The Antichrist: Has he launched his final campaign against the Savior?

After almost 40 years, still the best treatment of the subject in the back of everyone’s mind….
“[Pope John Paul II] is driven by his foreboding that the world is heading toward a moral apocalypse.” – Newsweek, 1979

The late pope’s preoccupation came as no surprise to readers of Fr. Vincent Miceli’s timeless book, which masterfully summarized Church teaching on the “End Times”. Fr. Miceli keynotes his investigation of the last days with this quote from John Paul II:

“I do not think the wide circles of American society or the wide circles of the Christian community realize…we are now facing the final confrontation between the Church and the Anti-Church.”

Fr. Miceli doesn’t pretend to know who the Antichrist is, where he’ll appear, or when. But he does line up the signs of the times – linking these signs with the prophecies in Daniel, the New Testament, the early Church Fathers – and prophetic modern voices like Newman, Solzhenitsyn, Pius XII. Some of his insights are jolting:

• 6 key features of the modern world that correspond alarmingly with apocalyptic prophecy
• To whom does God give the gift of prophecy? How should we look upon modern-day evangelists who claim the gift? Rules for recognizing false prophets
• 3 stages in the evolution of evil as it prepares man to receive and worship Antichrist. How far have we proceeded?
• The Antichrist and the New Christianity. Five marks of the latter, all dissected
• The role of Islam and Judaism in the end times
• How Western – especially American – society’s war against religion in public life corresponds to key apocalyptic prophecies
• The Antichrist’s precursors: how to identify them
• One reliable sign of the Antichrist. Five things we know about him. Will he be different from Satan? One man or many? For answers, Fr. Miceli turns to Scripture and the early Fathers
• Common misconceptions about the Antichrist spread by televangelists and popular books
• 10 features of Antichrist’s religion, according to Church Fathers. Where will he rise? How he will per