Unveiling the Antichrist: Truth, Deception, and the Church's Ultimate Trial
Welcome. Welcome, one and all. Welcome to the Catholic Experience podcast. I am your host, the absolutely unbelievable Catholic adventurer. Yes, sir.
Speaker 1:Thank you very much for joining me. This is May 31 in the year of our Lord 2025, and I say thank you, Catholic church. Today, I'm talking a little bit about the antichrist, and I do mean just a little bit. We're gonna go over some things from the catechism a little bit. The church fathers are going to weigh in.
Speaker 1:They're not going to be on the show. They're not gonna be on the podcast, but my numbers would just blow up. Listen. If I had even one of the church fathers on this podcast, my numbers would really blow up. They would go from like 12 to 15, maybe 20.
Speaker 1:From 12 to 20. For me, that's an explosion in numbers. Hello, and welcome to those of you catching me live for the first time doing a live podcast on Instagram. Hello to those of you catching me here at home base on Substack, catholicadventurer.substack.com. Got a few people there in the live chat room.
Speaker 1:God bless you folks, and thank you for joining me. Ladies and gentlemen, we're talking about something serious here, but it's not going to lead you to holiness. So make sure you put it in context as we talk about the antichrist because it's not like we're talking about the actual Christ. Okay? How did this come up?
Speaker 1:Let me explain this to you. A few weeks ago, might have been two weeks ago, I did a video on TikTok talking about the Antichrist. I don't remember why. I don't remember how this subject of the Antichrist and whether or not the pope was the Antichrist popped up.
Speaker 2:Anyway, did a little thing on
Speaker 1:the Antichrist, and it was very little. I think it was like five minutes long. And I said, listen folks, there is more I could talk about with this, but I'm not looking to put in all that work unless there's an interest for it. So if you would like to cover and this is what I said in the video. If you'd like me to cover this more completely, you can let me know that by dropping a comment or tapping like.
Speaker 1:And I and I was very honest and blunt, and I said, folks, I'm not engagement farming. That is not what I do. You're gonna engage or you're not. I would like you to engage. It does help my channel, and God knows all all my channels need a little bit of help.
Speaker 1:So please do tap do tap like if you like something even a little bit. But this is not engagement farming. This is not my bread and butter. So you engage or you don't. My if my channel's a failure, then it's a failure.
Speaker 1:It's not like it's taking food off my family's table.
Speaker 2:Thanks be to God. But it will tell me that you find if
Speaker 1:you engage, it tells me that you find this interesting. It tells me that if I do this episode on the Antichrist more fully, it won't be wasted work because more than three people will actually watch it. I was very surprised on TikTok the level of engagement that I received on that video. So people have an interest in it, that's why I'm doing this now. I'm gonna cover this a little more completely, but I decided to lean heavily on the catechism of the Catholic church.
Speaker 1:Hello to Cold Warrior who's just joined me in the chat room here on Substack. God bless you, Cold Warrior. Not sure what to make of that name. Is that a cool name or should we be frightened by that name? I like the warrior part.
Speaker 1:I'm a warrior myself, but Cold Warrior? Should we be nervous? Are you like one
Speaker 2:of those frozen zombie things on Game of Thrones? Cold warrior. But thank you
Speaker 1:for joining me. Please don't freeze and kill anybody while you're sitting there in the chat room. So we're gonna lean heavily on the catechism. I did prepare some notes. I may go to those.
Speaker 1:I may not because if you know anything about my work, know that I can go on and on and on with very, very little material. So the catechism may be all we have to we have time to cover, but it'll be a lot. Okay? So first, let me lay this foundation. The scripture, the Bible, does mention about antichrists, plural.
Speaker 1:Okay? We do see antichrist, lowercase a, plural. But the scripture also talks about the Antichrist, capital a, Antichrist. Who is the Antichrist, and what's the deal there? I'm not going to rehash a whole lot, only to say first of all, the Antichrist is not the pope.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry to disappoint you. At the start of the Reformation, the reformers had to find any and every which way to discredit the Catholic Church, and one of the ways they did that is by saying the Pope
Speaker 2:is the Antichrist. Google the information yourself, look at
Speaker 1:it objectively, and prepare to laugh your head off. The Pope is not the Antichrist. The Church is not the Whore of Babylon. I'm sorry to disappoint you. Go and play the lottery.
Speaker 1:You have better chances of success there. Okay? Enough said about that. It's not the Pope.
Speaker 2:Church is
Speaker 1:not the whore of Babylon. Okay, moving on. So what will the Antichrist be? Who will the Antichrist be? Some in comments have said, well, the church fathers said the Antichrist will be a Jew.
Speaker 2:Not
Speaker 1:really. Some have said the Antichrist will be the devil. Probably not. Let me explain that because I don't wanna have to go back to that point and cover it later. So let me cover that one right now.
Speaker 1:Will the Antichrist be the devil? Probably not. I can't say no because the church doesn't know, but probably not. Because the devil then would have to be given a body. The devil can't make a body on his own.
Speaker 1:The devil is an angel. He's a fallen angel. The angelic can't do whatever they want. They retain their powers, their potens, right? What they can potentially do.
Speaker 1:They retained that even after the fall. They can't just do whatever they want. In the Bible, when an angel took on human form, they had permission to do that, and they were doing that for a reason: to perform the duty given to them by God in that moment. They have the potential, the potency, to
Speaker 2:do that, but they can only do it with with permission. I really don't see God giving Satan permission to take on a human form. I just don't see that. But will the
Speaker 1:devil be in the mix? Yes. I think the devil will be in the mix. In fact, I'm sure of it. I think the devil is in the mix in a lot of ways right now.
Speaker 2:But another conversation. I think the devil will be maybe a puppet master, but he's not going to be
Speaker 1:the Antichrist himself. Will he be behind the Antichrist? Probably. But he won't be the Antichrist himself. Okay?
Speaker 1:So you can cross that off your checklist. It's not Satan will not be incarnated on the earth.
Speaker 2:Okay?
Speaker 1:With that being said, I think it's time to mention this. When I say we, I'm talking about the church. Okay? What the church has taught or teaches, church thought, church tradition, and so on. We don't really know who the Antichrist will be and who the Antichrist won't be.
Speaker 1:There's very little that we do know. So what I'm going to present to
Speaker 2:you is what we do know. What the church actually teaches is true, which is very little, but it's substantial. Okay? Here we go. This comes from the Catechism of
Speaker 1:the Catholic Church, chapter six seventy five. This paragraph is headed the church's ultimate trial. Keep that one in your pocket, folks. We're going back to it. The church's ultimate trial.
Speaker 1:And it goes a little something like this. Before Christ's second coming, the church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. Let me pause there. Before Christ's second coming. How far before?
Speaker 1:You notice the church doesn't say. Right? But the implication is strongly that it's just before. Because, really, the the crucifixion happened before Christ's second coming. So when we say before Christ's second coming, probably just before.
Speaker 1:It could be a year before, a day before. My suspicion is,
Speaker 2:I don't
Speaker 1:know, a couple of years before. I don't know. It's not gonna be a day before or five minutes before. Before Christ's second coming, the church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. Now this is a reference to what is commonly understood as the great war between good and evil, the final war between good and evil just before Christ's second coming.
Speaker 1:Now, the catechism and the catechism is rooted in both scripture and tradition. And that's as deep as I'm going to get with justifying the accuracy and credibility of the catechism of the Catholic church. It is steeped and rooted in scripture and tradition, highly informed by the church fathers who lived and breathed and were saturated in Scripture. And that's as far as I'm going to go with that. It speaks of a trial, the final trial between good and evil, or the final conflict between good and evil.
Speaker 1:What will that look like? I don't know. But here's what I can tell you. Everything that you see here, some assembly required, kids get your parents permission. Everything that you see
Speaker 2:here started with a war in heaven.
Speaker 1:The great war between the angels in heaven started with a war.
Speaker 2:The church, the Catholic faith, or if you're
Speaker 1:a Protestant, the Christian faith because it applies to you, churches, church buildings, church art, sacred music, prayers, all of the pews you sit in when you go to church, all of this is because there was a great war in heaven between the angels. Michael and his angels went to
Speaker 2:war against Lucifer and his angels.
Speaker 1:We don't know exactly why this war broke out. We only know Lucifer refused to serve or he refused to do something. He refused to obey. And so this war erupted in heaven. It's very interesting because Lucifer is a much higher angel than Saint Michael the Archangel.
Speaker 1:We think of archangels as like these almost second to God, but they are not. They are lower angels, much lower angels than cherubs and seraphs. And according to Aquinas, Lucifer was probably a cherub or a seraph, one
Speaker 2:of the most absolute highest angels. Michael
Speaker 1:and his angels, being lower in the order in the ranks, went to war with Lucifer and won. And Lucifer and his angels became the demonic order, and
Speaker 2:they were cast out of heaven into hell. Fast forward. The creation of man. The war that started in heaven proceeded to the Garden Of Eden. There is no war between the angels and God.
Speaker 2:That's ridiculous. Now the war is between the demonic and man, God's greatest creation.
Speaker 1:The devil tempted Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve fell. As the devil was as the demonic were banished from heaven, Adam and Eve and their progeny, including you and me, were banished from the Garden of Eden, the ultimate state of grace. Our intellects have been darkened by sin. Our bodies weakened and ravaged by illness and age because of sin.
Speaker 1:Our wills are weak because of sin. How weak is human will
Speaker 2:because of sin? Every time you go
Speaker 1:on a diet and cheat, you know how weak your will is because of sin. But you
Speaker 2:can change that. You can change that. You can subject your will so completely to your intellect that
Speaker 1:as soon as your will wants to do something and your intellect says no, the will surrenders and says, okay, I really want that cupcake. No.
Speaker 2:Okay. It's possible to do that now, but it's work. It's work to reorient your mind and your will to each other.
Speaker 1:Not gonna get into that today. So the war that started in heaven proceeded or progressed to the Garden of Eden, to the created order, to the earthly order.
Speaker 2:And so it's fitting that this story that began with war in heaven will conclude with war on earth,
Speaker 1:the great battle between good and evil. Will it be an actual war? Have no idea. As I say, we know very little about this in terms of what
Speaker 2:we can say is the truth. Right? So, it's fitting that
Speaker 1:a war that a story that started with war in heaven concludes with a war on earth, the great battle the great final battle between good and evil.
Speaker 2:Now, let's continue. The catechism labels us as a trial.
Speaker 1:The war in heaven started with a trial where the angels were given the chance to choose. The good angels chose to follow. The bad angels chose not to. The Garden of Eden, a trial, and Adam and Eve chose wrong. Now we live the ongoing remnants of this conflict because we undergo this trial several times every day of our lives to choose God and to choose against or to choose not that which opposes God, with that which opposes his will.
Speaker 1:So we choose and we choose and we choose, and oftentimes we choose wrongly, and sometimes we choose rightly. Hopefully, that becomes usually I choose rightly, but on a rare occasion I choose wrongly. Right? That's what it is to become saints, is to flop
Speaker 2:that number around. That almost every time I choose rightly,
Speaker 1:but occasionally I screw up. The angels chose once forever. We choose and choose and choose. That's our trial. The angels had theirs.
Speaker 1:We have ours. Perhaps the church will have hers. Let's go again to the catechism. Before Christ's second coming, the church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. This I believe, and I'll explain more of that in a second.
Speaker 1:The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the mystery of iniquity in the form of a religious deception. Listen carefully. Form of religious deception, offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. Read that again. The persecution that accompanies the church's 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.
Speaker 1:Mystery of iniquity, I believe, is biblical. There's no footnote in the catechism, but I'm pretty it is in quotes. I'm pretty sure that comes right. I think that's from Revelation, actually. The mystery of iniquity.
Speaker 1:If you know in the chat room exactly where that's from, because I can't get distracted and search for it right now. If you happen to know where that's from, the term mystery of iniquity, put that in the chat room if you're catching me live here at Substack. Mystery of iniquity in the form of a religious deception.
Speaker 2:You might argue we're seeing that now. I would
Speaker 1:also say we've seen forms of that throughout our history, throughout Christian history. Offering men apparent solutions. Okay. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist. The Antichrist, folks, will be the man of iniquity.
Speaker 1:The Antichrist's work or function will reveal the mystery of iniquity. A pseudo messianism according to the catechism. A pseudo messianism by which man glorifies himself in place
Speaker 2:of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh.
Speaker 1:The Antichrist will be the great deceiver. Satan is the father of lies. He's the father of temptations, father of sin, etcetera. The Antichrist will be the great deceiver, and he will fool many. It's important to understand, folks, that as much as we rely on the early church fathers, the early church fathers had no unanimous voice or unanimous opinion on this.
Speaker 1:Some have said the Antichrist will be a Jew. There have been church fathers who said that, but it was highly speculative, and very few of them did say that. We don't know if it'll be a Jewish person. We do know he will be a great deceiver. I don't believe it's in the catechism.
Speaker 1:I'm going to look again at the at the next paragraph, but I don't think it's in the next paragraph either. I just wanna check more thoroughly and make sure. But it's commonly believed part of his deception is he'll be able to perform miracles. Part of his deception will be a rhetorical deception like politicians, only much, much, much better
Speaker 2:at it. My brothers and sisters,
Speaker 1:so many and I'm I'm speaking specifically to the Catholic to the people of the Catholic churchso many Catholics are so fooled by the biggest idiots in Catholic media ever.
Speaker 2:So fooled that they practically deify them. Yet they are
Speaker 1:the biggest idiots in media ever. Fooled you. Fooled you. Fooled you. Once, twice, three times.
Speaker 1:Fooled you. I could name names, but I don't drop dimes like that. There are so many frauds
Speaker 2:in Catholic media, in Catholic culture, huge frauds, and
Speaker 1:they're fooling thousands and thousands and thousands of people. And these are imbeciles. You mean to tell me the Antichrist is not gonna fool you? Many in the faith, many will have their faith shaken because many will be fooled. I don't think a golden mouthed Antichrist is going to have much resistance even by faithful even by faithful Catholics.
Speaker 1:Because there are lowercase a, golden mouthed, lowercase a Antichrists in the church to not literal not literal Antichrists. I'm being metaphoric. There are those types in the church today, and they've got the faithful following them around like mice following the pied piper. Can't say you weren't warned. As of this episode, you've been warned.
Speaker 1:Damn it. I keep looking at the wrong camera. As of this episode, you've been warned. Anti going back to the catechism, the antichrist 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 judgment.
Speaker 2:So you will hear frequently from the fathers in tradition, in the scripture, and in the catechism,
Speaker 1:the antichrist paired with deception, lies, fooling people through trickery, through parlor tricks. The demonic do that now. Human beings do that now. Why does the catechism say that the Antichrist will shake the faith of many? But won't the Antichrist have horns and a name tag?
Speaker 1:Won't he have red skin and hooves and a forked tip?
Speaker 2:No. The reason why many will have their faith shaken,
Speaker 1:and the reason why I'm so harping on this Antichrist and deception angle, is because the Antichrist will be a tremendous deceiver. He will deceive even the most devoted. How many? I don't know. But I know there's going to be some.
Speaker 1:And that makes me feel like the
Speaker 2:coming of the Antichrist is probably soon. Why? Because people are so fantastically stupid, there is no way this just happened by nature. Now, I
Speaker 1:know how cruel and ugly that sounds. Let me explain. First, those of you not familiar with my work, I am frequently saying how stupid I am. I'm frequently saying I'm a moron, so if I understand this, I know this is going be easy for you. Stuff like that.
Speaker 1:I say it flippantly, but I'm actually kind of serious. I'm really not that bright. I have a couple of skills and talents, but I'm really not that bright. So when I say people are fantastically stupid, I don't mean that they are literally mentally disabled or intellectually disabled. I mean they're very, very smart,
Speaker 2:but they've allowed themselves to be disabled. Right? Folks, the dumbest things I have
Speaker 1:ever heard in my life have come from the absolute smartest people I have
Speaker 2:ever known, saying dumb things like, well, once we die, we just basically turn off until the resurrection. College educated religion major. I believe he has his master's degree, actually.
Speaker 1:And knows the Bible. Knows the scripture. And that's the dumbest thing you've ever heard of. The smartest people on earth say and believe the dumbest things you've ever heard of. And the most devoted people
Speaker 2:on earth are going to follow
Speaker 1:the Antichrist like mice following a pied piper. Why? Because we live in an age where people are unable to see truth right in front
Speaker 2:of their faces. And if you don't know
Speaker 1:what truth looks like, obviously, how can you know what a lie looks like or deception? It's very strange what's going on in the world today that people get their news from headlines. They don't read the stories. People get their news from tweets. They don't
Speaker 2:even read headlines. It's very strange that someone could say Donald Trump is an alien from Mars, and
Speaker 1:they'll believe it. A witness said that he heard someone say that he saw someone do that he knew the barber who was friends with the barber of the guy whose mother cut Donald Trump's hair, and she saw him take off his human skin, and he was an alien. It was the end of the day. He took off his human skin. His antenna came out.
Speaker 1:His skin was green. He looked like a lizard. He didn't realize the mother of the barber of the barber of the mailman of the bartender of the friend of the brother of the cousin of the uncle
Speaker 2:saw that. And it was that uncle who told me.
Speaker 1:That person now becomes an anonymous source at some stupid rag on the Internet who's got tens of thousands of followers on Instagram and Twitter and all that, and that becomes the news of the day. Yeah, saw it on the news. Donald Trump is an alien. How is that possible? People are really on a Pope Francis is not the real pope.
Speaker 1:Did you really just say Pope Francis is not the real pope? He's not the true pope? Okay. And you really think the Antichrist won't fool you? And my friends, there were people saying Pope Francis is not the real pope or is not a legitimate pope
Speaker 2:who are very, very well educated. I can think
Speaker 1:of a couple whose names you know, but I will not drop them. They have master's degrees in theology. Pope Francis is not a legitimate pope.
Speaker 2:Okay. Alright. Okay, man. Whatever you say.
Speaker 1:Or they will say things like, the Novus Ordo mass is not the real mass. For the Antichrist to fool even the most educated, the most devoted, it's gonna be very easy. It's gonna be very, very easy. Because people are so far away from the truth that they don't even know what it looks like, and they don't even know how to look for it. They don't know the clues.
Speaker 1:The sign truth tells on itself. It tells on itself. You just have to know to listen for it,
Speaker 2:to look at it, and truth will tell on itself. Well, I've been
Speaker 1:in evangelization and very heavily in apologetics. Okay? Defending the church, defending my brother and sister Catholics, defending the truth, defending the church's legacy, history, defending scripture. I don't have the heart for that anymore. I'm like so tired of apologetics, But I did it for a long time.
Speaker 1:My early years in evangelization was very apologetical. So I have seen just how stupid people have become. Over thirty, thirty five years, I've seen it right in front of my eyes. The progression or the collapse of the collective human intellect is so strange to me, not just to me, to many people who who are also in my line of work, is so strange, so bizarre. You think I'm the only one who thinks this is preparation for the Antichrist?
Speaker 1:My friends, I am not. I'm not. Many other evangelizers, apologists, speakers believe this is just too weird. The collective intellect of the human culture has so degraded to such a degree over so little time.
Speaker 2:And we are faced with this from the catechism. The antichrist will be
Speaker 1:a great deceiver, and many faithful will have their faith shaken. So one of the reasons I do what I do
Speaker 2:is to help people to
Speaker 1:know how to discern truth from lies. Because let me tell you, my friends, I can give you a billion examples, but let's just stick to media. They are very good liars. And I'm not a genius. The thing with me is I'm kind of wired for it.
Speaker 1:I'm wired for this. This does not make
Speaker 2:me a genius. I
Speaker 1:suck at everything, but
Speaker 2:I'm good at this, at seeing truth and seeing a lie. So the same phrase that will fool a million people, I just know immediately, bullshit. I just know intuitively, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, these are why it's a lie. It's just a gift. It's like
Speaker 1:my one gift. It's not a superpower. It doesn't mean I'm a genius. It's just how I'm wired. And having worked in media for a long time, I have seen it in action.
Speaker 1:Even in Catholic media, I have seen it in action. Tremendous craft, tremendous skill, the things that they do and say, the way they phrase things, the way
Speaker 2:they edit things, all to get you to believe something that just is not so. You think it's just CNN? MSNBC? Fox News? You think it's just them?
Speaker 1:It's in Catholic media too. There are some notable figures in the Catholic blogosphere, I guess you would call it. There's one huge name that I feel like I have a responsibility to drop, but I really shouldn't. Because I don't think I'm saving lives by dropping names. I could be harming people by dropping names.
Speaker 1:Even the guilty. Even the people who are doing it. I could be harming them because I could harm them irreparably. They may not be able to
Speaker 2:change their ways. I could
Speaker 1:be interfering with what the holy spirit is doing in them. That's one of the reasons I don't drop names. Because when you rule reputation, sometimes you can ruin them irreparably, and I I don't wanna do that. But there are some where I'm thinking of one. I could name a few, but I'm thinking of one who all of you know, and I really liked this individual until I dove more and more into things that this person said.
Speaker 1:And I'm like, oh my god, you're such a liar. You're one of those liars? And the
Speaker 2:reason why I know he's a liar, I'll just say he's a liar, is because the way some of his statements were crafted to
Speaker 1:say one plus one is 11 when one plus
Speaker 2:one is obviously two, The way
Speaker 1:these statements were crafted told me you want people to believe one plus one is 11. This is very deliberate word selection. This is very deliberate composition of this statement. Super, super, super deliberate. The only way it comes out composed this way is if you want it
Speaker 2:to be composed this way. I said, my god, you're one of the liars too.
Speaker 1:You'd be amazed. So one of the things now, if if these people can fool you, why couldn't they
Speaker 2:be antichrist? So one of
Speaker 1:the things reasons I do what I do is to help people to know how to discern truth, to distinguish truth from lies because, and I this is not a secret. I've been saying this since episode one. A time is coming. In fact, it is already here. Just to echo some some things we've heard in scripture.
Speaker 1:A time is coming. In fact, it is already here where the lies are masquerading so closely and so cleverly masquerading as truths that they're fooling everybody.
Speaker 2:Love is love. Okay.
Speaker 1:It's a lie that masquerades as truth so cleverly everybody is on board. 167 genders. Okay. Gender is fluid. Okay.
Speaker 1:It's a lie so cleverly masqueraded as the truth that it fools generations of people, or it will fool generations of people. It's fooling many people even now. One thing that I try to do is I try to teach people how to discern truth. Because a time is coming, in fact, it is already here, where the truth is getting harder and harder to see. If you are diligent and focused rather than sloppy, you will spot it.
Speaker 1:You just need to learn the discipline of it.
Speaker 2:Because I do believe that people are being conditioned to play right into
Speaker 1:the hands of the Antichrist, and I'm not the only one who believes this,
Speaker 2:what's the Antichrist have to gain? He just wants God not to have you. He wants
Speaker 1:the church to fail. If the Antichrist doesn't it's not like the Antichrist will eventually he'll go to confession and go to heaven. That's not happening. The only thing he has to gain is power for the sake of his master, who he may or may not even be able to identify in the end.
Speaker 2:He may be working for the devil, his puppet master, and not even realize it. Let's continue. First, let me take a
Speaker 1:break from the action here to
Speaker 2:say hello to Anne and Melody in the
Speaker 1:chat room here at Substack. Thank you for joining me. Ladies, hello to MJ. I think I'm not going to say last names because maybe some people don't want to be identified. Great.
Speaker 1:Now that I've sworn off saying last names, I have to say hello to Prickly in the chat room. Obviously, Prickly is not a real name, so I'll just say that second name. Prickly Hublius, I
Speaker 2:think it says in the chat room. Porch
Speaker 1:and Path Adventures. Oh, that sounds like such a cool name.
Speaker 2:Cool Substack. Hello to Salvador. Catching me
Speaker 1:live here at Substack. And there's still nobody over there at Instagram, and that's okay. If you're not already doing so, consider if you're already on Instagram, join me for a month. And what I mean by that is subscribe to me because I'm going to be active on Instagram for at least a month. If you're already following me, so if you're if that's already part of your social networking activity, follow me at for the queen b v m or check the link in my bio wherever you're getting this on demand.
Speaker 1:Don't start an account to follow me because I'm not taking Instagram very seriously for more than a month. If after a month of taking it seriously, it's working out for me, okay, then I'll stick around. And if it is not, then I'm just deleting it. Because I've had it for a few years, haven't really used it to its total and full advantage. I'm gonna spend a month now doing that and seeing if I'm not looking to blow up.
Speaker 1:I just wanna see if my efforts using it more strategically
Speaker 2:are actually going to show some signs of life, You know, like more than two people seeing a post? I
Speaker 1:really don't understand Instagram. This is most social media algorithms. If a post gets some engagement, it will distribute that post more widely. It will say, okay, some people have liked this, so it's worth seeing. I'll distribute it more widely.
Speaker 1:But the thing with Instagram is it only sends my posts to like two people. Literally two people. And most people on Instagram don't tap like on what they see. Right? That's a statistic.
Speaker 1:So how is anyone going to tap like on my stuff if Instagram is only sending it to two people? Or five? It's a catch 22. I don't understand it, but okay. Maybe it's because I'm not using it to its full potential, so Instagram thinks I'm boring, so it's
Speaker 2:not the show. I don't know. If you're
Speaker 1:on Instagram, follow me there at for the queen b v m. If it's a success because I do enjoy the platform. I just don't wanna work where there's no benefit. I enjoy the platform. I, you know, I have an I have a personal Instagram account that I
Speaker 2:love looking at stuff, commenting.
Speaker 1:I enjoy the platform. But as a publisher, it's just not working for me. So for the next month, I'm gonna use it more seriously to see how it works. At for the queen b v m on Instagram or follow the link in my bio. All my socials are there.
Speaker 1:And let's have some fun together. I do some lives. I drop some stories. I put up clips. I share some things from my, you know, from my personal life, like what I'm cooking and, you know, stuff like that.
Speaker 1:Things that
Speaker 2:are just me, you know.
Speaker 1:At for the queen b v m on Instagram. Alright. That's enough of a break from the action. The church fathers were quite interested in this subject, the subject of the Antichrist. Understand the world the church fathers lived in.
Speaker 1:Okay? Especially the early church.
Speaker 2:There was a lot of persecution against Christians and against the church.
Speaker 1:In Revelation, you could say that the antichrist was Nero,
Speaker 2:and someone on TikTok did comment that the antichrist was Nero. Well, the Nero was an antichrist, but there is an ultimate antichrist to come. An antichrist, the antichrist yet to come. With that in mind, understand the church of the church fathers. Okay?
Speaker 2:A lot of persecution, a
Speaker 1:lot of vibrance. The church was very vibrant in the first few centuries. And I'm not saying it has never been vibrant since, but specifically in
Speaker 2:the first few centuries, it was small, it was new, it was wildly alive
Speaker 1:despite being so massively persecuted. In the early church, the first few centuries of the church, all you saw was potential. The church had its entire life ahead of it kind of a thing. Right? All you saw was its potential and where it may go in the future, and you could never imagine that the church would conquer the world as it has.
Speaker 1:But with all this vibrancy and life and vitality, the knowledge that an antichrist, not just an antichrist like Nero or Diocletian or some
Speaker 2:of the other persecutors of the church known to the church fathers, the knowledge that this church was going to be challenged
Speaker 1:by the capital a Antichrist. So this is the context of the church fathers. So I'm gonna tell you now, in full disclosure, I cheated a little bit because I tried going through some of my library of the church fathers. This was in my library, I have categorized certain subjects that really caught my attention so that I can go back
Speaker 2:to them later. Holy Eucharist, page 67. I
Speaker 1:don't know. You understand, like, notes, but, like, categorized notes. The antichrist is nowhere in there. So I'm going to read this to
Speaker 2:you from catholic.com. Okay? So it's a little
Speaker 1:bit cheating, but I'm telling you where I'm getting it from. Okay? It's catholic.com. The church fathers displayed significant interest in
Speaker 2:the Antichrist, whom they commonly identified with the man of lawlessness. They understood him to be a political ruler who would oppose the church, rebuild the temple in Jerusalem, and then demand to be
Speaker 1:worshipped as a god. This, by the way, is why some people, some fathers,
Speaker 2:and some later theologians believe that the Antichrist will be Jewish. Don't take that one to
Speaker 1:the bank. Certainly don't bet on it. Might the Antichrist be Jewish? It's a possibility. Who cares if he he could be Jewish, Muslim, Catholic?
Speaker 1:He could be an alien from Mars. Who cares? Doesn't matter. But that is where that comes from. They understood him to be
Speaker 2:a political ruler who would oppose the church. Stop.
Speaker 1:The church fathers had already seen political rulers opposing the church. Now let's get into what I think is going to
Speaker 2:be anti Christ ish and why I think that.
Speaker 1:In the book of Revelation, it talks about the great dragon. We can interpret that as Nero opposing the church and this and that. And it talks about the mark of the beast six sixty six being numerically Nero, the emperor of the Roman empire. Listen carefully. Where did the label six sixty six get put?
Speaker 1:Right? Where were people going to have that label? Do you remember? On their hands and on their heads. Here's how that should be understood, not just biblically, but going forward.
Speaker 1:What do the hands represent From the perspective of the author,
Speaker 2:Saint John, what do the hands represent?
Speaker 1:The will. The hands do. They represent the will. What does the head represent? The intellect.
Speaker 1:So understand this: The oppression and the deception of the Antichrist will be one that manifests in the will and the intellect
Speaker 2:of his followers. What does Nero represent? I mean,
Speaker 1:John John the evangelist is is he doesn't name Nero, but we know that's who he's talking about. He's he is saying Nero literally.
Speaker 2:Right? But there's a wider message to get from that. There's a wider message. There are
Speaker 1:most of what we see in Revelation has already happened and some of it has not. But most of it has. Is the great dragon of Revelation Emperor Nero? Yes. Does it mean more than that?
Speaker 1:Probably. And the church fathers thought so too. The church fathers thought so too. Scholars of the book of Revelation think so too. So this is not just my craziness.
Speaker 2:We can see the great dragon as a figure or
Speaker 1:a prefigurement of the Antichrist, even though it was Nero. We can see it as a prefigurement of the the, capital a Antichrist. And we can see that it symbolizes not just a a a political ruler. What else does that signify symbolize? What do you think in the chat room here at Substack?
Speaker 1:What does Rome symbolize? Because the great dragon is the emperor of Rome, so let's just think of
Speaker 2:it as Rome. What does Rome symbolize? Not just politics. Culture. Culture.
Speaker 1:The way things are. The way things are. The way things are, at least in the past, is you hold a door open for a lady. That's part of, at least, American culture. Maybe you have this in your where you live, whatever.
Speaker 1:At least in American culture, that's just what you do. It's just the way things are. You didn't if you owned a shop, you did not open on Sundays. That's just the way things are. Some states in America had laws that you couldn't, or some municipalities or cities had laws that forbade a shop owner from opening on Sundays, but they were in the minority.
Speaker 1:People just did not open a shop
Speaker 2:on Sundays. It's the Lord's day.
Speaker 1:You got to go to mass, tend to the kids, whatever. It's just the way it is. Veterans went to mass on that day on not on Memorial Day, on Veterans Day. It wasn't uncommon to see a few veterans go to mass on that Sunday in their uniforms
Speaker 2:if they still fit in them.
Speaker 1:It's just the way it is. It's just what you do.
Speaker 2:Now, the way it is and what you do has changed. Right? You have
Speaker 1:to say, for instance, America, have to say African American. It is not yet considered racist to say black people, but it's close.
Speaker 2:It's close.
Speaker 1:You shouldn't say black people. It's racist. Well, what am I supposed to call a Jamaican? It's just the way it is. You don't say black people anymore.
Speaker 1:The point I'm trying to make is there is a cultural mindset in every generation. There's a cultural mindset. And the cultural mindset today has really gone crazy. I'm not talking about, you know, black people or Puerto Rican people, you know, the phrases and stuff. I'm not just talking about that.
Speaker 1:I'm talking about things like safe spaces is a thing. Folks, twenty years ago, safe spaces was a comedy act. And it was comedy because there's no possible way anybody could actually need a safe space from being intellectually challenged. That's why it would be a comedy act. Today is a thing.
Speaker 1:People attacking police officers. I don't mean verbally, I mean like physically attacking them. That's a thing. That was unheard of in
Speaker 2:the eighties. That was science fiction in the eighties. We called it Robocop the movie. It's a
Speaker 1:thing, right? It's the way it is. So there's a cultural mindset. There are cultural norms. And culture is a teacher.
Speaker 1:If we understand the Antichrist as being not just a political figure but a cultural one, and what does the Antichrist oppress in Revelation? It oppresses the church.
Speaker 2:It oppresses the intellect, the number six six six on the head. And it oppresses the will, the number six six six on the hand. And it's not just a political figure, it's a cultural figure.
Speaker 1:And the faithful in Revelation have to make a choice. There's that trial again. Remember at the top of this episode? There's that trial again. The faith will have to make a choice to accept the mark of the Antichrist on their minds, to surrender their minds, to believe what the Antichrist wants them to believe, to surrender their wills, to do as the Antichrist tells them they ought to do.
Speaker 1:They have a choice to do that or to reject it. And if they reject it, they won't be able to live their normal lives. They won't be able to engage in commerce and so on.
Speaker 2:Aren't we sort of seeing these hints today? Cancel culture. Right? Safe spaces. You have to say a particular thing in a particular way, even in academia, or you'll be punished, Or you'll lose tenure.
Speaker 2:Or you'll be removed from the school. What's that called? Expelled. You'll be fired. Aren't we seeing all
Speaker 1:of these signs today? Do I think the antichrist is here now? I have no idea. I really don't know. But if I had to bet money, I would
Speaker 2:bet that he is. If it's a person, I
Speaker 1:would bet the antichrist is here, but he's rather young. One of the reasons I believe that is because I believe I have seen
Speaker 2:that the Holy Spirit and the blessed virgin Mary are building God's army.
Speaker 1:I have seen this. There is no way in hell that you're that people have for instance, Carlo Acutis. There is, you know, there are many like Carlo Acutis? Many out there. They may or may not ultimately be recognized.
Speaker 1:It doesn't matter. There I have known many with Carlo Acutis' depth that is just beyond years, beyond experience. And I have seen adults whose devotion and devotedness and fire can't be faked, and it's very mysterious, and if you look at it rationally, it shouldn't even be there. Yet it is. I know the Holy Spirit and the Blessed Virgin Mary are building an army.
Speaker 1:I firmly believe this. I haven't gotten visions or anything like that. I just know through firm belief, through evidence that I have observed, I have witnessed, I've been in the presence of.
Speaker 2:So why would they be going through all
Speaker 1:this trouble? Well, because the world is dark. Yeah. I think that's one of the reasons. Possibly the main reason.
Speaker 1:But also, it's possible that the Lord is preparing his church for that final battle between good and evil. I don't think it's gonna happen tomorrow.
Speaker 2:May happen in my lifetime. It may happen a generation following mine. But I don't think it's gonna be a hundred years.
Speaker 1:I don't think it's gonna be that far off. So is the Antichrist here now? I don't know. But I can tell you this, as as I said, just going through some of the things that I said in the catechism, The Antichrist will be a deceiver. The Antichrist will shake the faith of many.
Speaker 1:Well, that's easy to believe because many are having their faith shaken today. And they all think that
Speaker 2:they're faithful. They all think that
Speaker 1:they're faithful, but they're practically apostates.
Speaker 2:So the antichrist is going to fool many. Many in the church will have
Speaker 1:their faith shaken. Totally believable. I see I see it now. That's oh, god. That's so believable.
Speaker 1:So believable. There will be a great war between good and evil before the second coming. I see that now. And you know what's interesting about that? I remember the very conversation I was having with a friend of mine who also really knows his stuff.
Speaker 1:But he really knows his stuff. I would almost call him the other me. Maybe not. But but he knows his stuff. Okay?
Speaker 2:He's been around the block. Very, very smart.
Speaker 1:And we were having this conversation once, and I don't remember how the antichrist thing this might have been, like, 15 ago. Maybe a little bit more. I don't remember how the antichrist thing came up, but specifically on this part of the subject where it talks about the battle between good and evil, like the final battle. And we both laughed.
Speaker 2:Do you know why? Because I think I was the one who said it.
Speaker 1:And God forgive me if I'm sinning.
Speaker 2:I don't think that I am. I said, this church couldn't fight its way out of a wet paper bag. This church fighting the great battle, the final battle between good and evil, this church loses. Said those very words. That is what I said to him.
Speaker 1:And he said, a 100%. This church today, I would not say lose it. And really, Folks, I want to be clear. The church will never lose. The church will never lose.
Speaker 1:God wins. Jesus Christ wins. That's that. The church does not
Speaker 2:lose. But I'm
Speaker 1:just saying, the state that it was in,
Speaker 2:let's just say twenty years ago, too much corruption, too much stupidity, still, god forgive me, still too many priests and religious of the old guard. By the old guard, I mean, like, the 19 church. You know what I mean?
Speaker 1:The folks that were in seminaries and houses of formation, very, very poor quality. Poor quality in spiritually, intellectually, theologically, you know, their leanings. That church loses.
Speaker 2:If the battle between good and evil happened, then that church loses. This church is different.
Speaker 1:There's a fire of holiness going through the laity that was not there, like, twenty years, at least not in my experience. Twenty years ago, I was not seeing it like I'm seeing it like I've been seeing it since. We were not seeing the rise of such incredible impostors and deceivers in Catholic media and
Speaker 2:the Catholic ranks. We were not quite seeing it then. I understand the Internet was different twenty years ago, but I was
Speaker 1:a communicator pre Internet. So I was around and I had connections that I didn't need the Internet to see this stuff. I was not blind and deaf, even before the Internet, because a lot of times we might say, Well, we didn't know that these impostors were out there because there was no Internet. I didn't need the Internet to see them. So
Speaker 2:I can tell you from my perspective, the impostors that we see, some of them in clerics and some of them in a suit and tie holding a microphone, the impostor that we see today did not exist twenty years ago. It's like the enemy sent not a full frontal attack, but armed scouts into enemy territory.
Speaker 1:And we're the enemy. For the antichrist or for the devil, we're the enemy. The church. It's like the devil sent scouts into enemy territory.
Speaker 2:Corruption that we're seeing, good priests becoming like a holes or becoming stupid, good priests who were good priests on Monday,
Speaker 1:and by Saturday they were saying Francis is not a real pope. I guess maybe you weren't a good priest. Maybe you were an impostor all along, and now we see your true colors. And we see the same thing in laity. So the where I'm going with all this is simply this.
Speaker 1:Any enemy can spend a
Speaker 2:long time hiding and waiting if they're disciplined. Any enemy can
Speaker 1:spend a long time hiding, waiting, being invisible. But when it's time to launch the attack, that's when
Speaker 2:you see movement. That's when you hear chatter on the radio. That's when you see things moving in
Speaker 1:the distance or bushes rustling. When an attack is about to happen, that's when you start to see activity. Sometimes it's very subtle, but it's different from what it was, I don't know, five minutes ago kind of thing. So when I look at this from the perspective of a marine who knows warfare pretty well, it looks like an attack is about to happen. There's activity that wasn't there before.
Speaker 1:And it's strange activity. You know, the bushes are rustling and there's no wind. It's strange activity like these deceivers in Catholic media. Strange things I'm seeing in
Speaker 2:the pews at the parish level, In various parishes and various dioceses. Like strangely bad things. I'm also seeing strangely good things.
Speaker 1:Strangely good
Speaker 2:things that do not compute. Like that Carlo Acutis should not be possible. That's just strange. Others who have similar depth to his. Strange.
Speaker 2:Very strange. That should not be.
Speaker 1:I am telling you, and I
Speaker 2:believe this firmly with my whole heart, the Holy Spirit and the blessed mother are forming something. They're lighting fires.
Speaker 1:They're forming saints. Strange. Strange. That's strange. I have seen people make the strangest conversions.
Speaker 1:I'll give you an example of one priest who, of course, I will not name. What a progressive piece of garbage that man was. And then it was a few years since I had last encountered him. Maybe five, six, seven years had passed, and he was suddenly the most
Speaker 2:orthodox. If you knew this priest today,
Speaker 1:you would never think he was a progressive piece of garbage a decade or two ago. But he was. I mean, he
Speaker 2:was like a joke. You if you saw him today,
Speaker 1:you would never in a million years believe he used to be
Speaker 2:that. Strange. There are many, many deeply
Speaker 1:orthodox and devoted people in the seminaries and houses of formation. Many. The most orthodox, the most normal, there are waiting lists to get in. They're sending people away.
Speaker 2:I mean, religious orders. They're waiting lists. They're sending people either to different provinces, or they're just sending people away and saying waiting lists. There are a
Speaker 1:lot went to a mass just recently, nowhere near home. Nowhere near my home diocese. Priest was a young guy, might've been
Speaker 2:in his early thirties, mid thirties maybe. Young guy. Very, very, very, very, very, very old school. Very, very old school.
Speaker 1:The point I'm trying to make is there's activity out there, bad activity and good activity. It's just too strange. There's too much activity, and there's activity of very peculiar kind. Does that mean something is gonna happen tomorrow? No.
Speaker 1:I don't think so. Maybe not in my lifetime, but if it did happen in my lifetime, I wouldn't really be shocked. But something is coming together. That's what I think. Alright.
Speaker 1:Let me start wrapping
Speaker 2:this up. I didn't want to
Speaker 1:this was supposed every time I intend to do something quick, it goes long.
Speaker 2:I've been doing this now an hour and a half, man. That's, like, ridiculous. Let me try to wrap this up. I don't know how much antichrist talk we actually got in into here, but kinda went all over the place, and
Speaker 1:I was talking about this and talking about that. Hopefully, I strung together something that was interesting for you, but let me just recap. The pope is not the antichrist. That's dumb. The church is not the whore of Babylon.
Speaker 1:That's dumb. The antichrist won't necessarily be Jewish. I don't think it's dumb to think that, but I think it's pointless. Who cares? I don't care if he's Ronald McDonald.
Speaker 1:Maybe Ronald McDonald's the antichrist. Have you ever
Speaker 2:eaten those damn hamburgers? They're dangerous.
Speaker 1:And you wanna talk about a great deception? People think those hamburgers are good for you.
Speaker 2:Great deception, man. The antichrist will
Speaker 1:be a deceiver and will shake the faith of many. The antichrist will not be the devil,
Speaker 2:but the devil will be behind the antichrist. Like some church fathers believe the antichrist will probably be able to perform miracles
Speaker 1:or things that appear to be miracles. Let's put it that way. Think because only God can perform a miracle because only God is master over creation. So he the antichrist will do things
Speaker 2:that will appear to be miraculous. The antichrist will not be the devil.
Speaker 1:The antichrist will be a person, as I said, but the devil will be behind him. The coming of the antichrist will be a shaking of the faith of many. That will be the final chance for the faithful to choose. And this will be the faithful who some of whom have already chosen whether or not the pope is a legitimate pope.
Speaker 2:Okay. It will there will be
Speaker 1:a time for the faithful to ultimately choose. Do you really believe in God? Do you really have faith in Jesus Christ? Folks, how
Speaker 2:many time how many episodes have you heard me say, where
Speaker 1:is your faith in Jesus Christ? Because of this or because of this or because of this? Well, there's gonna be an ultimate choice to make. Do you really have faith in Jesus Christ as the real, true king and messiah, Or are you going
Speaker 2:to fall for this impostor? My brothers and sisters,
Speaker 1:do not be shocked that many will fall for the impostor. Ultimately, the church never loses. The church will win. And God is preparing the church to win now. The church, even just twenty years ago, is different from what the church is now.
Speaker 1:The church is much stronger now. And by that, I
Speaker 2:don't mean just the institution, but the people. The church is much stronger now, more vibrant now. The church today has, I feel, finally shaken itself free from the spirit of Vatican two nonsense, finally shaken itself free from the damage done by the seminaries and houses of formation through the sixties and seventies and
Speaker 1:part of the eighties. I believe the church is just now shaking itself free of all that, like, quite recently, the past five or ten years. And it's almost like there was a guy who was a great athlete and became a junkie, and he was homeless, and he was on drugs, and he was on alcohol for, like, forty, fifty years. And then he finally got clean and sober and clean shaven and freshly showered. He had his first truly nourishing meal in years.
Speaker 2:He's got his wits about him again, and he's seeing clearly now. And now he's started going back to the gym. And damn,
Speaker 1:he is really working those weights. That's the church. And I'm super excited about where it's going. And I think for my closing song today, I'm going to use man on the ledge because it's fitting given where this show went. Wasn't expecting that.
Speaker 1:If you've never seen my show before, and you expect that I'm going to sing now, you are wrong. I'm not going to sing. Because I I did sort of frame that like for my closing anthem today, I'm going to do I'm going to do happy birthday and then chopsticks. I kind of framed it as it almost sounded like I was going to sing it, but I am not. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, Catholics of all ages, this has been the hardest working man in all of Catholic podcasting, the Catholic adventurer.
Speaker 1:I am on a mission to form saints. Now hear me because I'm being super sincere right now. I'm on a mission to form you in the truth, to help you to know the truth, to live the truth, that you can become the truth. And that's no jive, man. I'm dead serious.
Speaker 1:This has been the Catholic Adventurer coming at you with this live episode of the Catholic Experience podcast on Substack. Thank you, and God bless you Substackers. I love you all. I really do because you're so supportive of of of what I do. And God bless you and be with you Instagrammers.
Speaker 1:I hope you like what I'm sending up there. I've been more active on the platform past couple weeks, and I hope you're enjoying what you're getting. Conservative chick says, I only have Instagram. That's cool. That's why I'm on Instagram.
Speaker 1:I'm on I'm I'm I'm giving Instagram another shot because I wanna give it another shot for the people who are only on that platform. So, yeah, man. Most definitely. Thanks for getting me on. You are most welcome.
Speaker 1:Only on Instagram. So, anyway, trying to be where the people are as long as the platform is is working for what I'm doing. Like on on Twitter, I like the platform, but it is not working for what I'm doing. I did this math once. You know, I don't remember the number, but it was something ridiculous.
Speaker 1:Like 98% of my followers saw less than 1% of what I posted. I mean, what is that? What what the hell is that? So I'm working my ass off over there on Twitter for nothing. So, bye.
Speaker 1:Bye Felicia. You also notice I'm not politically correct on this show. God bless you my friend. Consider following me on Instagram if you're already there at for the queen b v m. I'm doing stories.
Speaker 1:I'm doing posts. I'm doing podcast posts. I'm doing personal posts. I'm doing art. I'm doing video and a partridge in a pear tree.
Speaker 1:Follow me on Substack at catholicadventurer.substack.com. You can subscribe for free. If you would like to help put food on my family's table, can become a paid subscriber. For $5 a month, you get extra content and a slightly more a slightly enhanced experience and, the satisfaction of knowing that you're sending $5 a month to a Catholic evangelizer who's working his ass off for you, and for God, and for the church, for me saints. Signing out of here.
Speaker 1:God bless you. God be with you all. Bye bye.
