The Antichrist, Power, and the Catholic Imagination 09-04-25
In mid September 2025, billionaire investor and technology entrepreneur Peter Thiel, best known as a cofounder of PayPal and Palantir Technologies, and an early backer of Facebook, will stand before a sold out audience at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. His subject is not venture capital, artificial intelligence, or defense technology. Instead, Thiel will deliver a four part series of lectures on the Antichrist. Organized by the ACTS 17 Collective, these talks will explore the theological, historical, and political dimensions of the Antichrist, drawing on thinkers as varied as René Girard, Francis Bacon, Jonathan Swift, Carl Schmitt, and Cardinal John Henry Newman.
It is a striking choice for a man who has amassed a fortune estimated at more than 20 billion dollars, built a company that provides surveillance and data analysis platforms for governments, and shaped Silicon Valley culture with a contrarian vision. But for those who know Thiel’s intellectual influences, this turn is not surprising. His interests reach beyond markets and code into the deeper question of how societies hold together or fall apart. And it is here that the Catholic imagination offers both a lens of clarity and a word of caution.
Girard: Mimetic Desire and the Cross
Thiel’s greatest intellectual debt is to René Girard, the French Catholic thinker under whom he studied at Stanford. Girard’s insight was that human desire is imitative: we want what others want, which inevitably leads to rivalry, envy, and violence. Societies stabilize themselves through the scapegoat mechanism, unifying against a victim whose expulsion restores peace.
But Christianity unmasks this cycle. In the Passion of Christ, the victim is revealed as innocent, and the mechanism is laid bare. For Catholics, the Cross is the decisive rupture: sacrificial violence is exposed and overcome, replaced with the call to communion.
Applied to our world, Girard’s analysis shows why technological acceleration, fueled by social media rivalry, economic envy, and geopolitical competition, can drive societies toward apocalyptic collapse. Thiel, alert to these pressures, invokes Girard to explain the fragility of our age. Catholic teaching insists the antidote is not scapegoating or domination but reconciliation in Christ, the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world.
Bacon: Knowledge as Power, and Its Limits
Thiel also invokes Francis Bacon, whose famous phrase “knowledge is power” marked the dawn of modern science. Bacon envisioned empirical method as a way to master nature and improve human life.
Thiel’s own empire rests on this Baconian legacy. Palantir, founded in 2003 with CIA seed funding, provides powerful data analysis tools to intelligence agencies, militaries, and corporations. Its promise is knowledge that can protect and control. Yet Catholic teaching warns that knowledge divorced from moral order quickly becomes a tool of domination. As Gaudium et Spes teaches, “man’s power grows daily, but it is not always that it grows in a manner corresponding to his moral progress.”
Here lies the Catholic critique: science and technology are gifts, but when unmoored from the dignity of the human person, they risk becoming the machinery of Antichrist. The temptation is to build systems so powerful that they promise salvation without grace, progress without conversion. Laudato Si’ echoes this concern, warning that the technocratic paradigm easily becomes destructive when it claims mastery rather than stewardship.
Schmitt: Sovereignty and the Temptation of Idolatry
Carl Schmitt, the German legal theorist, defined politics as the distinction between friend and enemy and argued that sovereignty is revealed in moments of crisis. Schmitt’s political theology sees secular authority as borrowing its concepts from theology, with sovereign power mirroring divine omnipotence.
For Catholics, this insight is both illuminating and dangerous. It reminds us that politics always carries theological weight. But it also warns us that the state can drift into idolatry, claiming ultimate allegiance that belongs only to God. In Catholic eschatology, this is precisely the role of the Antichrist, the false sovereign who demands worship, presenting himself as savior in place of Christ.
Thiel, attuned to Schmitt, frames his lecture series in this political theological register. But Catholic teaching places the decisive check here: sovereignty rests in Christ the King, whose authority is exercised not through coercion but through love. Fratelli Tutti emphasizes that authentic politics must be rooted in fraternity and the common good, not domination or exclusion. Any political or technological order that claims to secure salvation apart from Christ is a counterfeit.
Swift: Satire as Prophecy
Jonathan Swift, the Anglican cleric and satirist best known for Gulliver’s Travels, also enters Thiel’s constellation. Swift’s biting satire unmasked the absurdities of human pride, the follies of political ambition, and the false promises of progress. In his work, the very pursuit of utopia is revealed as destructive folly.
Catholic teaching resonates with Swift’s insight: whenever human pride inflates itself into self salvation, whether through empire, ideology, or technology, it collapses into absurdity. Swift’s gift was to laugh at this pride, exposing its danger with wit sharper than any blade. For Thiel, Swift reminds us that sometimes the surest warning against Antichrist comes not from solemn discourse but from prophetic satire that unmasks deception by ridicule.
Newman: Conscience and the Spirit of Antichrist
Finally, Thiel looks to Cardinal John Henry Newman, whose nineteenth century writings probed the nature of conscience, development of doctrine, and the trials of the Church in modernity. Newman warned of the spirit of Antichrist that works subtly in every age, eroding conscience, corrupting reason, and replacing truth with expedience.
For Catholics, Newman provides the interior counterpoint to Girard, Bacon, Schmitt, and Swift. He reminds us that the battle with Antichrist is not only political or technological but deeply personal. It is fought in the conscience of every man and woman. To resist the counterfeit savior requires a conscience formed in truth, obedient to God, and vigilant in charity. Spe Salvi reminds us that hope rooted in Christ allows conscience to resist despair and deception.
A Catholic Reading of Thiel’s Project
When read together, these thinkers form a wide ranging but coherent set of warnings. Girard exposes the violence of rivalry and scapegoating. Bacon unveils the double edged sword of technological mastery. Schmitt discloses the political temptation to claim ultimate authority. Swift ridicules the folly of human pride and utopian delusion. Newman warns of the corruption of conscience and the subtle workings of the spirit of Antichrist.
For Catholics, these are not just philosophical notes. They describe the terrain of Antichrist. The Antichrist will thrive on mimetic frenzy, exploit technological control, claim sovereign power, seduce through utopian promises, and erode the conscience of individuals. In each case, the Catholic answer is clear: only Christ reconciles rivalry into communion, transforms knowledge into stewardship, redeems sovereignty through the Cross, humbles human pride with the truth, and forms conscience in holiness.
Thiel’s fascination with these questions reflects his awareness of living at an inflection point, where technology, politics, and theology converge. But the Church must remind both him and us that no billionaire, no empire, no platform can serve as katechon, the restraining force against evil. Only Christ the Lord fulfills that role.
Vigilance with Hope
Thiel’s lectures may unsettle Silicon Valley, but they invite us to rediscover something the Catholic faith has always known: that history is a spiritual battlefield, and the figure of Antichrist is not myth but warning. Yet the Gospel insists that the final word does not belong to Antichrist, or to any earthly power, but to Christ, who will return in glory.
In a world obsessed with rivalry, seduced by technology, tempted by authoritarianism, inflated by pride, and numbed in conscience, the Catholic imagination is called to vigilance without despair. For even as the mystery of iniquity unfolds, the Church proclaims with unshakable confidence:
“Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil 2:11). 👉 ISSUES OG OUR TIME
It is a striking choice for a man who has amassed a fortune estimated at more than 20 billion dollars, built a company that provides surveillance and data analysis platforms for governments, and shaped Silicon Valley culture with a contrarian vision. But for those who know Thiel’s intellectual influences, this turn is not surprising. His interests reach beyond markets and code into the deeper question of how societies hold together or fall apart. And it is here that the Catholic imagination offers both a lens of clarity and a word of caution.
Girard: Mimetic Desire and the Cross
Thiel’s greatest intellectual debt is to René Girard, the French Catholic thinker under whom he studied at Stanford. Girard’s insight was that human desire is imitative: we want what others want, which inevitably leads to rivalry, envy, and violence. Societies stabilize themselves through the scapegoat mechanism, unifying against a victim whose expulsion restores peace.
But Christianity unmasks this cycle. In the Passion of Christ, the victim is revealed as innocent, and the mechanism is laid bare. For Catholics, the Cross is the decisive rupture: sacrificial violence is exposed and overcome, replaced with the call to communion.
Applied to our world, Girard’s analysis shows why technological acceleration, fueled by social media rivalry, economic envy, and geopolitical competition, can drive societies toward apocalyptic collapse. Thiel, alert to these pressures, invokes Girard to explain the fragility of our age. Catholic teaching insists the antidote is not scapegoating or domination but reconciliation in Christ, the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world.
Bacon: Knowledge as Power, and Its Limits
Thiel also invokes Francis Bacon, whose famous phrase “knowledge is power” marked the dawn of modern science. Bacon envisioned empirical method as a way to master nature and improve human life.
Thiel’s own empire rests on this Baconian legacy. Palantir, founded in 2003 with CIA seed funding, provides powerful data analysis tools to intelligence agencies, militaries, and corporations. Its promise is knowledge that can protect and control. Yet Catholic teaching warns that knowledge divorced from moral order quickly becomes a tool of domination. As Gaudium et Spes teaches, “man’s power grows daily, but it is not always that it grows in a manner corresponding to his moral progress.”
Here lies the Catholic critique: science and technology are gifts, but when unmoored from the dignity of the human person, they risk becoming the machinery of Antichrist. The temptation is to build systems so powerful that they promise salvation without grace, progress without conversion. Laudato Si’ echoes this concern, warning that the technocratic paradigm easily becomes destructive when it claims mastery rather than stewardship.
Schmitt: Sovereignty and the Temptation of Idolatry
Carl Schmitt, the German legal theorist, defined politics as the distinction between friend and enemy and argued that sovereignty is revealed in moments of crisis. Schmitt’s political theology sees secular authority as borrowing its concepts from theology, with sovereign power mirroring divine omnipotence.
For Catholics, this insight is both illuminating and dangerous. It reminds us that politics always carries theological weight. But it also warns us that the state can drift into idolatry, claiming ultimate allegiance that belongs only to God. In Catholic eschatology, this is precisely the role of the Antichrist, the false sovereign who demands worship, presenting himself as savior in place of Christ.
Thiel, attuned to Schmitt, frames his lecture series in this political theological register. But Catholic teaching places the decisive check here: sovereignty rests in Christ the King, whose authority is exercised not through coercion but through love. Fratelli Tutti emphasizes that authentic politics must be rooted in fraternity and the common good, not domination or exclusion. Any political or technological order that claims to secure salvation apart from Christ is a counterfeit.
Swift: Satire as Prophecy
Jonathan Swift, the Anglican cleric and satirist best known for Gulliver’s Travels, also enters Thiel’s constellation. Swift’s biting satire unmasked the absurdities of human pride, the follies of political ambition, and the false promises of progress. In his work, the very pursuit of utopia is revealed as destructive folly.
Catholic teaching resonates with Swift’s insight: whenever human pride inflates itself into self salvation, whether through empire, ideology, or technology, it collapses into absurdity. Swift’s gift was to laugh at this pride, exposing its danger with wit sharper than any blade. For Thiel, Swift reminds us that sometimes the surest warning against Antichrist comes not from solemn discourse but from prophetic satire that unmasks deception by ridicule.
Newman: Conscience and the Spirit of Antichrist
Finally, Thiel looks to Cardinal John Henry Newman, whose nineteenth century writings probed the nature of conscience, development of doctrine, and the trials of the Church in modernity. Newman warned of the spirit of Antichrist that works subtly in every age, eroding conscience, corrupting reason, and replacing truth with expedience.
For Catholics, Newman provides the interior counterpoint to Girard, Bacon, Schmitt, and Swift. He reminds us that the battle with Antichrist is not only political or technological but deeply personal. It is fought in the conscience of every man and woman. To resist the counterfeit savior requires a conscience formed in truth, obedient to God, and vigilant in charity. Spe Salvi reminds us that hope rooted in Christ allows conscience to resist despair and deception.
A Catholic Reading of Thiel’s Project
When read together, these thinkers form a wide ranging but coherent set of warnings. Girard exposes the violence of rivalry and scapegoating. Bacon unveils the double edged sword of technological mastery. Schmitt discloses the political temptation to claim ultimate authority. Swift ridicules the folly of human pride and utopian delusion. Newman warns of the corruption of conscience and the subtle workings of the spirit of Antichrist.
For Catholics, these are not just philosophical notes. They describe the terrain of Antichrist. The Antichrist will thrive on mimetic frenzy, exploit technological control, claim sovereign power, seduce through utopian promises, and erode the conscience of individuals. In each case, the Catholic answer is clear: only Christ reconciles rivalry into communion, transforms knowledge into stewardship, redeems sovereignty through the Cross, humbles human pride with the truth, and forms conscience in holiness.
Thiel’s fascination with these questions reflects his awareness of living at an inflection point, where technology, politics, and theology converge. But the Church must remind both him and us that no billionaire, no empire, no platform can serve as katechon, the restraining force against evil. Only Christ the Lord fulfills that role.
Vigilance with Hope
Thiel’s lectures may unsettle Silicon Valley, but they invite us to rediscover something the Catholic faith has always known: that history is a spiritual battlefield, and the figure of Antichrist is not myth but warning. Yet the Gospel insists that the final word does not belong to Antichrist, or to any earthly power, but to Christ, who will return in glory.
In a world obsessed with rivalry, seduced by technology, tempted by authoritarianism, inflated by pride, and numbed in conscience, the Catholic imagination is called to vigilance without despair. For even as the mystery of iniquity unfolds, the Church proclaims with unshakable confidence:
“Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil 2:11). 👉 ISSUES OG OUR TIME