Antichrist

===Roman Catholicism===
From the [[Fifth Council of the Lateran]], the Catholic Church teaches that priests may not "preach or declare a fixed time for...the coming of antichrist..."<ref>[http://www.papalencyclicals.net/councils/ecum18.htm PapalEncyclicals: Lateran Council V, Session 11] They are in no way to presume to preach or declare a fixed time for future evils, the coming of antichrist or the precise day of judgment; for Truth says, it is not for us to know times or seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority. Let it be known that those who have hitherto dared to declare such things are liars, and that because of them not a little authority has been taken away from those who preach the truth .</ref> The church also teaches that it must undergo trials before the [[Second Coming]],<ref>[https://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p123a9p1.htm#769 Catechism of the Catholic Church 769]</ref> and that the church's ultimate trial will be the mystery of iniquity.<ref name="vatican.va">[https://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s2c2a7.htm#675 Catechism of the Catholic Church 675]</ref> In Judaism, iniquity is a sin done out of moral failing.<ref>{{Cite web |title=SIN – JewishEncyclopedia.com |url=https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/13761-sin |access-date=2023-11-05 |website=www.jewishencyclopedia.com}}</ref> The mystery of iniquity, according to the church, will be a religious deception: Christians receiving alleged solutions to their problems at the cost of [[apostasy]].<ref name="vatican.va"/> The supreme religious deception, according to the church, will be the Antichrist's [[messianism]]: mankind glorifying himself rather than God and Jesus.<ref name="vatican.va"/> The church teaches that this supreme deception is committed by people who claim to fulfill Israel's [[messiah in Judaism|messianic hopes]], such as [[millenarianism]] and secular messianicism.<ref name="vatican.va"/>

====Popes====
[[Pope Pius IX]] in the encyclical ''Quartus Supra'', quoting [[Cyprian]], said Satan disguises the Antichrist with the title of Christ.<ref>{{Cite web |last=IX |first=Pope BI Pius |date=1873-01-06 |title=Quartus Supra |url=https://www.papalencyclicals.net/pius09/p9quartu.htm |access-date=2023-11-05 |website=Papal Encyclicals |language=en}}</ref> [[Pope Pius X]] in the encyclical ''E Supremi'' said that the distinguishing mark of the Antichrist is claiming to be God and taking his place.<ref>{{Cite web |title=E Supremi (October 4, 1903) {{!}} PIUS X |url=https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-x/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-x_enc_04101903_e-supremi.html |access-date=2023-11-05 |website=www.vatican.va}}</ref> [[Pope John Paul II]], in his August 18, 1985 address on his apostolic journey to Africa, said 1 John 4:3 ("Every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus does not belong to God. This is the spirit of antichrist") evokes the danger of theology divorced from holiness and theological culture divorced from serving Christ.<ref>[https://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/speeches/1985/august/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_19850818_inaugurazione.pdf Vatican.Va: John Paul II, August 18, 1985 Address]</ref> [[Pope Benedict XVI]] said in the Sunday Angelus of March 11, 2012 that violence is the tool of the Antichrist.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Angelus, 11 March 2012 {{!}} BENEDICT XVI |url=https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/angelus/2012/documents/hf_ben-xvi_ang_20120311.html |access-date=2023-11-05 |website=www.vatican.va}}</ref> In the General Audience of November 12, 2008, Benedict XVI said Christian tradition had come to identify the son of perdition as the Antichrist.<ref>[https://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/audiences/2008/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20081112.pdf Vatican.Va: Benedict XVI, General Audience of March 11, 2012]</ref> [[Pope Francis]], in his morning meditation of February 2, 2014, said that Christian faith is not an ideology, but that "the [[James the Great|Apostle James]] says that ideologues of the faith are the Antichrist."<ref>{{Cite web |title=Faith is not casuistry (21 February 2014) {{!}} Francis |url=https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/cotidie/2014/documents/papa-francesco-cotidie_20140221_faith-not-casuistry.html |access-date=2023-11-05 |website=www.vatican.va}}</ref> In his morning meditation of September 19, 2014, Francis said the Antichrist must come before the final resurrection.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Fear of resurrection (19 September 2014) {{!}} Francis |url=https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/cotidie/2014/documents/papa-francesco-cotidie_20140919_fear-of-resurrection.html |access-date=2023-11-05 |website=www.vatican.va}}</ref> In his morning meditation of January 7, 2016, he said the evil spirit spoken of in 1 John 4:6 is the Antichrist.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The only criterion (7 January 2016) {{!}} Francis |url=https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/cotidie/2016/documents/papa-francesco-cotidie_20160107_the-only-criterion.html |access-date=2023-11-05 |website=www.vatican.va}}</ref> In his morning meditation on November 11, 2016, Francis said whoever says the criteria of Christian love is not the Incarnation is the Antichrist.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Letter of Love (11 November 2016) {{!}} Francis |url=https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/cotidie/2016/documents/papa-francesco-cotidie_20161111_letter-of-love.html |access-date=2023-11-05 |website=www.vatican.va}}</ref>

====Speculation====

The ''[[Prophecy of the Popes]]'' (identified as a 16th century forgery by historians<ref>{{Cite book |last=O'Brien |first=M. J. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qIZVuIhz06cC |title=An Historical and Critical Account of the So-called Prophecy of St. Malachy Regarding the Succession of Popes |date=1880 |publisher=M.H. Gill and Son |language=en}}</ref>) claims Rome will be destroyed during the pontificate of the last Pope, implying a connection to the Antichrist.

[[Fulton J. Sheen]], a Catholic [[bishop]], wrote in 1951:<ref name="Sheen1951">{{cite book|last=Sheen|first=Fulton J.|title=Communism and the Conscience of the West|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ysKEnQEACAAJ|access-date=October 24, 2015|year=1951|publisher=Country Life Press|page=17}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|first=Joseph|last=Pronechen|title=Fulton Sheen's Clear Warning About the Anti-Christ|url=http://www.ncregister.com/blog/joseph-pronechen/fulton-sheens-view-of-the-anti-christ|newspaper=[[National Catholic Register]]|publisher=[[EWTN]]|location=Irondale, Alabama|date=February 10, 2019|access-date=October 7, 2019}}</ref>
{{blockquote|The Antichrist will not be so called; otherwise he would have no followers... 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 tempt Christians with the same three temptations with which he tempted Christ... He will have one great secret which he will tell to no one: he will not believe in God. Because his religion will be brotherhood without the fatherhood of God, he will deceive even the elect. He will set up a counterchurch... It will have all the notes and characteristics of the Church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content. It will be a mystical body of the Antichrist that will in all externals resemble the mystical body of Christ.}}

====Catechism of the Catholic Church====

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, which John Paul II said is a "sure norm for teaching the faith," puts the doctrine on the Antichrist under a subsection entitled "The Church's Ultimate Trial," equating it with "the supreme religious deception" and "pseudo-messianism" of human "self-glorification":

{{blockquote|Before Christ's second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the "mystery of iniquity" in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh. (CCC 675)}}

{{blockquote|The Antichrist's deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the eschatological judgment. The Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism, especially the "intrinsically perverse" political form of a secular messianism. (CCC 676)}}