Is the Antichrist Here?

by

Mark Mallett

 

Is the Antichrist alive? To be certain, Sacred Tradition affirms that the Antichrist is an actual person:

…that Antichrist is one individual man, not a power — not a mere ethical spirit, or a political system, not a dynasty, or succession of rulers — was the universal tradition of the early Church. —St. John Henry Newman, “The Times of Antichrist”, Lecture 1

Wisdom is needed here; one who understands can calculate the number of the beast, for it is a number that stands for a person. His number is six hundred and sixty-six. (Revelation 13:18)

 

In Private Revelation

Several seers featured for discernment on Countdown to the Kingdom have suggested that the times of Antichrist are upon us.^[1]See also These Times of Antichrist For instance, Our Lady spoke of this period of history as the manifestation of the person of Antichrist in her locutions to Servant of God Fr. Stefano Gobbi.^[2]“But what is its name?
— In the thirteenth chapter of the Apocalypse, it is written, “This calls for wisdom. Let him who has understanding reckon the number of the beast: it represents a human name. And the number in question is 666 (six hundred and sixty-six).” (Cf. Rev. 13:18). With intelligence, illumined by the light of divine wisdom, one can succeed in deciphering from the number, 666, the name of a man and this name, indicated by such a number, is that of the Antichrist.

Lucifer, the ancient serpent, the devil or Satan, the Red Dragon, becomes, in these last times, the Antichrist. The Apostle John already affirmed that whoever denies that Jesus Christ is God, that person is the Antichrist. The statue or idol, built in honor of the Beast to be adored by all men, is the Antichrist.

Calculate now its number, 666, to understand how it indicates the name of a man. The number, 333, indicates the divinity. Lucifer rebels against God through pride, because he wants to put himself above God. 333 is the number which indicates the mystery of God. He who wants to put himself above God bears the sign, 666, and consequently this number indicates the name of Lucifer, Satan, that is to say, of him who sets himself against Christ, of the Antichrist.

333 indicated once, that is to say, for the first time, expresses the mystery of the unity of God. 333 indicated twice, that is to say, for the second time, indicates the two natures, that of the divine and the human, united in the divine person of Jesus Christ. 333 indicated thrice, that is to say, for the third time, indicates the mystery of the Three Divine Persons, that is to say, it expresses the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity. Thus the number, 333, expressed one, two and three times, expresses the principal mysteries of the Catholic faith, which are: (1) the Unity and the Trinity of God, (2) the incarnation, the passion and death, and the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

If 333 is the number which indicates the divinity, he who wants to put himself above God Himself is referred to by the number 666.

666 indicated once, that is to say for the first time, expresses the year 666, six hundred and sixty-six. In this period of history, the Antichrist is manifested through the phenomenon of Islam, which directly denies the mystery of the Divine Trinity and the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ. Islamism, with its military force, breaks loose everywhere, destroying all the ancient Christian communities, and invades Europe, and it is only through my extraordinary motherly intervention, begged for powerfully by the Holy Father, that it does not succeed in destroying Christianity completely.

666 indicated twice, that is to say, for the second time, expresses the year 1332 thirteen hundred and thirty-two. In this period of history, the Antichrist is manifested through a radical attack on the faith in the word of God. Through the philosophers who begin to give exclusive value to science and then to reason, there is a gradual tendency to constitute human intelligence alone as the sole criterion of truth. There come to birth the great philosophical errors which continue through the centuries down to your days. The exaggerated importance given to reason, as an exclusive criterion to truth, necessarily leads to the destruction of the faith in the word of God. Indeed, with the Protestant Reformation, Tradition is rejected as a source of divine revelation, and only Sacred Scripture is accepted. But even this must be interpreted by means of the reason, and the authentic Magisterium of the hierarchical Church, to which Christ has entrusted the guardianship of the deposit of the faith, is obstinately rejected. Each one is free to read and to understand Sacred Scripture according to one’s personal interpretation. In this way, faith in the word of God is destroyed. The work of the Antichrist, in this period of history, is the division of the Church and the consequent formation of new and numerous Christian confessions which gradually become driven to a more and more extensive loss of the true faith in the word of God.

666 indicated thrice, that is to say, for the third time, expresses the year 1998, nineteen hundred and ninety-eight. In this period of history, Freemasonry, assisted by its ecclesiastical form, will succeed in its great design: that of setting up an idol to put in the place of Christ and of His Church. A false christ and a false church. Consequently, the statue built in honor of the first beast, to be adored by all the inhabitants of the earth and which will seal with its mark all those who want to buy or sell, is that of the Antichrist. You have thus arrived at the peak of the purification, of the great tribulation and of the apostasy. The apostasy will be, as of then, generalized because almost all will follow the false christ and the false church. Then the door will be open for the appearance of the man or of the very person of the Antichrist !

This is why, beloved children, I have wanted to enlighten you concerning the pages of the Apocalypse which refer to the times you are living through. This is to prepare you with me, for the most painful and decisive part of the great struggle which is on the point of being fought out between your heavenly Mother and all the forces of evil which have been let loose.

Take courage! Be strong, my little children. To you befalls the duty, in these difficult years, of remaining faithful to Christ and to His Church, putting up with hostility, struggle and persecution. But you are a precious part of the little flock, which has the task of fighting against, and in the end of conquering, the powerful force of the Antichrist.

I am forming you all, defending you and blessing you.” —June 17, 1989; To the Priests Our Lady’s Beloved Sons, n. 407 She reveals that he will come at the “peak of the purification, of the great tribulation and of the apostasy.”

The apostasy will be, as of then, generalized because almost all will follow the false christ and the false church. Then the door will be open for the appearance of the man or of the very person of the Antichrist! —June 17, 1989; To the Priests Our Lady’s Beloved Sons, n. 407

American seer Jennifer started receiving messages from Jesus after receiving Communion. She met with Monsignor Pawel Ptasznik, a close friend and collaborator of Pope John Paul II and the Polish Secretariat of State for the Vatican. The messages were passed to Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, John Paul II’s personal secretary. In a follow-up meeting, Msgr. Pawel said, “Spread the messages to the world any way you can.” Echoing Fr. Gobbi’s message that the Antichrist will appear at the peak of great trials, Jesus allegedly said:

My people, I warn you that while you are being plagued with great temptation you will see the rise of the Antichrist. It will be in the midst of disease, famine, war and destruction that you will see the greatest temptation for, as I have told you, your lives will become simplified. Each day you are given is a day of preparation. My words do not come for you to ignore, rather they are to take heed to. Do not become like your foolish brothers and sisters who will be caught off guard. —December 31st, 2004

You will see countries that have enormous power fall into ruins and the rise of the Antichrist.  —December 25th, 2003

You see, My people, you are living in a world where your freedoms will be stripped away, for the coming of the Antichrist is near and so many of you will fall in his trap, for your lives will become so difficult that it will be harder for you to survive. —January 5th, 2004

Luz de María de Bonilla, a Third Order Augustinian from Costa Rica, has several messages about the Antichrist. In 2009, a message allegedly from Our Lord said:

We know that a great majority of people will follow the antichrist, who is in Belgium at this time. How much pain, how much suffering, how much spiritual hunger, how much desolation he will bring to My Church! —January, 2009

And then last year, allegedly from St. Michael the Archangel:

Without being made known to you, the Antichrist is walking about certain countries in Europe and America, carrying his ideals with him so that human beings would continue to spread evil. —January 2, 2024

She then said that she was given the name of the Antichrist:

His name is Alex, but he will be known by another name. This is the Antichrist. —August 1, 2024 (in her comments)

In a statement to Catholic media eight months later, she elaborated:

Our Blessed Mother told me that the first name of the Antichrist is Alex, but he will indeed appear under a different name. In other words, [the] first name of the Antichrist is Alex, but he will appear because he is already here … on earth, and he will present himself under a different name. —April 3, 2025, LifeSiteNews

While it is possible that God could reveal the name or identity of the Antichrist, Church Father, Doctor, and martyr, St. Irenaeus, offered this caution:

…another danger, by no means trifling, shall overtake those who falsely presume that they know the name of Antichrist. For if these men assume one [number], when this [Antichrist] shall come having another, they will be easily led away by him, as supposing him not to be the expected one, who must be guarded against… It is therefore more certain, and less hazardous, to await the fulfilment of the prophecy, than to be making surmises, and casting about for any names that may present themselves, inasmuch as many names can be found possessing the number [666] mentioned; and the same question will, after all, remain unsolved… But he indicates the number of the name now, that when this man comes we may avoid him, being aware who he is: the name, however, is suppressed, because it is not worthy of being proclaimed by the Holy Spirit. —Against Heresies (Book V, Chapter 30, nos. 1-4)

 

In the Words of the Popes

While some might readily dismiss the words of mystics and seers, they should give pause to the words of papal prophets. In fact, in 1903, Pope St. Pius X speculated that the Antichrist may already be on earth:

Who can fail to see that society is at the present time, more than in any past age, suffering from a terrible and deep-rooted malady which, developing every day and eating into its inmost being, is dragging it to destruction? You understand, Venerable Brethren, what this disease is—apostasy from God (cf. 2 Thess 2:3)… when all this is considered there is good reason to fear lest this great perversity may be as it were a foretaste, and perhaps the beginning of those evils which are reserved for the last days; and that there may be already in the world the “Son of Perdition” of whom the Apostle speaks. —POPE ST. PIUS X, E Supremi, Encyclical On the Restoration of All Things in Christ, n. 3, 5; October 4th, 1903

His successor Pope Pius XI picked up the torch:

…the whole Christian people, sadly disheartened and disrupted, are continually in danger of falling away from the faith, or of suffering the most cruel death. These things in truth are so sad that you might say that such events foreshadow and portend the “beginning of sorrows,” that is to say of those that shall be brought by the man of sin, “who is lifted up above all that is called God or is worshipped” (2 Thess 2:4). —Miserentissimus Redemptor, Encyclical Letter on Reparation to the Sacred Heart, n. 15, May 8th, 1928; www.vatican.va

Shortly before being raised to the papacy, Cardinal Karol Woytya (John Paul II) prophesied to a Eucharistic Congress:

We are now facing the final confrontation between the Church and the anti-church, between the Gospel and the anti-gospel, between Christ and the antichrist. This confrontation lies within the plans of divine Providence; it is a trial which the whole Church… must take up. —Eucharistic Congress, Philadelphia, PA for the bicentennial celebration of the signing of the Declaration of Independence; the only published statement we could find omits the words “Christ and the antichrist” as above. However, Deacon Keith Fournier, who was in attendance, reports it as above; cf. Catholic Online; August 13, 1976

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who would become Pope Benedict XVI, indirectly hinted at the times before us:

The Apocalypse speaks about God’s antagonist, the beast. This animal does not have a name, but a number. In [the horror of the concentration camps], they cancel faces and history, transforming man into a number, reducing him to a cog in an enormous machine. Man is no more than a function. In our days, we should not forget that they prefigured the destiny of a world that runs the risk of adopting the same structure of the concentration camps, if the universal law of the machine is accepted. The machines that have been constructed impose the same law. According to this logic, man must be interpreted by a computer and this is only possible if translated into numbers. The beast is a number and transforms into numbers. God, however, has a name and calls by name. He is a person and looks for the person. —Cardinal Ratzinger, (POPE BENEDICT XVI) Palermo, March 15th, 2000 (italics added)

Years later, Jesus would allegedly give a similar message to Jennifer:

My people, I have spoken to you of the coming of the antichrist. You will be grazed and numbered like sheep by the authorities who work for this false messiah. Do not allow yourself to be counted among them, for you are then allowing yourself to fall into this evil trap. It is I, Jesus, who is your true Messiah, and I do not number My sheep because your shepherd knows you each by name. —March 18th, 2004

Shortly before he passed away, however, Benedict XVI made a startling direct statement that leaves little room for misinterpretation:

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. —POPE EMERITUS BENEDICT XVI, The American Conservative, January 10th, 2023

While some may feel this discussion is too scary or too speculative, Church Father St. Cyril of Jerusalem (c. 315-386) says it is necessary, even if it is shrouded in mystery: