End Times the Antichrist & the Anti-Church
Fr. Dwight Campbell
11/16/2025
33rd Sunday Yr C: End Times the Antichrist & the Anti-Church
Fr. Dwight Campbell, S.T.D., J.D.
“The day is coming, blazing like an oven, when all the proud and evildoers will be stubble, and that day will set them on fire. . . . But for you fear my name, there will arise the son of justice with its healing rays.”
These are the words of the Old Testament prophet Malachi, foretelling the Day of the Lord – i.e., the Last Day, the end of time, when Christ will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.
This is fitting, for as we approach the end of the Church liturgical year (this is the 33rd Sunday) the readings reflect the end of time; next Sunday will be the last Sunday of the Church year, the Solemnity of Christ the King, then Advent.
Before the Day of the Lord comes, however, the Scriptures, and Jesus, tell us that certain things must happen.
In today’s Gospel, when the Apostles ask Jesus about the end of the world, and what signs would be given beforehand, Jesus tells them: “You will hear of wars and insurrections . . . Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. There will be powerful earthquakes, famines and plagues, and awesome sights and mighty signs from the sky.”
Jesus also says, “many [false prophets] will come in my name saying, ‘I am he’ [i.e. the Messiah]. Do not follow them.”
Then He says: “You will be hated by all because of my name” – i.e., all who are opposed to Jesus and His Gospel.
The final false prophet will be the Antichrist, who will come shortly before the end of the world and Christ’s Second Coming.
In Scripture he is called by different names: St. John the evangelist in his first epistle calls him the Antichrist: “he who denies the Father and the Son, he who denies that Jesus is the Christ, he is the Antichrist” (1 Jn. 2:22).
St. Paul in 2nd Thess. calls him the “man of perdition.”
In the book of Revelation St. John calls him the Beast; and in Chapter 11 of the Revelation we are told that the Beast, the Antichrist, will have great power and rule the world for 3 ½ years.
The OT Prophet Daniel in ch. 12 tells us that during this 3 ½ year period “the daily sacrifice will be abolished” – that is, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass will not be publicly offered anywhere in the world because the persecution from the Antichrist will be so great.
The great saints, commentators and novelists agree that the Antichrist will arrive on the world scene as a great peacemaker. He will be brilliant, able speak all the languages, be tremendously charismatic; and world leaders and nations will bestow upon him both economic and political power.
He will appear to be a good man, and will deceive many; but after a time he will show his true colors and, as St. Paul tells us in 2nd Thess., he will demand worship of himself, claiming he is God in the flesh; and he will establish a false church that is of the Devil, because he will be in league with Satan.
The first great televangelist, Ven. Archbishop Fulton J Sheen, says:
“Because [this religion of the Devil] will be brotherhood of Man without the fatherhood of God, he will deceive even the elect. He will set up a counter church which will be the ape of the [true] Church, because he, the Devil, is the ape of God. [This false church] will have all the notes and characteristics of the [Catholic] Church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content. It will be a mystical body of the Antichrist that will in all externals resemble the mystical body of Christ.”
In August 1976, Cardinal Karol Wojtyla [the future Pope, and now Saint, John Paul II], was in Philadelphia for a world Eucharistic Congress. At the end of his visit he said some striking words:
“We are now standing in the face of the greatest historical confrontation humanity has ever gone through. I do not think wide circles of . . . the Christian community realize this fully. We are now facing the final confrontation between the Church and the anti-Church, of the Gospel versus the anti-Gospel. This confrontation lies within the plans of divine providence; it is a trial for the whole Church . . . . but, in a sense, a test of 2000 years of culture and Christian civilization.”
What precisely is this “anti-Church” and “anti-Gospel”? What will it look like; what will be its marks, its characteristics?
I believe that recently we have seen some indications of what this anti-Church and anti-Gospel look like.
This past summer many hundreds of so-called “gay couples” proudly pranced through the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica, celebrating the Jubilee Year.
Many were holding hands, and proudly announced that they were “married.”
Historically, to pass through the Holy Door during a Jubilee Year requires repentance from sins. Those who marched that day did just the opposite -proudly proclaiming their sinful lifestyle.
And this event did not just a happen by chance. It was carefully pre-planned, months in advance, in cooperation with Vatican officials; in other words, the Vatican authorities permitted this to take place.
Georgetown University is the oldest and most prestigious Catholic college in the country, founded and run by the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits. Last month, the new president of Georgetown announced on public media: “I reject the Church’s teachings on homosexuality.”
And then there is the Jesuit priest Fr. James Martin, one of the most vocal promoters of the homosexual agenda in the world, who Pope Francis appointed as a consultor to the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication – a post he still holds.
This past week, Fr. Martin went on social media when he celebrated a Confirmation Mass for the openly homosexual man, ABC News correspondent Gio Benitez, who thanked Fr. Martin for bringing him back into the Catholic Church “exactly as I am” – i.e., with no repentance; instead, affirming his sinful lifestyle. His partner Tommy DiDario — whom he referred to as his “husband” — served as his sponsor.
We must understand that all these events I’ve just mentioned are, in essence, attacks on marriage and family, and on the Christian social order which is founded on marriage and the family as God designed it: between one man and one woman, with children.
In 1981, Pope John Paul II founded in Rome the John Paul Institute for Studies on Marriage & Family, and named Msgr. Carlo Caffarra to head the Institute (who later was named a cardinal, and who taught Fr. Ben Reese when he studied at the Institute; I studied at the U.S. branch in Washington, D.C.)
Cardinal Caffarra knew that many dark forces were opposed to this Institute, so he wrote to Sister Lucia, the Fatima seer who was still alive, asking for her prayers. She wrote back to him in these words:
“Father, a time will come when the decisive battle between the kingdom of Christ and Satan will be over marriage and the family. And those who will work for the good of the family will experience persecution and tribulation. But do not be afraid, because Our Lady has already crushed his head.”
I’ll end by once again quoting Archbishop Fulton Sheen, on the true Church in the End Times:
“Look for the Church that is hated by the world, as Christ was hated by the world. Look for the Church which is accused of being behind the times, as our Lord was accused of being ignorant and never having learned. Look for the Church which men sneer at as socially inferior, as they sneered at Our Lord because he came from Nazareth. Look for the Church which the world rejects. . . . If the Church is unworldly, it is other worldly. Since it is other worldly, is infinitely loved an infinitely hated as was Christ Himself.”
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us! St. Michael the Archangel, Guardian and Protector of the Universal Church, pray for us! And let us pray for Pope Leo XIV, that he may lead and guide the Church according to the will of Christ.