One of the hottest tickets in Rome these days is for a four-lecture series on the Antichrist being given by Silicon Valley tech billionaire Peter Thiel.
ROME (AP) — One of the hottest tickets in the Vatican’s backyard these days is for a four-lecture series on the Antichrist being given by Silicon Valley tech billionaire Peter Thiel.
The invitation-only conference in Rome, from Sunday to Wednesday, has proven so controversial that the Catholic universities initially associated with it have all denied official involvement.
Thiel is a co-founder of PayPal and Palantir, the data-mining company that has been assisting the Trump administration’s migrant deportation crackdown. An early donor to the political career of Vice President JD Vance, Thiel is also deeply interested in the apocalyptic concept of the Antichrist and has written and lectured on it before.
“Christians debated these prophecies for millennia. Who was the Antichrist? When would he arrive? What would he preach?” he mused in a November essay in the Catholic magazine First Things.
Catholic institutions take their distance
Discussion of the Antichrist by a tech billionaire in the Vatican’s backyard has proven divisive.
Initially, the lectures were reportedly going to be held the Pontifical St. Thomas Aquinas University, the Dominican university in Rome known colloquially as the Angelicum. It is best known these days as the place where a young priest named Robert Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV, wrote his canon law doctoral thesis.
But as word began to circulate in the Italian media about alleged secret lectures on the Antichrist by Thiel at the pope’s alma mater, the Angelicum took its distance:
“We would like to clarify that this event is not organized by the University, will not take place at the Angelicum, and is not part of any of our institutional initiatives,” the university said in a statement on its website.
According to an announcement for the event seen by The Associated Press, the lectures were “jointly organized” by an Italian organization, the Vincenzo Gioberti Cultural Association, and the Cluny Institute at the Catholic University of America in Washington.
The Gioberti group, which describes itself as a cultural association dedicated to the renewal of Italian political culture, confirmed it was involved. The association, named for a 19th century Italian Catholic priest-philosopher, said in a statement it believed in promoting research and encounters “based on the great tradition of classical and Christian thought. We believe this heritage is fundamental to addressing the crisis engulfing the contemporary West.”
But CUA distanced itself.
“The Catholic University of America is not sponsoring or hosting an event featuring Peter Thiel this month in Rome,” a university spokesperson told AP. “The Cluny Project is an independent initiative incubated at the university.”
The Cluny Institute is a new initiative of the CUA to bring together leaders from the worlds of academia, religion and technology. In 2023, CUA hosted Thiel at its Washington campus for a talk on René Girard, the French academic.
A fascination with the Antichrist
Thiel is known to be somewhat obsessed with the Antichrist — the Biblical term used to describe someone who opposes or denies Christ — and Armageddon — the Biblical final battle between good and evil. Thiel speaks of the concepts in terms of the choices facing humanity to confront the existential risks of the world today.
The Rome lectures appear to follow the blueprint of a four-part lecture series he gave in San Francisco last September. Some of the invitations circulating in Rome, for example, copy the description of the San Francisco event.
“His remarks will be anchored on science and technology, and will comment on the theology, history, literature and politics of the Antichrist. Religious thinkers upon whom Peter will draw include René Girard, Francis Bacon, Jonathan Swift, Carl Schmitt and John Henry Newman,” said one invitation.
Thiel, who co-founded PayPal in 1998, and other entrepreneurs of that era were part of a group dubbed the “PayPal Mafia,” including Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman, and YouTube co-founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen.
After PayPal was sold to eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion, Thiel then founded the hedge fund Clarium Capital Management and helped launch Palantir Technologies, which recently inked an agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to streamline the process of identifying and deporting people the agency is targeting.
Ties to the Trump administration
Thiel was a key advisor and donor to U.S. President Donald Trump during his first administration and has retained some ties to the White House. Palantir is also one of the donors to the White House’s ballroom project and David Sacks, who worked with Thiel at PayPal, is also chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
Thiel is also known to be close to Vance. He poured millions of dollars into Vance’s successful primary race for the U.S. Senate, from where Trump named him running mate and eventual vice president. Some see Thiel as a mentor to Vance, a Catholic convert and the most high-profile Catholic in U.S. politics.
Vance’s theological justification for the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrants, based on an ancient Christian concept of the order of love, received a famous slapdown from Pope Francis just before he died.
A few months before he was elected pope, Prevost shared an article from a Catholic publication from his now dormant account on X with the headline, “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.”
Vance attended Leo’s installation and later had an audience with him, during which he delivered a letter from Trump inviting Leo to visit.
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Associated Press writers Shawn Chen in New York, Pia Sarkar in Philadelphia and Barbara Ortutay in Colma, California contributed.
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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
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Comments
Behind the Bastards did a good two-parter on Thiel's lectures. He sounds dangerously insane.
It'd be bad enough if he was just some random crank, but the fact he's got the level of power and influence needed to actually make his beliefs happen makes it exponentially worse.
By camillomiller 2026-03-1311:596 reply Genuine questions: what can be done in a democratic setting to stop him?
Who should take into their hands the job to stop him, and to what lengths should they push themselves?
By beezlebroxxxxxx 2026-03-1312:161 reply > Genuine questions: what can be done in a democratic setting to stop him?
Thiel is only "relevant" because he's wealthy.
In a system that allows wealth to equal political power, systematically weakening the impact of wealth on civic and political systems is an effective method. Whether that can be done in America, with the current understanding of the constitution and the current philosophy that many take towards taxation/wealth is questionable; but the idea that we can do nothing is just not true. We don't need to slide back into an era of 19th century robber barons and pseudo-aristocracy. If we do, it's because we largely gave up or allowed it to happen.
The difference to robber Baron this time is that those companies have gone global, so a new Teddy Roosevelt being elected in USA wouldn't help, because these multinationals can just extend outside jurisdiction. Which is very similar to the actual dynamic of states/federal that Teddy tackled [1]
Unfortunately the political rhetoric have smeared "the globalists" and equated people that want global coordination to limit those multinationals with power, with the ones abusing it. Even the platform that was promising to drain the swamp turns out was just another swamp, so one would need to start from the scratch for that political movement.
By expedition32 2026-03-1312:561 reply The penchant for Christ clown insanity is distinctly American though. Secularism never truly touched the hearts of Americans.
By _DeadFred_ 2026-03-1319:10 Not sure your country but the internet isn't the USA. Secularism very much touched the hearts of Americans. Talarico's words are pretty good at embodying actual American belief.
The dixiecrats mascarading as Christian Republicans who HN treats as all American Christians don't even believe in the larger USA/Constitution/Human rights so yeah they ignore/are anti a lot of basic American beliefs. They are from a long line of loser traitors to our beliefs.
By yuppiepuppie 2026-03-1312:151 reply Ask yourself - where does his wealth (power) come from and how do you stop that?
In his case - I assume most of it is from Palantir these days. Therefore stop your governments from contracting with them.
By malfist 2026-03-1315:37 I'm sorry, a catholic and an lutheran is the face of jewish power?
By yuppiepuppie 2026-03-1313:41 > Voting, debate, democracy are for people that are on the same team.
Im sorry, but I dont agree with this one bit. Debate and the spread of ideas that you think are good is really the only thing that is lasting, regardless of which "team" you are on.
I also dont think America(ns) have been on the same team for its entire history. Its not a very recent phenomenon that neocons have pioneered.
> You do not vote your way out of these problems.
Are you suggesting something else?
By _DeadFred_ 2026-03-1315:34 Republicans/dixiecrats push these kinds of attacks undermining our systems/institutions. The message we should give them:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Kjah99E1fIo
If voting didn't work dixiecrats wouldn't be pushing the new voter ID law. Billionaires wouldn't be spending so much on elections. The entire premise/fantasy of 'elections don't work' is traitor/disenfranchisement/give up BS.
We voted our way out of the 1800s, our way to the New Deal. There have always been rich pushing un-American ideas. We didn't go 'welp, I guess the hyper rich plantation owners win, dissolve the country and continue slavery'. We beat the robber barons. We defeated the slavers. Time to feed the rich billionaires what we gave those that chose to be traitors before them. Fuck traitors. They win when we don't vote. Don't be the surrender meme:
By athrowaway3z 2026-03-1312:48 Not agreeing as a society that money == speech would be a good start.
I like that.
I also like a two-pronged approach which includes taxing the billionaires out of existence. I haven't heard any significant downside to doing that. All the more so when weighed against the possible upsides.
I think what frustrates me above all else is that we, as a society, as a people, could have it so much better.
We could all be living in such a better world but for the allowances we make for the most sociopathic and greedy among us.
By mattkevan 2026-03-1313:39 I sometimes think there should be a completion state to capitalism.
When you reach an arbitrary score, like $100 million, you get presented with a cup that says ‘congratulations, you won capitalism’ and are given the choice of either playing again from the start but this time on hard mode (no emerald mine or parents that are friends with the IBM chairman this time), or keeping your winnings on the condition that you and your family fuck off somewhere and are never seen or heard of again.
Seriously though, that billionaires can exist, that so much power and wealth can be concentrated in the hands of so few while so many have nothing is utterly repugnant.
By jackmott42 2026-03-1313:111 reply We are not in a democratic setting in America any more, the people in power are willing to start wars to protect pedophiles, they are willing to hire Nazi thugs to shoot your wives in the face. They are willing to bribe supreme court justices and dismantle democracy, and they will if not stopped by force.
Thiel has been obviously and evil sack of shit for decades but more than half of HN viewers revere him. I fear we have no hope, and the good people asking how we can democratically solve this problem makes me feel even more hopeless. Yall don't get it.
By _DeadFred_ 2026-03-1319:17 We defeated the incredibly rich southern slave owners. We can defeat these shitty traitors.
If voting didn't work, they wouldn't poor money into it. If voting didn't work, they wouldn't be trying to force their horrible new ID poll tax laws.
By avidphantasm 2026-03-1312:001 reply What would China do to such billionaires run amok?
By camillomiller 2026-03-1312:19 This is the only answer that has any reference to an actionable approach that has been proven to work.
By aaron695 2026-03-1312:57 [dead]
By seanalltogether 2026-03-1311:367 reply I grew up in a pretty religious household and my parents fully believed that Armageddon would happen in our lifetime. It wasn't until I was older that I realized there were a lot of American Christians that secretly held this belief, and that it has a meaningful influence on how voters want American politicians to deal with Israel and the Middle East in general.
It depends on the religion in the religious household. Its common among American evangelicals, but (unless American Catholics are very different from Catholics in the rest of the world) its not a common belief among Catholics, and its rarely discussed by them.
Why is Thiel, whose parents were American evangelical and whose own beliefs are described as "heterodox", trying to sell this in Catholic packaging outside the US?
>its not a common belief among Catholics, and its rarely discussed by them.
I'll do you one further, as someone from a deeply catholic country: Considering the triggering of Armaggedon in daily politics is seen as batshit crazy.
American Catholics aren't really a monolith on this matter...or any. There are substantial differences between Catholics who seek out Jesuit parishes and those who seek out the Tridentine Mass and people who are just achieving physical presence and thinking about kickoff at 5:00 PM Sunday Mass to fulfill obligation and get out ASAP (no choir please, keep that sermon snappy). All of these are spiritually valid approaches imho.
By kace91 2026-03-1312:38 The same is true here, yes. You'll see widely different stances and practical approaches to topics like immigration, premarital sex, and so on. Some people are strict, some people self define as catholic but only see church during weddings and funerals.
Putting effort in triggering the end of the world is nowhere on the spectrum though. I think if you told a priest you're pushing for that he would be seriously alarmed, like calling the police alarmed if you hold power.
By trollbridge 2026-03-1312:11 It remains a fact, though, that the Catholic Church doesn’t teach these things about Armageddon.
By lo_zamoyski 2026-03-1312:19 > American Catholics aren't really a monolith on this matter
No, but as a general rule, Catholics don’t and have never fretted about the end times the way all sorts of Protestant sects have, historically. Which is curious given Matthew 24:36 and all the hullabaloo Protestants make about being “scriptural”. And perhaps more importantly, because it has authority on such matters, Church teaching makes no claims about when the end of the world will occur and it never has, because it cannot.
By trollbridge 2026-03-1312:10 It is not even a universal belief among evangelicals. The denomination/overall group Peter Hegseth is part of (conservative Reformed Christianity) expressly teaches against this, or even makes fun of it.
I would venture that it is less than half of Christians who believe in this idea at all. It does seem to be the domain of wild eyed TV evangelists though.
By itsthecourier 2026-03-1312:171 reply there was a Catholic reason for this, the Fatima Sheppards. there was an "apparition" of Virgin Mary and some "Prophecies" that were really imprinted on all Catholics over 50 years old. pretty much anti-russian propaganda. they silently pedal back from them in the last 25 years. but last time I visited sn important catholic monument internationally, most of the people in the bus knew about them, how they talk about the end of the world but never realized the Vatican already made them public all and it was a sham.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Secrets_of_F%C3%A1tima
also end of the world prophecies are a Catholic meme
my favorite is Pope Sylvester II in 1000 AD
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dates_predicted_for_ap...
By rich_sasha 2026-03-1313:301 reply > pretty much anti-russian propaganda
Russia bit of the prophecies:
> [...] If my requests are [not] heeded, Russia [...] will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred; the Holy Father will have much to suffer; various nations will be annihilated.
I'm not sure it is fair to call it propaganda when it is bang on the money. Even the Holy Father bit checks out, seeing how John Paul II narrowly survived a KGB-sponsored assassination attempt.
By rainworld 2026-03-1316:57 Those who triumphed over “Russia” (also a tell) had anything but immaculate hearts.
> The good will be martyred; the Holy Father will have much to suffer; various nations will be annihilated.
Rings a bell. Errors are spreading but “Russian” they are not.
> The date of the attempted assassination, 13 May 1981, was the 64th anniversary of the first apparition of the Virgin Mary to the children at Fátima.
Do I have to spell it out.
By JKCalhoun 2026-03-1314:10 Growing up I was exposed to Baptists and Evangelicals that talked about the coming "Rapture". It has always felt like a wild revenge fantasy for the "faithful". A kind of, "Oh, you'll see soon enough, then you'll be sorry!"
Out of curiosity, what grounds their belief that it's going to happen soon? Why not in a thousand years? As far as I know, there is no mention of the exact date in the Bible.
By wl 2026-03-1312:04 The land of Israel has been a vassal state or part of another state or empire for most of recorded history. Israel becoming an independent state in 1948 ties in with messianic prophesy.
No, but even the first christians believed they were living in the end times. It's been believed for 2000 years.
By kubb 2026-03-1312:23 For the first Christians, it made sense. But gradually, as it didn't happen, people adjusted their expectations.
By rich_sasha 2026-03-1313:381 reply My favourite bit of Biblical trivia. Consider this passage from the Revelation of St John: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation%208%... describing, perhaps, events leading to the end of the world:
> The third angel blew his trumpet, and a great star fell from heaven, blazing like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. The name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters became wormwood, and many people died from the water, because it had been made bitter.
"Wormwood", a type of bitter plant, translates to Russian as "Chernobyl", and Ukrainian "Chornobyl": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl > Etymology
Sure, but this description doesn't correspond to what happened in Chernobyl, and none of the other trumpets have corresponding events.
So do the Evangelicals believe that Chernobyl disaster triggered the apocalypse, and that it has been happening ever since? I don't think so.
By rich_sasha 2026-03-1316:40 Yes, you would have to extend some poetic license.
This was a bit of ad lib, the US branch of Christianity follows it's own logic and sadly I cannot answer the serious question.
I'm pretty sure there were some bits in the Bible about loving thy enemy and turning the other cheek. But maybe I misremember.
It's a Pascal's wager. If you're convinced Armageddon is going to happen at some point, then you should do all you can to prepare for it happening in your lifetime. And that approach is explicitly encouraged in the Bible: "You do not know the day or hour", etc.
By kubb 2026-03-1312:25 Right "you do not know the day or the hour", not "you know that the day will be sometime between 2026 and 2076". I understand being prepared and whatnot. I don't understand the certainty of the date. Even the Bible says that it's unknown.
By wyldfire 2026-03-1312:04 The same self-centeredness that drove man to think that Earth was the center of its Universe.
See also: bean soup / "what about me?*
By UncleMeat 2026-03-1313:49 New Apostolic Reformationists believe that there are increasing number of "new apostles" who are receiving messages from God, which they see as evidence of the end times.
It is also common among these folks to believe that the end times don't just happen and that instead it is our responsibility to create the circumstances that enable the end times. This can either mean creating a state of instability and violence or creating a worldwide christian theocracy that lasts for 1000 years. Both involve massive upheavals of global systems.
By user3939382 2026-03-1312:311 reply Not only is there no date, it explicitly says the time and date is not known to us.
The closest we have to a "date" is Jesus claiming the current generation wouldn't pass away before the end times arrived, which obviously didn't happen. So even the "Son of God" got it wrong.
By user3939382 2026-03-1312:481 reply Wow thousands of years of theology all got it wrong, including Thomas Aquinas and some of the smartest people who ever lived. If only they had your brilliant HN thesis they could have saved so much time and understood so much more.
By krapp 2026-03-1312:51 Owwie looks like I'm going to need some lotion for that sick burn.
By seanalltogether 2026-03-1313:42 I believe it was related to both Israel gaining statehood after WW2, and the panic of nuclear disaster leading up to the end of the Cold War. It feels like a idea that really took root in the minds of evangelical Baby Boomers and early GenXers, but likely has lost all meaning to millenials.
I grew up in a religious household as a Roman Catholic, in an extremely religious country(Poland) and I've never heard anyone talk about apocalypse as something that might happen soon or well...ever. From my point of view, the "christianity" that American Evangelicals practice is almost unrecognizable as having the same base with the religion I grew up with. Like the core tennets of Jesus have been twisted and warped to serve a very narrow political agenda. That's not to say Roman Catholics don't use religion for politics, but Evangelism is just.....next level?
Well, even European Evangelicals are vastly different from their American counterparts. There's no megachurches, prosperity gospel, televangelism, and the religion is not as strongly intertwined with politics.
By wl 2026-03-1313:26 Blame William Miller for American Evangelicalism's preoccupation with the end times.
By dep_b 2026-03-1312:11 It’s almost like they reject the parts of the bible featuring Christ, and only cling on to the Old Testament and the parts after Christ as their guide.
In lack of a better word, that sounds more like anti-Cristian
By _DeadFred_ 2026-03-1315:44 I see/hear way more end times doomerism/blow it all up/end it all from my secular friends than I have ever heard Armageddon talk from Christians, but I don't live in the south.
That belief is very common in secular settings. Marx and current day offshoots believed in a war that will bring redemption and utopia, other complete atheists believe in the inevitable environmental disaster (not whether it is happening but the belief that it cannot be prevented or fixed)
By amanaplanacanal 2026-03-1312:40 Also similar is a belief in the AI singularity.
By orwin 2026-03-1316:11 To be clear, Marx believed in the 'march of progress', basically that the constant struggle between classes during the middle age as well as the scientific revolution killed feudal society to give birth to capitalism (which is a very reductionist view of what happened, because the knowledge we had on feudal society then was _extremely_ skewed, but for the time it wasn't that crazy), and that the struggle between the capital class and the worker class will kill capitalism to create socialism (which isn't what is called socialism in Europe right now, it is closer to what European call communism), which is the last step before communism (basically a state of nature where everything goes so well you don't need the state. An ordered anarchy where everyone works for themselves and the society, without coercion from other people or entity). He use violent term (struggle), but never talked about a violent war or revolution, on the opposite, he took the French revolution as an example to avoid if I remember correctly (it has been more than a decade now. I'm old as fuck).
Some of his offshot do believe in a necessary war though. Leninism and Stalinism are the most famous one. Some of them take the US revolution as an example to follow.
By surgical_fire 2026-03-1312:04 I think there's an extra layer of crazy there.
So, you (not you, a generic you) believe that Armageddon is happening in your lifetime, and the event is the literal moment when God will pour his Holy Wrath against unrepentant sinners in a final judgement as the world wraps up... And you, deeply religious as you are, will obviously go to Heaven, while all the annoying people you rightly hate will go to Hell, to be punished for eternity.
Considering this, is it not obvious that this hypothetical person would wish for Armageddon already? I mean, for you it is the final prize.
I believe these people don't want a future. They want the end.
By rokkamokka 2026-03-1311:213 reply This is an attempt at a reverse Streisand effect, right? He didn't like people memeing that he was the antichrist, so he did all this so any searches would turn up his lectures rather than the memes/accusations.
By 3rodents 2026-03-1311:33 No, he has been ranting and raving about the antichrist for at least a decade. He and JD Vance bonded over it.
https://www.wired.com/story/the-real-stakes-real-story-peter...
By Gud 2026-03-1316:46 No, Peter Thiel is a nut job and these are his beliefs.
Unfortunately, he also knows everything about you and everybody else in the so called free world.
By graemep 2026-03-1311:34 Possibly, but I think he does believe it. it fits.
A Google search turns up the usual stuff (e.g. his Wikipedia page) and then a Youtube video accusing him of destroying democracy, so if that is what he is trying its not working: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=peter%20thiel&sei=tfWzadnD...
