The possibility
Questions and Objections
The strongest objections to my reading, stated as fairly as I can state them, with my answers. Where an objection holds, I say so.
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A reading that cannot answer its objections should not be held. I have tried to put each objection in the words its strongest defender would use, not in a form that is easy to knock down. Some I can answer. Some I cannot yet answer, and I say so. Some stand against me, and the scorecard records them as standing against me.
On this page
On the reading as a whole
1. Christians have named the Antichrist many times, and every one of them was wrong. Why add another name?
The objection is true, and it is the strongest of all. The history of the number is a history of failed guesses, and the Fathers refused to name anyone: St. Irenaeus held it "more certain, and less hazardous, to await the fulfilment" (Against Heresies V.30.3). Even Fr. Charles Arminjon, whom I follow on so much, looked at the apostasy of his own age and concluded “that the hypothesis of the proximity of the Antichrist’s coming is more probable than the hypothesis that considers his coming as remote” (The End of the Present World, pp. 71–72, n. 40). He wrote that in 1881. “Near” is relative, as he said himself: “even if the end of the world were to be deferred for many centuries, what are centuries compared with the years of eternity?” (p. 21). So I do not count his judgment a failed prediction; but it reminds me how easily a reading of one's own age can run ahead of the facts. My answer is not that I am wiser than those who guessed before. It is that Scripture gives marks so that the faithful may recognize what is happening, and that a proposal stated openly, graded, and tested against those marks in public is safer than a suspicion held privately. I grade each mark possible or probable, never settled. I do not affirm that anyone is the final Antichrist, and I have written down in advance what would show me wrong (How I read Revelation 13).
2. This is politics dressed as prophecy. Many faithful Catholics support the President.
Many do, in good faith, and on many questions of prudential judgment Catholics may differ. Nothing on this site counts a vote, political loyalty or admiration as worship or as the mark, and this site does not tell anyone how to vote. The question it asks is narrower: whether honor that belongs to God alone is being asked for or given. If this reading is right, no Christian may give him that honor; if it is wrong, nothing is lost by refusing it to every ruler. Those who support him are my brothers and sisters, and I owe them charity, not contempt (Love Even Now).
3. Revelation was written about Rome. The beast is the empire of John's own day.
The Church's own notes read the beast first as Rome and its emperors, and I begin there: the literal sense comes first. But the Church also teaches that before Christ's return she "must pass through a final trial," the "supreme religious deception" of the Antichrist (CCC 675), and the Fathers read Revelation 13 of that last trial as well as of their own day. Rome was the beast's face in John's age; I ask whether we are seeing its face in ours.
4. Some of what you use is not Catholic at all. The heads as world empires and the seven-year frame come from Protestant readings.
That is correct, and I say so where I use them. Reading the heads as world empires is chiefly a Protestant reading, and the United States as the seventh head is my own step (card 2). The seven-year frame comes mainly from dispensationalism, and Catholic tradition has never taught it (The Timing). I use the frame only as a test against what has already happened, never to count forward, and if it fails, the Church's reading stands untouched. Every point where my reading departs from the tradition is listed on What the Tradition Says.
5. Pages like this frighten people.
If they do, I have failed. Panic is not vigilance; it is another way of being asleep (Stay Awake). God announced the trial in advance so that we might prepare for it in prayer, charity and faith, and the heart of this site is that preparation (Stand Firm). The test of everything I write is whether it leaves a reader more faithful, more patient and more loving (card 14).
On the first beast
6. He is an elected president, limited by courts, Congress and elections. The beast has authority over every nation.
This objection stands, and the scorecard says so. Influence is not authority, most of the world does not follow him, and many nations have refused him. I grade universal reach possible and record it as only partly seen (card 8). If his power stays national and limited, my reading is weakened, and Arminjon's order tells against it: the Mass ceases only after universal dominion (The End of the Present World, p. 51).
7. Loyalty, rallies and a name on buildings are politics, not worship.
Revelation speaks of the adoration owed to God alone (CCC 2096), enforced by death, and nothing like that has happened. Many rulers have sought loyalty and honor. What I see is a pattern of honor asked of persons and a price paid by those who refuse it; whether it ever becomes honor that belongs to God is the test, and until it does the mark is only partly seen (card 6).
8. Losing an election is not a mortal wound, and others have come back from defeat.
The text speaks of a wound that only "seemed" mortal (13:3), so the loss need not have been death. But whether a lost election looks like a mortal wound is a judgment, and Grover Cleveland and Brazil's Lula both returned to power after apparent ruin. My answer rests on the chain of events that seemed to end him, and on how the return was told, in the language of being raised up (card 3). A reader may fairly weigh it otherwise.
9. He presents himself as a defender of Christians, not their persecutor.
He does, and bishops sit on his Religious Liberty Commission; no one has been arrested for being a Christian, and the Church speaks freely. I grade the war on the holy ones only possible and foreshadowed (card 7). The tradition, though, expected the deceiver to come first as a friend of the faithful: St. Cyril of Jerusalem expected him to pose as the son of David who would rebuild Solomon's temple (Catechetical Lectures 15.15). A friend of believers is no proof of deceit; it is also no proof against it.
On the second beast
10. The false prophet is a religious figure who works signs and leads people to worship. Jared Kushner holds no religious role.
That is the strongest objection to my reading of the second beast, and I have not answered it. He has not promoted worship of anyone, and until that is shown, the counterfeit lamb can be only partly seen (card 4).
11. Naming a Jewish man as the false prophet feeds an old and terrible prejudice.
His Jewish faith and his people have no place in this reading. The Church teaches that the Jewish people are not to be presented as rejected or accursed, and she deplores every form of antisemitism (Nostra Aetate 4). What is weighed are one man's public words and deeds, as with every person named on this site, and never his soul (CCC 1861). Anyone who uses this page to harm or despise the Jewish people uses it against everything it stands for.
On the number and the time
12. Revelation 13:18 gives the number to the first beast, and calls it the number of a person. 666 Fifth Avenue is neither.
This objection stands. I have offered 666 Fifth Avenue and John 6:66 as observations, not proofs, left the mark ungraded, and recorded it as "against, as now argued" (card 13).
13. The timing does not fit the text, and any count implies a date.
The four strongest objections to the timing, including that Revelation 13:5 places the forty-two months after the healing, are answered on The Timing. No date is set or computed there, and none will be: "It is not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has established by his own authority" (Acts 1:7).
If I am wrong
Then I will say so. A prophecy that does not come true is "a word the LORD did not speak" (Deuteronomy 18:22), and a reading of prophecy that does not come true deserves no more. I have written down in advance, without dates, what would strengthen my reading and what would weaken it, mark by mark, and the scorecard records where each stands. If the evidence goes against me, the scorecard will show it before I do.
And if I am wrong, nothing this site asks of you is lost. Pray, go to Mass and to confession, love your enemies, and refuse to any ruler the honor that belongs to God. That is the Christian life in any age.