

00:15:05.880 institutions and imposing Jewish laws and rights. Number two, he will proclaim himself as the Mosheach

00:15:12.980 and deceive the Jews who will help him establish himself further. Number three, he will then proclaim

00:15:20.220 himself to be God and demand worship from all when he is sitting in the temple, wherever that temple

00:15:26.600 will be. And number four, he will finally end by cursing all other gods and religions, including the true

00:15:33.340 God and true religion, as well as the sects which helped him to get to power. He'll abandon any pretense of

00:15:40.520 being the Jewish Mosheach and persecute the Jews too. Everyone will be required to worship him as God

00:15:48.220 and those who don't will be destroyed horribly. The good news, well, if you can call it good news,

00:15:54.520 is that this terrible reign will be temporary. It will be short. Although, in fact, for those who live

00:16:02.860 through it, it'll seem like an eternity, I'm sure. But based on both the book of Daniel and the book of

00:16:08.480 the apocalypse in the Bible, most Catholic authorities think that will last about three and a half years or

00:16:14.040 1,260 days, as you'll read in the Bible. At that point, our Lord will destroy him. St. Paul says that the

00:16:21.680 Lord Jesus shall kill him with the spirit of his mouth and shall destroy him with the brightness of his

00:16:28.400 coming. There's a lot that could be said on that, but I don't want to focus on how terrible that persecution

00:16:35.200 will be, though it will be terrible. Instead, I want to talk about how it will be at the beginning.

00:16:41.160 Before any of the bloody persecution starts, and in fact, before even softer form of that persecution

00:16:46.520 starts, the world has to be ready for Antichrist to come. The world has to have fallen away from God

00:16:52.800 and from the true religion. Our Lord taught that both faith and charity would decay toward the end of

00:16:58.680 the world. That's what many call the great apostasy. This decay of faith and charity will be, according

00:17:06.440 to many writers, through the spread of naturalism. The idea that mankind can set aside the truths of

00:17:13.840 divine revelation and the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation and the Redemption. It's the idea that

00:17:20.640 we can live and exist without regard for the objective supernatural order established and willed by

00:17:26.820 God. If we aren't living in that time right now, I'd hate to see what the real great apostasy will be

00:17:35.820 like. But when the Antichrist first comes, many writers believe that he will begin with a show of

00:17:41.700 benevolence and reasonableness in his denial of Christianity and imposition of his own religion.

00:17:47.860 One writer says that, quote, he will hide behind a mask of moderation and feigned holiness, end quote.

00:17:54.040 How will that be? Well, it might start to make sense if we think of his early stages as continuing

00:18:00.640 the humanism and secularism of our time today. That certainly is how Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson

00:18:08.220 depicts it in his famous novel, Lord of the World. The Jewish convert priest, Father Lehman, says that

00:18:15.100 there will be two key measures in his persecution. One, the banning of Christian teaching, and two,

00:18:21.620 the obligation to teach error. And we can already see this drift and trend. We can see it in England

00:18:27.640 with the banning of silent prayer outside an abortion clinic and with the various attempts to

00:18:32.520 treat Holy Scripture as hate speech around the world. We can also see it in the obligation to allow

00:18:39.020 statues of Satan in government buildings on the grounds of religious freedom. But in fact,

00:18:45.140 the attempt to get Christianity out of the public square, to uncrown Christ and to remove him from

00:18:52.160 his throne over our society has been going on for a very long time. And here again, we're going to see

00:18:59.280 an alignment between what Catholic theologians think will be the religion of Antichrist and what

00:19:06.300 significant Jewish authorities expect will be the religion for the Gentiles under the Moshiach.

00:19:13.140 In the next part of this series of videos, we're going to do another deep dive into this religion

00:19:20.480 for the Gentiles. And it isn't Christianity, at least Christianity as we know it, nor is it

00:19:27.300 compatible with true Christianity. You're going to be shocked at how advanced this religion for the

00:19:34.040 Gentiles already is in the world today, and the really significant world leaders who are pushing

00:19:41.720 this religion for the Gentiles. If you want to learn more about these topics, take a look

00:19:47.580 at the two links in the description below, which are part of an ongoing series of articles on this

00:19:53.320 topic. They go into a lot more detail than is possible in a video. Stay tuned, and we'll see you

00:20:00.420 next time for more on everything you need to know about the Catholic teaching on the Antichrist.

00:20:05.820 For LifeSite News, this is John Henry Weston, and may God bless you.

00:20:09.880 Hi everyone, this is John Henry Weston. We hope you enjoyed this program. To see more like it,

00:20:24.920 be sure to hit the subscribe button below to get all the latest content from LifeSite News. Check

00:20:29.840 the links in the description to read more and connect with us on social media so that you can

00:20:33.940 stay up to date with all the latest life, family, faith, and freedom news. Thanks for watching,

00:20:38.560 and may God bless you.

The John-Henry Westen Show - May 02, 2024

The Antichrist and Catholic Teaching： What YOU Need To Know

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