The problem with the Flotilla, to quote Mark Steyn, is the same as “the problem with the United Nations: if you mix ice cream with a bit of dog s—, the result will always taste like dog s— and not like ice cream.”
Apparently, millions of Westerners like ice cream with dog s—.
It was well known to everyone that those involved in the Flotilla were dangerous, useless idiots. All it took was looking beyond the shallow morning headlines in the newspapers.
Now we have discovered the presence of three prominent faces from the Flotilla at none other than the funeral of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
“We will help you keep this revolution alive.” Speaking in front of supporters of the Islamic Republic gathered for Ali Khamenei’s funeral, Brazilian activist Lisi Proença said: “The Global South, united, will put an end to American imperialism. We are here to tell the Iranian people that we stand with you. Tell us what you need.”
Proença is one of the faces of the Global Sumud Flotilla, who arrived in Iran together with Irishman Tadhg Hickey and Brazilian lawyer Ariadne Teles, both also part of the Flotilla.
Hickey describes Iran as “the center of anti-imperialism,” while Teles states: “Before arriving here, I only knew Iran through Western media. I found a completely different reality. Khamenei is like Fidel Castro, Che Guevara – all those revolutionaries who led their people toward freedom.”
Freedom?
In the name of the “Global South,” here is the alliance that unites real oppressors with imaginary oppressed.
True solidarity, for those safe in the West, should be directed toward the populations oppressed by these regimes, not toward their executioners in ideological uniform.
Thiago Avila, one of the best-known faces of the Flotilla, had even attended the funeral in Beirut of Hezbollah’s dear leader, Hassan Nasrallah. Hickey had also been at Nasrallah’s funeral along with Tara Reynor O’Grady, who is also on the Flotilla.
Another well-known face of the Flotilla, MEP Rima Hassan, is currently on trial in Paris defending herself against charges of “apology for terrorism.”
The Flotilla has brought no help to the people of Gaza, but plenty of publicity to Hamas and many mirrors to the West. And what it reflects is hideous – even if millions of Westerners are crazy about ice cream with dog s—.
The Valley of the Fallen, a memorial for the victims of the Spanish Civil War. Wikimedia Commons, Richard Mortel , CC-BY-2.0
This Saturday, July 18, marks the 90th anniversary of the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, an upheaval that attracted 35,000 volunteer soldiers from 52 different countries to Spain to fight for what they were told was perhaps the last remaining democracy in a Europe where freedom was dying out.
Yet since the end of the war in 1939, relatively little has been said outside of Spain about those events once at the center of the world’s stage. What little memory there is left of those years in the collective mind is dominated by the novel For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway, who was embedded, as a journalist, in the defeated International Brigades. This may explain why, as noted by historian Eric Hobsbawm, the Spanish Civil War is one of the few events whose history has not been written by the victors but by the vanquished, i.e. these very brigades, composed of Marxists, socialists and anarchists who, when they left Spain, fell silent about the butchery they had witnessed (with the notable exception of George Orwell).
In preparation for the Grand Jubilee of the year 2000, St. John Paul II designated an International Theological Commission to single out all possible faults of the past for which the Catholic Church should repent in order to start the third Millennium with a clean slate. The Commission had intended to include among them the Church’s role in the events of the Spanish Civil War, but Spain’s episcopate refused to do so, pointing out that the Catholic Church had been among its victims. The international press left it at that, but the Church has quietly been writing its own history by simply beatifying and canonizing thousands of Spanish bishops, priests, nuns, seminarians and Catholic laity as martyrs of the faith in the 1930s. As recently as last May, Pope Leo XIV signed off on another 80 martyrs, bringing the total number of Spanish martyrs recognized by the Catholic Church to a colossal 2,334. However, this is far behind the totals referred to by historians by about two-thirds.
Yet there is still a sort of unspoken gag rule about the events in 1930s Spain, which the bishops made every effort to lift, particularly with the collective letter addressed to their fellow Catholics in the world at large on July 1, 1937, a year after the uprising. Signed by almost all of the bishops still living in their dioceses at the time, and approved by Rome, the letter is a plea for help in getting the truth out to the world, a truth that may be of help in sorting out some of the otherwise inexplicable events of today as well.
Echoing the words of Pius XI’s Divini Redemptoris, which described communism as “intrinsically perverse,” the Spanish bishops tell a story entirely different from those handed down by the mainstream. The main thrust of the letter is what one hardly ever reads anywhere, and certainly not in school books: an indictment of the stealthy communist penetration into the public arena, heavily financed by the U.S.S.R. for years before the Nationalists ever reacted by seeking help from the dictators of Italy and Germany.
“On July 18, 1936, the military revolt took place,” wrote the bishops, “and the war which is still ongoing broke out. But be it noted, first, that the military revolt was not produced, from its beginnings, without the collaboration of the sound element among the people, which joined the Movement in great numbers, and it can therefore be qualified as a civic-military movement.”
This was because the massacres did not begin in 1936, as a result of the conflict between, on the one hand, the left-wing parties that had “won” the elections and, on the other hand, their nationalist opponents — but much earlier, out of an unprecedentedly brutal religious persecution carried out by well-trained communists, anarchists and socialists, who were determined to wipe out the Catholic Church in its entirety.
Elected to office in 1931, the leftist factions, under the common name of republicans, once having done away with the monarchy, immediately created a climate of anti-Catholic hatred which culminated in the burning down of churches and the cold-blooded murder of countless priests, bishops, nuns, seminarians and laity.
The evidence they left behind is abundant. Not only was there no attempt to conceal it, there was not even a way of failing to see it: the rojos displayed their cynical brutality to the point of exhibiting the corpses they dug up in the cemeteries they desecrated, aiming to demonstrate that even religious people die and stay dead.
In those years, the left worked on corroding social relationships, emptying out the economy, weakening the police forces, and then filling the void with ideas meant to support and perpetuate the revolution.
The bishops wrote that the “political regime of democratic freedom was unsettled through arbitrary actions on the part of the authorities, of the State and through government connivance, which overrode the will of the people,” up to the point when, “at the parliamentary elections of February 1936, despite a majority of more than half a million votes over the Left, the Right had 118 fewer deputies than the Popular Front, because the votes of entire provinces had been canceled at will, thus corrupting at its source the legitimacy of Parliament.”
At the same time: “(A)nother powerful people, Russia, was combining with the communists of Spain, by means of the theatre and the cinema, through the introduction of foreign ways and customs, through intellectual trickery and material bribery, and preparing the people’s spirit for the breaking out of a revolution which could be predicted with almost exact precision.”
In particular, “on the 27th of February 1936, immediately after the triumph of the Popular Front, Russia’s Komintern decreed the outbreak of the Spanish rebellion and funded it with extraordinary sums of money. On the 1st of May hundreds of young people in Madrid publicly amassed “bombs and guns, powder and dynamite for the coming revolution.” On the 16th of that same month, there was a meeting between the envoys from the U.S.S.R. with the Spanish delegates from the Third International at the “People’s House” in Valencia, where it was determined, in the ninth of their agreements, to entrust No. 25 of the Madrid “Radios” Committees, together with the policemen on duty, with the task of the elimination of the political and military personages destined to play an important role in the counter-revolution. Meanwhile, from Madrid to the remotest of the villages, the revolutionary militias were receiving military training and were so abundantly armed that, when the war began, they numbered 150,000 shock troops and 100,000 reserves.
To prove their contention that “the massacre of people and things by the communist revolution was premeditated,” the bishops also specified that “79 specialized agitators had arrived from Russia shortly before the uprising. In those very same days the National Commission of Marxist Unification ordered revolutionary militias to be set up in every country. The destruction of the churches, or at least of their furniture, was systematic and in set sequence. In a matter of a month all of the churches had been rendered of no use for public worship.”
The unequivocal proof that such an immense devastation was premeditated “are the terrifying numbers. Although the estimates are not final as of yet, we can safely say that about 20,000 churches have been destroyed or totally ransacked. The priests who have been put to death, even just limiting the count to the secular clergy, amount to about six thousand. They even set the dogs on them, hunting them down all the way up into the mountains; they were hunted down savagely into every possible hiding place. Most of the times they were killed without any trial, with no charges held against them except for their very social mission.”
“Many had their limbs cut off, or were mutilated before being killed; they had their eyes gouged out, their tongue cut off, or they were shot at from a dominant position, others were burned or buried alive, or hacked to death with an axe. The utmost ferocity was used against the ministers of God. Women were violated, showing no respect even for the ones who had consecrated themselves to God. Tombs and cemeteries were desecrated. This work of destruction was carried out with the battle cry ‘Long live Russia!’, under the banner of international communism…”
To those who claimed that if only Francisco Franco had refrained from leading the uprising, the thousands upon thousands of religious clergy and laity would not have died but could have continued their service to the church, the bishops’ reply is that “the truth is exactly the opposite: the detailed plan aiming to carry out a Marxist revolution, which would have broken out all over the world if it hadn’t been prevented in a large measure by the military-civic movement, was preordained for the following purposes: to exterminate the Catholic Clergy and the most qualified Catholic right-wing men, to sovietize all the industries and to install communism.” This was also openly admitted to on the radio, in January of that year, by one of the leaders of the anarchists: “We must tell it the way it is; the armed forces preceded us in order to prevent us from succeeding in unleashing the revolution.”
The worldwide disinformation campaign, financed directly by Moscow, used the classical subversion technique of the left: blaming the tragedy on the victim, i.e. placing the Catholic Church in the defendant’s docket, so that, after having completely destroyed her material presence, they might succeed in annihilating her reputation as well.
Hence among the mistakes to be rectified are also slanders directly aimed at the Church. For example: “The Church has been accused of defending itself against a people’s movement, transforming her churches into fortresses, and thus leading to the massacre of clergy and the ruin of the churches. We deny this. The attack on the churches was sudden, almost simultaneous in all regions, and coincided with the butchery of priests. The churches were burned because they were the houses of God and the clergy were sacrificed because they were the Ministers of God.”
Besides, “We are asked from abroad to say whether it is true that the Church in Spain owned one-third of the national territory and that the people have revolted in order to free themselves from her oppression. The Church did not possess more than a few and insignificant portions of land, presbyteries and schools, and even of this the State had recently taken possession. All that the Church possesses in Spain would not cover a quarter of her needs, and is devoted to the most sacred obligations.”
Police arrest 12 over suspected far-right threat against Islamic event in Suffolk – The Guardian
Twelve arrested over terror threat to Islamic festival – The Telegraph
‘Extreme right-wing terror’ threat: UK police arrest 12 over plot targeting Islamic event – Times of India
And the current update on the ‘Extreme right-wing terror’ threat’…
Here’s the official Al-Met Police statement courtesy of top cop, or top something, Commander Helen Flanagan
“This has been a fast-moving investigation after we became aware of information to indicate there was a potential threat towards the Islamic event over the course of last weekend. Since then, we have made extensive enquiries, but at this time, we have found no evidence to support anyone being charged with any offences linked to the alleged threat.”
“While I know this may still be very concerning to the public and particularly to those in the Muslim community, I want to reassure them that our enquiries are ongoing. Should we identify any potential offences or threats to the public then we will not hesitate to take further action.”
The intrepid authorities however have managed to charge a 42-year-old man… “with two offences linked to possession of offensive weapons – namely extendable batons – as well as possession of a stun gun.”
Think of all the people he could have killed with that baton and stun gun.
The media is however not giving up on its narrative.
Counter terror police investigating threat to Islamic event charge man with weapons offences – Sky News
The Sky News story fills the first paragraphs with stories about those deadly batons and buries the police admission that there is no evidence for the lie that the media keeps telling after three ad jumps. The Independent, true to form, buries it at the very bottom.
Former taxi driver Ismail Haji, his brother, Imran Haji, and Ibrahim Kola have all been released onto Britain’s streets | WEST YORKSHIRE POLICE
A group of rape gang perpetrators have been released from prison years before they finished their jail sentences, GB News can reveal.
Sharing the exclusive report on the People’s Channel, Alex Armstrong named the child rapists, all from the Kirklees area of West Yorkshire, who had been released only having served less than half their jail term.
Former taxi driver Ismail Haji, his brother, Imran Haji, and Ibrahim Kola have all been released before serving their full sentences.
The three men were sentenced to lengthy prison sentences back in 2016 after preying on the “most vulnerable people in our communities”, West Yorkshire Police said.
Ismail Haji, then 39 years old, was sentenced to 19 years in prison for three counts of rape, two counts of sexual activity with a child, two counts of grooming and two counts of trafficking.
Upon his release last year, he served a mere fraction of his prison sentence, having spent less than half of his term behind bars.
Imran Haji, who was 36 at the time of imprisonment, received a jail sentence of eight years for rape and trafficking at Leeds Crown Court.
He was released in 2019 after just three years, which meant that the convict also served less than half his term.
Ibrahim Kola, 36, was originally sentenced to 10 years for rape and trafficking and he was out in 2021 after just five years, half of his sentence.
And a fourth man, Mohammed Chothia, a factory worker, was jailed for 13 years for grooming, trafficking and taking indecent photos of a child.
It is currently unclear whether Chothia has been released early.
The “vile” gang members were thrown in jail after a 13-year-old victim informed a school welfare officer that she had been seriously sexually assaulted in 2014.
After the sentence, Detective Inspector Lis Walker of West Yorkshire Police said: “These men took advantage of young and vulnerable victims for the sole purpose of sexually abusing them.
“They were devious and manipulative in order to achieve their vile objectives.”
The teenage victim first met Chothia and Ismail Haji in August 2014 in Thornes Park in Wakefield.
Along with another 15-year-old, the pair were introduced to Imran Haji and Kola before a series of sexual assaults took place at an address in Dewsbury.
Reacting live on-air about the offenders’ early release, Alex fumed that it was “disgusting these are free from prison”.
“Utterly disgusting,” he reiterated. “It also is astounding to me that these child rapists and paedophiles, who are part of one of the most heinous crimes in the history of our country, have been released back onto our streets without a whimper from the press or from any Government.
“Everyone should know who these men are. Everyone should see their faces. Everyone should know their names.
“And I feel beyond sick for the victims who are going to serve a life sentence of pain and suffering while their rapists walk free in this country, released early from their punishment.”
A grieving mother in Spain is now using her late daughter’s secret journal to launch a desperate search for the men, widely reported to have been North African migrants, who gang-raped her years ago.
Yolanda Ramos received the diary from her 25-year-old daughter, Noelia Castillo Ramos, on the day she died by euthanasia in a Barcelona hospital in March.
The journal contains details about the horrific gang rape that Noelia was subjected to when she was 21 in the town of Salou in Tarragona province, along with accounts of other sexual assaults she suffered.
Before her death, Noelia had publicly spoken about surviving multiple sexual assaults in television interviews, including a gang rape at a nightclub and other attacks.
She never named the perpetrators, and Spanish authorities have never identified any suspects.
After reading the diary, her mother said she finally understood many things about what her daughter had endured and decided to take action by filing formal complaints to pursue justice.
The New York Post reports that the diary “recounted meeting a waiter in the town of Salou in Tarragona, being drugged, plied with alcohol, and raped by three men.
“Noelia spoke about the rapes on television, and on the very day she died, she gave me her diary. When I read it, I understood many things,” Yolanda Ramos said in a video about her criminal complaints.
Spain’s euthanasia law permits assisted suicide for adults experiencing serious, chronic, and disabling conditions that cause unbearable suffering.
Noelia had become paraplegic in 2022 after jumping from a fifth-floor building in a suicide attempt triggered by the trauma of the gang rape.
Her father fought for over a year and a half in Spanish courts and even appealed to the European Court of Human Rights to stop the euthanasia, arguing her capacity was compromised by borderline personality disorder and the effects of the assaults.
Courts ultimately ruled that Noelia had the mental capacity to make the decision.
In an interview three days before her suicide, Noelia said, “I simply want to go in peace and stop suffering.”
“The happiness of a father, a mother, or a sister cannot take precedence over the happiness of a daughter.”
On July 8, a driver for the Zürichsee and Oberland Transport Authority (VZO) stopped his scheduled bus on route 880 at the Frohberg bus stop in Stäfa. Passengers and local residents were quite astonished when, immediately after stopping, the VZO employee got out himself to roll out his prayer mat in front of the vehicle, facing Mecca, and say a prayer.
The weekly newspaper Weltwoche was the first to report this. This represents a departure from the VZO’s usual practices, even though Swiss drivers have become a rarity at this public transport company. The evasive responses from the VZO and the Zurich Transport Association (ZVV) when questioned about this behaviour by an employee of a state-run organisation are telltale.
Both bodies are avoiding making a clear statement. One can literally sense how uncomfortable and embarrassing the issue is for them.
The VZO emphasises that freedom of religion and expression are respected in Switzerland. As if this had ever been called into question.
Engaging in religious practices whilst at work is not in line with the VZO’s principles and guidelines.
That is all they have to say on the matter.
A clear distancing from such behaviour would require a different approach. What is missing is a statement that such conduct by drivers will no longer be tolerated in future.
And that measures are being taken to ensure that the unfurling of prayer mats on school trips does not become the norm in this country. The ZVV, on whose behalf the VZO operates, is also sidestepping the issue by declaring the prayer mat to be a matter for the VZO.
The state of religious tolerance towards Christians in Arab countries is well known.
In Germany, for example in Landshut, there have been several reported cases where public transport bus drivers have stopped mid-journey to demonstratively call upon Allah on a prayer mat, despite passengers waiting.
In doing so, they are willing to accept delays and missed connections.
The mainstream media hardly report on such cases.
It is probably not wrong to suspect that deliberate provocations are being used to help Islam gain an ever-stronger foothold, encouraged as it is by the lack of resistance.
Switzerland has been convicted by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) for failing to provide a fully vegan diet to two detainees who had requested meals consistent with their ethical beliefs. The decision was issued on 16 July 2026, when the Court ruled that the case involved a violation of freedom of thought and conscience, protected under Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The case concerns two Swiss anti-speciesist activists, aged 35 and 38, who had been arrested in connection with proceedings related to acts of property damage. Anti-speciesism is a philosophical view that rejects the idea that humans should automatically have greater moral value than other animals and argues that animals’ interests should also be taken into account.
One of the two men was held in pre-trial detention for almost a year at Champ-Dollon prison in the Canton of Geneva, while the other was admitted for around two months to a psychiatric facility in the Canton of Vaud. During their detention, both requested a completely vegan diet, free from animal products, arguing that this was not simply a personal preference but a deeply held ethical conviction.
After challenging the Swiss authorities’ refusal through the national legal system, the two detainees brought their case before the ECHR, arguing that Switzerland had violated their freedom of conscience.
The ECHR is the international court based in Strasbourg that monitors respect for fundamental rights in the countries belonging to the Council of Europe. Switzerland is one of its member states, despite not being part of the European Union. The Court is not an appeal court that replaces national judges, but it can intervene when individuals claim that a State has violated rights guaranteed by the Convention, after all available legal remedies at national level have been exhausted.
The Strasbourg Court accepted the claim, recognising that dietary choices can fall under the protection of Article 9 when they reflect a sincere and consistent personal conviction.
According to the European judges, Swiss authorities had failed to strike a sufficient balance between the practical organisation of prisons and the detainees’ right to act according to their beliefs.
Switzerland must therefore pay a total of €16,000 in compensation for the moral damage suffered by the two applicants, plus around €10,000 in legal costs, and review its procedures to ensure that requests for diets based on ethical convictions are assessed more carefully.
The ruling does not introduce an automatic right to a vegan menu for all prisoners. Instead, it establishes that States must properly consider dietary requests linked to personal convictions protected by the European Convention on Human Rights.
A transgender sex offender has been jailed for 2 years and 4 months after being caught violating the terms of a Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO). Scarlett Lee, 32, of Bridgend, Wales, was described as a “woman” in news reports covering his conviction.
Lee, previously known as Scott Henwood, was made subject to the SHPO in February of 2024 after being convicted of possessing a prohibited image of a child. At the time, the court also imposed a two-year community order and sex offender notification requirement.
The latest offenses came to light on May 6, when police officers visited Lee for a routine check-up and asked to examine his mobile phone. After unlocking the device, officers discovered he had been utilizing incognito mode and using the messaging platform Discord, both of which breached the conditions of his SHPO.
Further examination of his phone also revealed Lee had been using Reddit under the name Scarlett Winters. When questioned about the different surname, Lee told police it came from his 32-year-old Canadian partner. The undeclared social media use was also a violation of his SHPO.
In coverage of Lee’s conviction, WalesOnline referred to him as a “woman” and used “she/her” pronouns for him.
This incident follows another prison term imposed last year after Lee was found with a folder containing 80 simulated images depicting adults engaging in sexual activity with children.
That investigation began in May of 2024 when a support worker at accommodation where Lee was living noticed a sexually explicit message on his phone while cleaning his room. After being challenged by staff, Lee showed a manager an animated sexual image on his computer.
When asked whether he had accessed the dark web, Lee denied doing so but admitted: “There’s probably stuff I shouldn’t have on my laptop.”
Police seized several electronic devices, including a desktop computer. A forensic examination uncovered a folder containing 80 animated images depicting child sexual abuse.
Lee admitted to possessing a prohibited image of a child and breaching the SHPO after using a different name to access a YouTube account. He later told officers he had changed his name to Scarlett Lee by deed poll following a transition and believed the court order had been updated to reflect the change.
At the time, the court heard Lee already had previous convictions for breaching a Sexual Harm Prevention Order. Judge Tracey Lloyd-Clarke said Lee had shown “no regard for orders made by the court” and described him as having a persistent interest in child abuse images while denying a sexual interest in children. The judge also said there was “no or little realistic prospect of rehabilitation” before sentencing Lee to two years and four months’ imprisonment.
Lee pleaded guilty to all three breaches of the order.
During this week’s hearing on the latest incident, prosecutor Rob Simkins told the court the latest breaches occurred after Lee had been released and later recalled to prison.
Defense barrister James McKenna said his client’s actions had not harmed anyone and argued he posed “little risk”. He told the court Lee had experienced difficulties after “presenting as female” while being held in a male prison, as well as additional ongoing mental health problems. The court also heard Lee has autism and had previously been sectioned.
Sentencing Lee, Recorder of Cardiff Judge Tracey Lloyd-Clarke said: “You have total disregard for court orders which is apparent from your conviction for these offenses and your previous convictions. You seem to regard them as something you can ignore or circumvent as you wish.”
Lee was sentenced to a further two years and four months in prison.
He remains subject to sex offender notification requirements and the Sexual Harm Prevention Order.
Irish teacher Enoch Burke has been ordered by the High Court to pay over €200,000 in fines following his refusal to comply with a request to use a student’s preferred pronouns and new name, in a case that has become one of Ireland’s most controversial legal battles over free speech and religious freedom. The controversy began in 2021, when Burke refused to comply with the directive of the principal of Wilson’s Hospital School that said teachers were “expected” to refer to a biologically female who had decided to ‘transition’ as “they.”
“BREAKING: My brother teacher @EnochBurke has been ordered to pay almost €210,000 in fines by a High Court Judge.”
He argued that Burke’s “crime” was “refusing to accept you can be suspended from your job for not calling a child ‘they,’” adding the court decision marked “a shameful day for Ireland.”
Before the ruling was announced, Burke published a lengthy statement on X criticizing both the court proceedings and the media’s coverage of the hearing.
He accused RTÉ Legal Affairs Correspondent Orla O’Connor of omitting his arguments entirely, writing that she “failed to report one word” of what he said during the hearing.
Burke also took aim at High Court Judge Brian Cregan, claiming the judge suggested his religious beliefs belonged only “outside the gate” of Wilson’s Hospital School. Burke argued that this position contradicts Ireland’s Constitution, which guarantees “freedom of conscience and the free profession and practice of religion” to every citizen.
According to Burke, the hearing was never about determining whether the school’s demand was lawful, but only about the size of the financial penalty he would face. He argued that the court has “never dealt with the rights and wrongs” of the principal’s instruction requiring teachers to use the “they” pronoun and a new name for a student, insisting that his refusal to comply with that demand was the basis for his suspension.
Burke further claimed that Judge Cregan “has closed his eyes” to the principal’s instruction and “refused to vindicate” his constitutional rights, arguing that the court has focused on punishing him rather than examining the underlying dispute over compelled speech and religious liberty.
The teacher’s supporters point out that the High Court ruling reflects an ideologically driven legal process.
Billionaire entrepreneur Peter Thiel, who recently delivered a series of lectures on the Antichrist in Rome just a stone’s throw from the Vatican, explained that the main reason he has been speaking out publicly about the Antichrist is “because nobody else is talking about it,” adding that, for most of Christian history, would have seemed a clear sign of his impending arrival (2 Pet. 3:3–4).
In a lengthy essay titled “The Pope and the Antichrist” penned for First Things, Thiel claims that Pope Benedict XVI believed he was living in the end times.
Thiel prefaced his First Things piece, co-written with colleague Sam Wolfe, by saying “It is not my place to tell the Church what time it is,” adding, “Benedict already did that.”
The tech titan’s fascination with Pope Benedict’s views on the Antichrist and the end times is surprising given that he’s a Protestant who has acquired great wealth — he co-founded PayPal, was an early investor in Facebook, and now heads Palantir — and who is also is a homosexual “married” to a male. Despite not being Catholic, Thiel has clearly immersed himself in Catholic Church teaching and history far beyond average faithful Catholics.
Thiel expressed regret that Benedict remained silent about the Antichrist throughout his papacy and waited until after his resignation to express what he believed.
Thiel noted that it wasn’t until the Pope emeritus had grown old that he “began to speak with the clarity he had hitherto withheld from all but his closest readers.” He said in a 2018 interview that “Modern society is formulating an anti-Christian creed and opposing it is punished with social excommunication. It is only natural to fear this spiritual power of Antichrist and it really needs help from the prayers of a whole diocese and the world church to resist it.” Three years earlier, out of the blue, Slovak politician Vladimír Palko had received a letter from Benedict praising his book Die Löwen Kommen (“The Lions Are Coming”). The letter included these words: “We see how the power of the Antichrist is expanding, and we can only pray that the Lord will give us strong shepherds who will defend his church in this hour of need from the power of evil.”
“The Christian knows that nothing lasts forever, for this world has a beginning and an end. The apocalypse, the revelation of all secrets and the end of all interpretations, arrives eventually,” Thiel noted at the conclusion of his engrossing essay. “There is a time and a place for esotericism, whose antonym is revelation. But not in matters concerning the fate of the world — and our souls. For when the time is short and the hour late, who can hope for salvation in philosophical reticence?”
Before Christ’s second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the “mystery of iniquity” in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. the supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh.
The Antichrist’s deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the eschatological judgement. The Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism, especially the “intrinsically perverse” political form of a secular messianism. (CCC 675-676)
“Unlike other tech billionaires, at least publicly, (Thiel) seems to understand that the deepest conflicts of our age are not merely technological or political but also spiritual,” noted Catholic theologian and philosopher Scott Ventureyra, who responded to Thiel’s essay in Crisis Magazine by asking the question, “Why Is Peter Thiel so Preoccupied With the Antichrist?”
“Where does Thiel personally fit into this apocalyptic and Antichristic narrative?” Ventureyra wondered. “I believe there are a few possibilities worth considering. First, he may be warning us against the Antichristic temptation of our age: the utopic vision of saving humanity through increasing surveillance, AI, emergency politics, the transhumanist project, and a one-world-governance. Second, we must also consider that he may be helping pave the way in which such a world can emerge.”
“Thiel has forced us to consider whether the Antichrist is one that promises to use the wonders of technology in a way that will not only physically and financially enslave us but, most frighteningly, spiritually enslave us in a way that bears upon the destiny of our very souls,” Ventureyra concluded.
