Organizer of Peter Thiel’s Antichrist talks in Rome tried and failed to secure a Latin Mass

ROME (LifeSiteNews) — One of the organizers of tech mogul Peter Thiel’s lectures in Rome on the Antichrist reportedly tried and failed to secure a Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) for the event attendees.

Thiel’s Rome lecture co-organizers, the Vincenzo Gioberti Cultural Association, wanted an “ancient rite” Mass offered for attendees, and had secured the agreement of an Italian diocesan priest to offer the TLM in the Basilica of San Giovanni Battista dei Fiorentini, according to Italian outlet il Giornale. The church is a short distance across the Tiber River from Vatican City and reportedly holds Latin Masses offered by a religious institute.

However, “the uproar over the matter and the opposition of the Vicariate caused the parish priest, Don Roberto Paoloni, to back down (publicly),” shared il Giornale, which added that “The organizers tried again by proposing a celebration in the ordinary form, apparently without success.”

The Italian outlet attributes this to the “conservative Catholic world’s” lack of support for Thiel’s lectures in Rome. This could be in part because, while the Palantir co-founder styles himself as a Christian, his lifestyle is fundamentally at odds with Christianity. As an unapologetic homosexual, he openly embraces sodomy, a sin that “cries out to Heaven for vengeance.” 

Thiel’s conception of the biblical Antichrist is also out of sync with the picture of the “Man of sin” painted by the Fathers of the Catholic Church. During his first Rome lecture, Thiel said that he “identifies the Antichrist in the forces currently at work to curb technological development,” reported il Giornale. 

Echoing previous comments to journalist Ross Douthat, Thiel posited that these Antichrist forces spread “apocalyptic visions,” including that of an impending environmental catastrophe.

The PayPal founder argued, moreover, that progress is a “biblical precept” and that anything that hinders such progress or warns against it as dangerous is “the Antichrist,” according to il Giornale. Thiel believes this anti-progress mentality is winning out today, as shown by the fact that “airplanes built today are slower than those built a few decades ago.” 

Thiel spoke similarly in his June New York Times interview with Douthat, when Thiel dismissed the idea that the Antichrist would be “some evil tech genius.”

“The way the Antichrist would take over the world is you talk about Armageddon nonstop. You talk about existential risk nonstop, and this is what you need to regulate,” Thiel told Douthat, suggesting that the Antichrist would promote regulation of technology.

Douthat challenged him on this take, beginning by pointing out to Thiel that due at least in part to his involvement in Palantir he is “heavily invested in technologies of surveillance and technologies of warfare,” as Douthat said in a video clip posted by journalist Jim Stewartson.

“It just seems to me that when you tell me a story about the Antichrist coming to power and using the fear of technological change to impose order on the world, I feel like that Antichrist would be maybe using the tools that you are building,” Douthat noted.

“Wouldn’t that be the irony of history that the man publicly warning about Antichrist accidentally hastens his or her arrival?” Douthat said.

Indeed, Palantir, which was co-founded by Thiel, has already rolled out artificial intelligence (AI) system infrastructure of the kind that is speculated to be used in the Antichrist’s beast system. Palantir gives governments centralized access to intimate information about the populace, which also facilitates the manipulation of human behavior. Government regulators can use such technology to target citizens or withhold technology that provides access to basic necessities like money or food.

In sharp contrast to Thiel’s vision of the Son of Perdition, the Antichrist will likely at least tacitly endorse advanced technology in order to impose the Mark of the Beast on people’s “right hands” or their “foreheads” and without which no one will be able to “buy or sell,” according to the Book of Revelation.

Catholic theologians and mystics agree that the Antichrist will be a single man who will present himself as the true Messiah and suppress the true, Catholic religion and the Mass while promoting a false one-world religious system.

Rome is an interesting location for Thiel’s Antichrist lectures not just because of his lifestyle’s opposition to the supposed principles of the Vatican prelates there but because a prophecy from the Church-approved apparitions of Our Lady of La Salette, as written by one of its visionaries, predicts that “Rome will lose the faith and become the seat of the antichrist.” At the time of the prophecy, “Rome” was synonymous with the Vatican, as Father David Nix has pointed out.

The Italian outlet il Giornale revealed that the first installment of Thiel’s Antichrist lectures in Rome was held at the Palazzo Orsini Taverna, about a 15 minute walk from Vatican City. The location was reportedly announced to guests only the morning of the event.