The First Beast: My Reading, Mark by Mark

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My proposal is that the first beast of Revelation 13 is Donald J. Trump. I grade each mark possible or probable, never settled. The Church has not taught this reading, and nothing here speaks for her. Words and deeds are weighed here, never souls (CCC 1861), and nothing on this page invites hostility toward him or toward anyone who supports him.

1. Power on loan from the dragon

The text. The dragon gave the beast his own power, his throne and great authority (Rev 13:2), and the world worshiped the dragon because of it (13:4).

My reading. Satan cannot become incarnate. He works through a man, and the man's authority is borrowed from him. The Fathers say the same: the Antichrist is a man through whom Satan acts, not Satan in the flesh. In my proposal that man is the one this page sets out. I grade this mark probable.

The evidence. Our Lord calls the devil a liar and the father of lies (John 8:44), and the Catechism names deception as the gravest of the devil's works (CCC 394). The serpent's first words were not a plain lie but a suggestion: "Did God really say…?" (Gen 3:1). I see both in his public speech.

1. A habit of falsehood. The Washington Post's fact-checkers recorded 30,573 false or misleading claims in his first term, about 21 a day, rising from six a day in his first year to 39 in his last (Washington Post, Jan 24, 2021). His own former chief of staff, John Kelly, a retired Marine general, said in a statement to CNN on October 2, 2023, that he is a person “who is not truthful regarding his position on the protection of unborn life, on women, on minorities,” and on evangelical Christians, Jews and working men and women (NBC News; Axios).
2. Words that suggest, then deny. - At a rally in Wilmington, North Carolina, on August 9, 2016, speaking of Hillary Clinton's judges, he said: "Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don't know." His campaign said he meant their voting power; PolitiFact concluded only that his elliptical words left room for interpretation (PolitiFact; Christian Science Monitor). - In the debate of September 29, 2020, asked to condemn white supremacist groups, he told the Proud Boys to "stand back and stand by." The group took the words as its slogan; the next day he said he did not know who they were and that they should stand down (CBS News; TheWrap). - On March 30, 2025, asked about a third term, which the 22nd Amendment forbids, he told NBC News he was "not joking" and that "there are methods"; the White House then said it was far too early to think about it (NBC News). - At a Fox News town hall in Davenport, Iowa, on December 5, 2023, Sean Hannity asked whether he had any plans, if reelected, to abuse power. He answered, “Except for Day 1,” explained that he wanted to “close the border” and “drill, drill, drill,” and added, “After that I am not a dictator, OK?” (CNBC; PolitiFact). - In three recorded, on-the-record conversations with the New York Times in October 2024, John Kelly said that he “certainly falls into the general definition of fascist, for sure,” that he “certainly prefers the dictator approach to government,” and that he is “an authoritarian, admires people who are dictators” (New York Times, via the Boston Globe, October 22, 2024).

Each time, something is suggested and nothing is quite said, so the words can be taken up by those who want them and denied to those who object. That is the serpent's manner, not only his matter.

The case against this evidence. Each statement has a defense on the record: his campaign's explanation in 2016, his call to "stand down" in 2020, his own gloss in 2023 that "day one" meant the border and drilling, the many supporters who hear third-term talk as teasing. Exaggeration and ambiguity are common in politics, and the Post's count includes the merely misleading. Kelly broke with him after leaving office, and his statements are a former aide's judgments, not findings. Above all, deception shows a likeness to the devil's work, which Scripture finds in the "many antichrists" (1 John 2:18); it does not by itself show the dragon's gift of his throne, which the text ties to worship (Rev 13:4). I grade this mark probable on the pattern, not on any single statement, and I hold that grade open to correction.

The case against. Power alone is not this mark. St. Paul teaches that authority as such comes from God (Rom 13:1), and every ruler holds great power. The text ties the beast's authority to the worship of the dragon (13:4). Until that link is shown, this mark is not met, and I say so. Many faithful Catholics see in him an ordinary political leader; I hold them in charity, and no vote or political loyalty counts as worship here.

Would strengthen: words or acts that join honor of the man with rejection of God. Standing: to assess.

What Scripture reveals: Mark 1 on The First Beast · How this reading is weighed: Mark 1 on Apocalypse 13

2. Seven heads, and an eighth

The text. A beast rises from the sea with seven heads and ten horns (Rev 13:1). Revelation gives a clue for one who has wisdom: the seven heads are seven hills on which the woman sits, and they are also seven kings; five have fallen, one is, one is yet to come and must remain a short while; and the beast that was and is not is an eighth, which belongs to the seven and goes to destruction (17:9–11). The waters are peoples, multitudes, nations and tongues (17:15), and Daniel's beasts are kings who arise from the earth (Dan 7:17).

My reading. The beast comes up out of the sea, that is, out of the peoples of the world (17:15): it is of the people, and becomes a powerful ruler (Dan 7:17). It reveals itself over seven periods, the seven hills, each a time and a place, each led by its own head. Revelation dates the count from John's own day: five have fallen, one is, one is yet to come (17:10).

• The five that had fallen by John's day: Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Medo-Persia and Greece, the world powers that in turn held God's people in bondage, exile or subjection.
• The one that is: Rome, John's own empire, itself the city of seven hills.
• The one yet to come: the United States. John Winthrop, sailing for Massachusetts in 1630, called the new settlement a city upon a hill with the eyes of all people upon it: a new time and a new place, watched by the whole world (ThoughtCo).

Its head sits in the presidency, arguably the most powerful office in the world, and for that very reason the office the Antichrist would want: the likeliest seat of one given authority over every tribe, people, tongue and nation (13:7). The last head reigns twice. The seventh head is his first term, which "must remain only a short while" (17:10): four years. He "was, and is not" (17:8) during 2021–25. The eighth head is his return, the 47th presidency, which "belongs to the seven" (17:11) because it is the same man. Because they are past, they can be named, as Revelation 17:10 names what has fallen; what is still to come is left without name or date. I grade this mark probable.

The evidence.

1. A head that reigns twice. He held the office, lost it, and returned to it: the 45th president (2017–21) and the 47th (from 2025).
2. A wound that seemed mortal. His defeat in 2020, followed by the events of January 6, 2021, seemed to end him; most people thought he would never return to power. [To develop under mark 3, the wound that is healed (13:3), with sources.]
3. The office. If the beast is to hold authority over every nation, no office on earth is a likelier seat than the American presidency.

On Grover Cleveland, for comparison. Cleveland also served two non-consecutive terms (1885–89, 1893–97). But his loss in 1888 was an ordinary defeat, not a wound that seemed mortal. Revelation joins the eighth head's return to a mortal wound healed (13:3; 17:8). That is where the two cases part.

The seventh hill and the nations. Since Christ, God's people are not one nation but the Church in every nation, so a power that holds the nations in subjection holds God's people with them. No power today shapes the life of other nations as the United States does, and in the 47th presidency it has used that power as few before it:

• Aid withdrawn from the poorest. USAID was shut down on July 1, 2025, and U.S. foreign aid more than halved that year. A study in The Lancet projected that the cuts, if they continue, could cause more than 14 million additional deaths by 2030, a third of them small children (NPR, July 1, 2025; AllAfrica, Dec 2025).
• Tariffs on nearly every nation. On April 2, 2025, which he called "Liberation Day," he imposed tariffs on imports from nearly every country, 10 percent at minimum and up to 49 percent (Wikipedia summary).
• Withdrawal from the common institutions of the nations. The United States left the World Health Organization (effective January 22, 2026) and the Paris Agreement, and in January 2026 ordered its withdrawal from 66 international bodies, among them the UN climate treaty and the UN Population Fund (Euronews, Jan 8, 2026).
• Claims on other nations' land. Before taking office he refused to rule out military force to take Greenland and the Panama Canal, and spoke of "economic force" to make Canada a 51st state (AP, Jan 7, 2025, via ADN).
• War. On February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel struck Iran, killing its Supreme Leader; the war has drawn in the region and, after a ceasefire and a memorandum that collapsed, continues (Congressional Research Service).

What a reader should weigh. These are the acts of an elected government, checked in part by courts and Congress, and his supporters defend them: aid that should be borne by others, fairer trade, institutions that worked against American interests, a nuclear threat stopped. Cutting aid withdraws help; it does not conquer. The Lancet figures are projections. China and Russia also bend other nations to their will. To call these acts subjection is my judgment, and Revelation's subjection goes further, to worship (13:4, 8, 12), which belongs to mark 6. Domestic policy is left out here: it bears on how America is governed, not on its rule over the nations.

The case against.

• Whose count this is. Reading the heads as seven world empires, with Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Medo-Persia and Greece as the five fallen and Rome as the one that is, is a long-standing interpretation, held among others by Joseph Seiss, Homer Hailey and Robert Thomas (Thomas, Revelation 8–22, 1995, as quoted) and by several Adventist scholars. It is chiefly a Protestant reading. Catholic commentary, including the NABRE note, reads the heads as Roman emperors and the hills as Rome's own; many modern scholars read the seven as a symbol of completeness rather than a count. And the interpreters who hold the empire view name the seventh differently: a revived Rome, papal Rome, or a future kingdom of the beast. The United States as the seventh is my own step.
• The gap. Rome fell in the West in 476; the city upon a hill was founded in 1630, and the text gives no sign of a gap of eleven centuries. My answer: no power in those centuries qualified as the seventh head. A head is the leading world power of its age that holds the nations, and God's people among them, in subjection, as Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia and Greece each did, and Rome in John's day. The Byzantine, Holy Roman, Spanish and British empires ruled widely, and the Ottoman Empire ruled Jerusalem and millions of Christians from 1517 to 1917; but none was the leading power of the whole world in the way Rome was and the United States is. And had the Ottoman Empire been the seventh head, that part of Revelation would already be fulfilled: an eighth would have followed it, made war on the Lamb with ten kings, and gone to destruction (17:11–14). That has not happened. Against my answer: "leading world power" is a judgment, and the British Empire at its height, ruling a quarter of the world, has a strong claim to it.
• "City upon a hill" is Winthrop's phrase, taken from Christ's words to his disciples (Matt 5:14), not from Revelation.
• The office. The "most powerful office" argument applies to every president since 1945. It shows why the Antichrist would want the office, not which holder he is.
• Cleveland. The answer to the Cleveland comparison depends on mark 3: if the wound that seemed mortal is not shown there, the two cases look alike.

Would strengthen: a coherent account of the first six hills and their heads. Would weaken: finding that none can be given. Standing: partly seen.

What Scripture reveals: Mark 2 on The First Beast · How this reading is weighed: Mark 2 on Apocalypse 13

3. A wound that seemed mortal, healed

The text. One of the beast's heads seemed to have been mortally wounded, but the mortal wound was healed, and the whole world followed the beast in amazement (Rev 13:3); it was wounded by the sword and lived (13:14).

My reading. The wound is the loss of office in 2020–21, and it was not an ordinary defeat. It was followed by a chain of events that seemed to end him:

• the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, for which the leader of his own party in the Senate said he was "practically and morally responsible" (AP, Feb 13, 2021);
• a second impeachment, the only president impeached twice, with 57 senators voting to convict, seven of them from his own party;
• his removal from the major social-media platforms;
• four criminal indictments in 2023, and in May 2024 a conviction on 34 felony counts, the first of a former president.

Most people thought he would never return to power. He did: re-elected in November 2024 and inaugurated on January 20, 2025. The head that seemed slain was healed. I grade this mark probable.

How the healing was told. The healing was not told as an ordinary comeback. In his inaugural address he said his life "was saved by God to make America great again," speaking of the attempts on his life (UCSB American Presidency Project); in the inaugural prayers that day Franklin Graham thanked God that when his enemies thought him down and out, "you and you alone saved his life and raised him up" (Religion News Service). The language of being raised up is the language of resurrection.

The sword. At Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024, a gunman fired on his rally. He was struck in the ear and lived; Corey Comperatore, a former fire chief who shielded his family, was killed; David Dutch and James Copenhaver were critically wounded, and Copenhaver has since died (Newsweek). The shooting drew the attention of the whole world to him and, many believe, helped carry him back to power. I read the loss of office as the mortal wound, and Butler as the wound "by the sword" within it (13:14): around him the sword was mortal, and he lived. I also see in it a diversion: because his own wound was not mortal, many will conclude he cannot be the beast. This last point is my reflection; by its nature it cannot be tested.

The world's amazement. Revelation says the whole earth followed the beast in amazement (13:3). When TIME named him its 2024 Person of the Year, its editor recalled that after January 6 the shrewdest observers had counted him finished, and called his return his "apotheosis," a word that means being made a god (TIME, Dec 12, 2024). The same piece observed members of Congress, international institutions and world leaders lining up behind him again. The powerful followed: the heads of the world's largest companies sat on his inaugural platform, and many of them gave a million dollars each to his inauguration (Yahoo/Business Insider). Governments now handle him with care: at the NATO summit in June 2025 the alliance's secretary-general called him "Daddy" (Euronews).

The case against.

• "Seemed mortal." The text speaks of a wound that only seemed mortal, so the loss need not have been death. But whether a lost election looks like a mortal wound is a judgment, and a return from apparent ruin is not by itself unique. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, president of Brazil from 2003 to 2010, was imprisoned in 2018–19 and barred from that year's election, then saw his conviction annulled and was elected president again in 2022. No one proposes him as the beast; the comparison shows only that the comeback alone does not single out one man. What sets this case apart is the whole chain: an incumbent's loss, January 6, a second impeachment, four indictments and a conviction, and then the return.
• Butler. His own wound was not mortal. Reading that fact as Satan's diversion turns evidence against the reading into evidence for it, which no reader can check (Standard 7).
• Thanksgiving. Saying one was saved by God is common among those who survive danger, and the faithful who gave thanks that day did so sincerely.
• Amazement is not worship. TIME's choice honors influence, whether for good or ill, not virtue; flattery is a diplomatic strategy, which the EU's foreign-policy chief defended as speaking his language; and business leaders court every new president. The text's amazement ends in worship (13:4), which is the test of mark 6.

Would strengthen: honor given to him that belongs to God (mark 6). Would weaken: that the return is received as ordinary politics. Standing: partly seen.

What Scripture reveals: Mark 3 on The First Beast · How this reading is weighed: Mark 3 on Apocalypse 13

5. Boasting and blasphemy

The text. The beast was given a mouth uttering proud boasts and blasphemies, and it opened its mouth to utter blasphemies against God, blaspheming his name and his dwelling and those who dwell in heaven (Revelation 13:5–6). Daniel's little horn has "a mouth that spoke arrogantly" (Daniel 7:8).

My reading. This beast is all about himself. His proud boasts are public and constant, and they reach past himself toward the things of God. I grade this mark probable.

Proud boasts.

• At the Republican convention in 2016 he said that nobody knows the system better than he does, "which is why I alone can fix it" (PolitiFact).
• On August 21, 2019, speaking of the trade war with China, he looked up and said, "I am the chosen one" (Axios).
• "Part of the beauty of me is that I'm very rich" (ABC, 2011; TPM), and "my whole life I've been greedy, greedy, greedy," to which he added, "but now I want to be greedy for the United States" (rally, January 2016; Berghahn Books; Tampa Bay Times, opinion). St. Paul calls greed idolatry (Colossians 3:5), and the Catechism counts money among the idols that take God's place (CCC 2113).
• His Trump Tower home is decorated in the style of Versailles, the palace of the Sun King, with images of Apollo and ceiling murals of Greek gods (Observador, 2016). I note it as a setting he chose for himself, not as worship.

Words that reach toward God.

• Asked in 2015 whether he had ever asked God for forgiveness, he said he was not sure he had, and that he tries instead to correct his own mistakes (CNN, July 18, 2015).
• On the same day in 2019 that he called himself the chosen one, he posted a quotation calling him the "King of Israel," loved by Israelis "like he is the second coming of God" (Axios).
• On May 2, 2025, while the Church mourned Pope Francis and before the conclave, an image of him dressed as the pope was posted on his account. The New York State Catholic Conference answered, "Do not mock us." He said the Catholics loved it (EWTN News).
• In April 2026, in the days he attacked Pope Leo XIV as weak for opposing the war with Iran and said he owed him no apology, an AI image of himself was posted on his account: robed in white like Christ, laying hands on a sick man, with soldiers, eagles and the flag around him. It was taken down within hours. Cardinal Joseph Tobin called it deeply offensive, and many of his own supporters called it blasphemous. He said he thought it showed him as a doctor, with the Red Cross (Washington Times; Fox News). Of everything here, this comes nearest to the text: a man set in the place of Christ the healer, after turning against the Vicar of Christ who called for peace.
• In Holy Week 2024 he urged his followers to buy a $59.99 Bible under a licensing deal (AP, via Inquirer).

Revelation describes words that begin with the self and end against God, his name, his dwelling and his saints. I see that movement here: a man who places himself at the center, and who treats the sacred lightly.

The case against.

• Most of this is the first half of the mark, boasting, which many rulers share. Boasting of oneself is not yet blasphemy against God (CCC 2148).
• Each episode touching God has a defense on the record. He later said "chosen one" was sarcasm, and it was spoken of a trade war. He said he had nothing to do with the pope image and called it a joke. He said the healer image showed him as a doctor, took it down within hours, and his vice president said it was a joke people misunderstood. The "second coming" words were another man's. He has spoken of taking Communion as his way of seeking forgiveness.
• Wealth is not a sin, and the Church does not call the rich idolaters for being rich (CCC 2402–2406). On the first page of The Art of the Deal he wrote that he does not do it for the money.
• None of these is a plain word of reproach or defiance spoken against God, and each image was disclaimed. I grade the mark probable on the pattern, above all the image of himself as Christ, and I hold the grade open to correction.

Would strengthen: words that set him against God or above him, or that mock what is holy as a settled pattern. Would weaken: a turn to humility before God, sincerely shown. Standing: partly seen.

What Scripture reveals: Mark 5 on The First Beast · How this reading is weighed: Mark 5 on Apocalypse 13

6. Worship demanded

The text. The world worshiped the dragon because it gave its authority to the beast, and worshiped the beast, saying, "Who can compare with the beast or who can fight against it?" (Revelation 13:4). The second beast makes the earth worship the first beast, has an image made for it, and gives the image breath to speak and to have those who will not worship it put to death (Revelation 13:12, 14–15). The pattern is Nebuchadnezzar's golden statue (Daniel 3:5–6).

My reading. This beast is not content to be obeyed; he wants to be honored. I see it in the loyalty he asks of persons, in the price paid by those who refuse it, and in his name and image raised over the nation's public places. I grade this mark probable.

Loyalty asked of persons.

• At a rally in Orlando on March 5, 2016, he had the crowd raise their right hands and pledge to vote for him, then told them, "Bad things happen if you don't live up to what you just did" (Al Jazeera).
• In Sioux Center, Iowa, on January 23, 2016: "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose any voters" (PBS NewsHour). The world's question in Revelation is "who can fight against it?"
• FBI Director James Comey testified under oath that at a private dinner in January 2017 the president told him, "I need loyalty, I expect loyalty" (AP, via Anchorage Daily News).
• From May 2025, applicants for federal jobs were asked to name executive orders or policies of his that were significant to them and to say how they would help carry them out. On September 11, 2026, a federal judge stayed the question as likely violating applicants' First Amendment rights (Maryland Matters).

A price for refusing him.

• He fired Comey on May 9, 2017. By the Mueller report's account, it followed Comey's refusal of the loyalty pledge, his refusal to drop the investigation of Michael Flynn, and his refusal to say publicly that the president was not under investigation. Two days later the president told Lester Holt he was thinking of "this Russia thing" when he decided (NBC, on the Mueller report).
• When Marjorie Taylor Greene, once among his closest allies, pressed for the release of the Epstein files, he withdrew his endorsement on November 14, 2025, called her "Marjorie 'Traitor' Greene," and offered to back a challenger. She said he wanted to "make an example" of her to scare other Republicans (CBS News).
• When Tucker Carlson, once his loudest champion, called the attack on Iran "absolutely disgusting and evil," he answered that "Tucker has lost his way" and is "not MAGA" (IBTimes, March 6, 2026).
• Republicans in office who opposed him were removed in 2026 primaries he backed. In Indiana, he endorsed challengers to seven state senators who had voted against his redistricting map, and at least four lost on May 5 (AP, via Fox19). Senator Bill Cassidy, who voted to convict him in 2021, lost his primary, and Representative Thomas Massie, who opposed him on the budget bill, the wars and the Epstein files, lost his on May 19 (NPR, via Central Florida Public Media).

His name and image over public places.

• Banners of his face, several stories high, have hung on the headquarters of the Departments of Agriculture (June 2025), Labor (August 2025) and Justice (February 2026) (Newsweek; TIME, via AOL).
• In his second term his name or face has been put, or proposed to be put, on the Kennedy Center, the U.S. Institute of Peace, a dollar coin, a gold coin, the national parks pass, a commemorative passport, the nation's currency, a class of battleships, and government programs: TrumpRx, Trump Accounts and the Trump Gold Card. Presidents have usually been honored this way only after leaving office or dying, and the historian Barbara Perry notes that most have avoided it so as not to look self-centered (NPR, February 27, 2026, via Central Florida Public Media; TIME, via AOL; on the Kennedy Center, Al Jazeera).
• A military parade through Washington, for the Army's 250th anniversary, was held on June 14, 2025, his 79th birthday (AP, via WDAM).
• In February 2025 he posted, without comment, an AI video of a rebuilt Gaza with a giant golden statue of himself at its center (Axios). Daniel's golden statue and the image of the beast come to mind.
• The image of himself robed as Christ the healer (card 5) belongs here too: it gives him an honor that belongs to Christ.

Revelation describes worship that begins as fascination, is drawn toward a man, and is finally required. I see the first two here, and the beginnings of requirement: loyalty asked of those who serve the nation, and a price paid by those, even old allies, who will not give it.

The case against.

• Revelation speaks of worship, the adoration owed to God alone (CCC 2096), enforced by death. Loyalty to a leader, a pledge to vote, and a name on a building are political, not religious, and many rulers have sought them.
• Presidents have been honored by name before: the Kennedy Center and Reagan National Airport are named for presidents. Most of these honors came from agencies and appointees and were tied to the nation's 250th anniversary; several are being challenged in court or have not been carried out. He says he did not do the naming ("Nobody believes me, but I did not name it," of Trump Accounts), and the White House says he is "focused on saving our country – not garnering recognition" (NPR).
• He denied Comey's account. The federal job question was optional, and a court stopped it. The Gaza video was made by others as satire, by its makers' account (NBC).
• The price paid by those who opposed him is political: a firing, a lost endorsement, public denunciation, a lost primary. Presidents have fired officials and backed challengers before, and the primaries were decided by voters. Those punished were punished for opposing his policies, not for refusing him divine honor. No one has been put to death, or threatened with it, and the devotion of his supporters is freely given.
• In Revelation the enforcement is the second beast's work. Unless a false prophet is shown (marks 9 and 10), this mark can be only partly seen.

Would strengthen: honor belonging to God required of people or accepted by him; a penalty for refusing to honor him or his image. Would weaken: honors refused, or a court and a nation that keep the honor of God and the honor of the state apart. Standing: partly seen.

What Scripture reveals: Mark 6 on The First Beast · How this reading is weighed: Mark 6 on Apocalypse 13

7. War on the holy ones

The text. The beast "was also allowed to wage war against the holy ones and conquer them" (Revelation 13:7), and those who will not worship its image are put to death (Revelation 13:15). Daniel's little horn "made war against the holy ones and was victorious" until judgment was given in their favor (Daniel 7:21–22). Daniel shows the war fought two ways: "By his deceit he shall make some who were disloyal forsake the covenant," while for the faithful "the sword, flames, exile, and plunder will cause them to stumble" (Daniel 11:32–33).

Who the holy ones are. I read them as the Catholic Church, all Christians, and all who keep God's commandments. Revelation calls them "those who keep God's commandments and bear witness to Jesus" (Revelation 12:17). The Church is the sacrament of salvation (CCC 774–776); all the baptized are joined to her (CCC 838); and the Lord counts among his own those who served him in the least without knowing it (Matthew 25:37–40).

My reading. The war is waged, as in Daniel, by deceit and by force. By deceit, Christians are drawn to bind their faith to a man and to turn against their shepherds. By force, the Church meets the power of the state where she keeps the Lord's command, "I was a stranger and you welcomed me" (Matthew 25:35). I grade this mark possible for now, and I am still developing it.

1. A war by seduction. The Catechism names the final trial a "religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth" (CCC 675).

• At a summit for Christian believers on July 26, 2024, he said: "You won't have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians," and "In four years, you don't have to vote again" (CBS News, via KWTX).
• The faith is joined to his person: the $59.99 Bible sold in Holy Week, the image of himself as Christ the healer (card 5), and "It was God that saved me" (K-LOVE).
• Christians are invited to side with him against their shepherds. When the bishops defended migrants, his vice president, himself a Catholic, told them to "look in the mirror" and asked whether they were "actually worried about their bottom line." Cardinal Dolan called the charge "scurrilous" and "not true" (EWTN News). When Pope Francis wrote to the bishops against mass deportation, his border czar answered that "the pope should stick to the church and fix that" (NPR, via KUNC).

2. The Church at the door of the stranger.

• In January 2025 the administration ended the policy, in place since 2011, that kept immigration enforcement away from churches and other sensitive places. Churches sued, and on February 13, 2026 a federal judge barred most enforcement at and near the houses of worship that brought the case (Religion News Service).
• At St. Gabriel the Archangel in Hopkins, Minnesota, a maintenance worker and choir member was handcuffed by ICE in December 2025 and deported to Mexico; on the feast of the Epiphany, January 4, 2026, ICE vehicles waited outside the church during the Spanish Mass, according to the pastor and the mayor (EWTN News).
• On Sunday, June 28, 2026, Sister Leticia Ugboaja, a religious sister, nurse and extraordinary minister of Holy Communion, was arrested by ICE while walking to Mass in McAllen, Texas. She was released the next day after two members of Congress intervened (National Catholic Register).
• At the Broadview ICE facility outside Chicago, priests and sisters were refused permission to bring Holy Communion to detainees in the fall of 2025. Pope Leo XIV asked the authorities to let pastoral workers attend to them (Axios), and a federal judge later ordered ICE to allow Communion and ashes there (Catholic World Report). Outside the same facility on September 19, 2025, a federal agent shot a Presbyterian pastor, the Rev. David Black, in the head with a pepper ball (KTVU).

3. Pressure on the works of mercy. The Church's charity is part of her witness to Christ (CCC 2447).

• When the administration froze foreign aid in early 2025, Catholic Relief Services, which drew about half its budget from USAID, began layoffs and projected cuts of up to 50 percent (National Catholic Reporter).
• In April 2025, after refugee resettlement funding was halted, the U.S. bishops ended a partnership of some fifty years with the federal government to serve refugees and migrant children (AP, via CFJC).

4. Against the shepherds. Daniel's horn speaks against the Most High and wears down the holy ones (Daniel 7:25); the two go together.

• In February 2016, when Pope Francis said that a person who thinks only of building walls and not bridges "is not Christian," he called it "disgraceful" for a religious leader to question a person's faith (Fox 29).
• On February 11, 2025, Pope Francis wrote to the U.S. bishops that mass deportation "damages the dignity" of those deported, and called it a "major crisis" (NPR, via KUNC).
• On November 12, 2025, by a vote of 216 to 5, the bishops issued their first special message since 2013, opposing "the indiscriminate mass deportation of people" and grieving "threats against the sanctity of houses of worship" (America).
• In April 2026 he attacked Pope Leo XIV as weak and said he owed him no apology (card 5).

Revelation describes a war on the faithful that the beast is allowed to win for a time. I see its beginnings: Christians drawn to bind their faith to a man, the Church's witness to the stranger met with force, her works of mercy cut down, and her shepherds, from the bishops to the Pope, treated as opponents.

A lesson from history: an analogy, not evidence.

What history records. Nazi Germany began with those it marked as foreigners. On July 14, 1933 a law revoked naturalizations, and its first decree named Eastern European Jews as its targets; in 1935 the Reich Citizenship Law stripped all Jews of full citizenship (University of Oregon). On October 27–29, 1938 some 17,000 Polish Jews living in Germany were expelled across the border; the son of one expelled family shot a German diplomat in Paris, and the regime used his death as the pretext for the pogrom of Kristallnacht, November 9–10 (Leo Baeck Institute; Wikipedia). The same regime broke its concordat with the Church, dissolved Catholic youth groups and arrested thousands of priests, religious and lay leaders; Pope Pius XI condemned it in Mit brennender Sorge (1937) (Vatican). At Dachau alone 2,720 clergy were imprisoned, about 2,579 of them Catholic, and more than a thousand died (Wikipedia).

My reflection. A people taught to see the stranger as a danger to its blood was conditioned, one step at a time, to accept what followed: the stranger first, then its own Jewish neighbors, then the Church that would not bow, and then a world war. In December 2023 he said that immigrants are "poisoning the blood of our country" (CBS News). I offer the history as a warning about where such a road can lead, not as proof of where this one will.

What a reader should weigh. The comparison has real limits. Germany's laws targeted Jews by race and took citizenship from citizens; enforcement here turns on legal status, and nations may regulate immigration (CCC 2241). Within months of 1933 Germany had banned other parties, seized the press and ended free elections; here elections are held, courts check the government, and the press and the Church speak freely. He denies the echo: "I never read 'Mein Kampf'" (CBS News). The Shoah stands alone in history, and a comparison that seems to make it smaller wrongs its victims; comparisons to Hitler also tend to harden hearts rather than open them.

The case against.

• The text's war conquers the holy ones and kills those who will not worship. Nothing here is persecution for the faith: enforcement turns on immigration status, not on religion, and no one has been arrested for being a Christian. The Department of Homeland Security says ICE "does not raid churches" and that arrests near places of worship happen only when public safety requires it.
• The administration presents itself as a defender of Christians. On February 6, 2025 he ordered a task force "to eradicate anti-Christian bias" in the federal government and said, "Let's bring God back into our lives" (K-LOVE). Bishops serve on his Religious Liberty Commission and seek dialogue with his officials (America).
• Immigration and foreign aid are questions of prudential judgment on which Catholics may differ in good faith. Disagreeing with the bishops on policy is not apostasy, and popes and presidents have clashed before. The aid freeze fell on every relief group, not on the Church in particular.
• "You won't have to vote anymore" admits a plainer reading: that one election would set things right. Words of faith from a politician are not proof of deceit.
• The holy ones have not been conquered. Courts have protected the churches that sued and restored Communion at Broadview, Sister Leticia was released within a day, and the Church speaks freely. The bishops' own message also prays for an end to violence against law enforcement, and the pastor at Broadview was struck at a protest, among protesters.

What would move this mark to probable. I set the test in advance, so the grade can be checked:

• laws or orders aimed at the Church's sacraments, the seal of confession, or her teaching;
• Catholic schools, hospitals or charities penalized for keeping the Church's teaching;
• Christians fined, jailed or barred from office for their faith or worship as such;
• courts that no longer protect the Church, or orders that are not obeyed;
• Christians in large numbers turning from the Pope and the bishops to follow the ruler instead.

Would weaken: the Church's ministry to the stranger respected in practice, and her shepherds heard rather than attacked. Standing: foreshadowed.

What Scripture reveals: Mark 7 on The First Beast · How this reading is weighed: Mark 7 on Apocalypse 13

8. Universal reach

The text. The beast "was granted authority over every tribe, people, tongue, and nation" (Revelation 13:7). Ten kings "are of one mind and will give their power and authority to the beast" (Revelation 17:13). The devil once offered Christ "all the kingdoms of the world," for they had been "handed over" to him, if only he would worship him (Luke 4:5–7).

My reading. The seat of this beast is the presidency of the United States, the office whose reach touches every tribe, people, tongue and nation (card 2). In the 47th presidency that reach is used not only through the nation's power but in his own name: to run another nation, to demand the land of allies, and to preside over a new body of nations. I grade this mark possible.

The nations under his hand. Card 2 sets out the tariffs on nearly every nation, the aid withdrawn from the poorest, the withdrawal from the common institutions of the nations, and the war with Iran. To these I add:

• Running another nation. On January 3, 2026, U.S. forces seized Venezuela's president, Nicolás Maduro, in Caracas. He announced: "We are going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition," and spoke of a "partnership" with its oil industry (PBS NewsHour).
• Demanding an ally's land. On January 17, 2026, he threatened tariffs of 10 percent, rising to 25, on eight European allies, among them Denmark, Germany, France and the United Kingdom, until a deal was reached for the "Complete and Total purchase of Greenland" (Eyewitness News).
• Presiding over the nations. On January 22, 2026, at Davos, he signed the charter of a "Board of Peace," which he chairs, with a permanent seat for nations that contribute a billion dollars. Some two dozen nations agreed to join. He said that once it is formed, "we can do pretty much whatever we want to do"; critics called it an attempt "to render the UN obsolete" (Al Jazeera). The charter gives him a veto over the board's decisions and control of its agenda and membership, and a U.S. official said he can hold the chair "until he resigns it," even after leaving office (Straight Arrow News, on the draft charter; TimesLIVE, Feb 19, 2026). By February 2026 it had some 27 founding members.

Revelation 17 speaks of kings "of one mind" who "give their power and authority to the beast" (17:13). I note the Board of Peace here, and will weigh it more fully when I come to the ten horns.

The case against.

• Influence is not authority. The text gives the beast authority over every nation and the worship of all the earth (13:7–8). Most of the world does not follow him: in a 2025 Pew survey, more than half the adults in 19 of 24 countries lacked confidence in his handling of world affairs (Pew Research Center).
• The nations resist him. Britain, the European Union, France, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Brazil and Mexico declined to join the Board of Peace; China, Russia and India have not joined; and the Holy See declined, saying such crises should be handled by the United Nations (TimesLIVE, Feb 19, 2026). He dropped the Greenland tariffs four days after threatening them, announcing a "framework" with NATO instead (The Fiscal Times). China and Russia are rival powers he does not command.
• American power was arguably wider after 1945 and after the Cold War than it is now. A reach that every president has held cannot by itself single out one man.
• His defenders see these acts as the ordinary use of a great power's strength: an indicted dictator removed, allies pressed to bear their share, a new path to peace in Gaza.

What would move this mark to probable. I set the test in advance, so the grade can be checked:

• nations giving their power and authority to him, as in Revelation 17:13: a body like the Board of Peace taking up decisions that belong to its members' own governments or to the United Nations, with him at its head;
• authority over the nations tied to his person rather than his office: a chairmanship of the Board of Peace actually kept after he leaves the presidency, as has been reported he may;
• another nation's government run or replaced at his word, and held, not handed back;
• the land of another nation, Greenland or the Panama Canal, taken under U.S. control against its will;
• major powers that now resist him, Europe, China or India, bending to his terms rather than bargaining with them.

Would weaken: the nations' independence restored, and his reach no wider than the office has always had. Standing: partly seen.

What Scripture reveals: Mark 8 on The First Beast · How this reading is weighed: Mark 8 on Apocalypse 13

12. A limited time

The text. The beast "was given authority to act for forty-two months" (Revelation 13:5). Daniel's horn speaks against the Most High, wears down the holy ones, and intends "to change the feast days and the law"; they are handed over to him "for a time, two times, and half a time" (Daniel 7:25). The dragon "knows he has but a short time" (Revelation 12:12).

My reading. I set no date and compute none. With the Church, I read the forty-two months first as the broken seven: the time of trial, measured and limited by God, in which every Catholic may rest. My proposal that the numbers may also be meant literally, and how they might fit the first and second terms, is set out and tested on its own page, The Timing, as a Test of the Theory, which counts backward to test and never forward to predict. Here I add one thing: in my reading the beast's time is held within an office that the law itself limits. I grade this mark possible.

A time given, and a law that limits it. The Twenty-second Amendment allows no one to be elected president more than twice. The beast's time is given; Daniel's horn would change "the feast days and the law." His words on a third term have gone both ways:

• On March 30, 2025, asked whether he was joking about a third term, he said, "No, no I'm not joking," and that "there are methods which you could do it" (NPR, via KAXE).
• On October 29, 2025, he said it was "pretty clear" he is "not allowed" to run again: "It's too bad" (AFP, via EWN).
• On August 11, 2026: "I'd love to run, but the law is very strong" (Fox News).

Changing the law? Executive orders are how a president directs the government, not how laws are made; but they show how far he reaches, and where the law has stopped him:

• He signed 225 executive orders in 2025, more than in any year since 1942, and 292 by October 22, 2026: more in twenty-one months than in his whole first term (220) or in his predecessor's four years (162) (Federal Register).
• On February 20, 2026, the Supreme Court held, 6–3, that the emergency-powers law he had used for his worldwide tariffs "does not authorize the President to impose tariffs"; taxing belongs to Congress (Learning Resources v. Trump). The government stopped collecting them and began refunds, and he turned to tariffs under other laws.
• On June 30, 2026, the Court struck down his order ending birthright citizenship as contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment (Trump v. Barbara, SCOTUSblog).
• On January 30, 2026, a federal judge permanently blocked more of his order on elections, writing that "our Constitution does not allow the President to impose unilateral changes" to federal election procedures (OPB/AP).

So far the limit holds, and that is what the mark expects: the beast's time is given, not taken. If the limit were set aside, it would answer Daniel's horn that intends to change the law; if it holds, the measure stands as Revelation describes it. Either way, the end of the time is God's to set, not mine to compute.

The case against.

• A limited time is the condition of every ruler and every presidency. A limit that all share cannot by itself single out one man.
• The literal reading on The Timing rests on a frame the Church does not teach and a pause the text does not mention, and Revelation 13:5 places the forty-two months after the healing, which weighs against counting any of them in the first term.
• Volume is not usurpation. Franklin Roosevelt signed 2,023 executive orders and Truman 906, and most orders are routine directions to agencies. Every recent president has had measures struck down by the courts.
• In each case above the courts held the line and he complied: that is the law limiting the office, as the mark expects, not a law changed. Daniel's horn would change the law itself.
• His talk of a third term has been called a joke by him and by his allies, and he has since said plainly that the law does not allow it.
• Any reading of the numbers that implies an end invites readers to compute it, which the Church forbids (CCC 673; Acts 1:7). This card keeps the limit and leaves the end to God.

Would strengthen: an attempt to set aside or evade the limit on the office, or an order kept in force after a final ruling against it (Daniel 7:25). Would weaken: the office handed on at the end of the term, as the law requires. Standing: unfolding.

What Scripture reveals: Mark 12 on The First Beast · How this reading is weighed: Mark 12 on Apocalypse 13

13. A number that calls for wisdom

The text. "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). The second beast forces all to take "the stamped image of the beast's name or the number that stood for its name" (13:17).

My reading. I do not fit the number to anyone's name, and I do not ask my readers to. With St. Irenaeus, I hold that it is "more certain, and less hazardous, to await the fulfilment" (Against Heresies V.30.3), and with St. Hippolytus, that "when he appears, the blessed one will show us" (On Christ and Antichrist 50). What I offer here are two things I have noticed, which a reader should weigh as observations, not proofs. I leave this mark ungraded.

Two observations.

• 666 Fifth Avenue. In 2007 Kushner Companies, the family business of the man I read as the second beast, bought the tower at 666 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan for a record $1.8 billion; in 2018, burdened by its debt, the company leased it for 99 years to Brookfield Asset Management (Business Standard). In Revelation the second beast deals in the first beast's number (13:17). I have read the purchase against a parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field, which a person finds and hides again, and out of joy goes and sells all that he has and buys that field” (Matthew 13:44). In the parable a man gives everything for a hidden treasure. Here a record price was paid for a building that was then left to its debts; what the buyer seemed to want was not the building but what it carried. I offer this as a reflection on the parable turned inside out, not as an argument.
• John 6:66. St. Irenaeus reads 666 as the sum of all apostasy (Against Heresies V.29.2). In John 6:66, "many [of] his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him." The number of the beast and the verse of the great turning away share their digits; Peter's answer is the Church's: "Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life" (John 6:68).

The case against.

• The verse gives the number to the first beast and calls it "a number that stands for a person": a name, as the Fathers all took it, not a street address. A building owned by another man's company does not give the first beast's number.
• Many things in a great city carry the number 666; the building's address was not chosen by the Kushners.
• Chapter and verse numbers were added to the Bible more than a thousand years after it was written. A link through John 6:66 is a pattern in our numbering, not in the text John wrote.
• The history of the number is a history of failed guesses, which is why Irenaeus and Hippolytus refused to name anyone.

Would strengthen: the number tied, plainly and without strain, to the first beast's name, recognized when the time comes. Would weaken: nothing beyond what already stands against it. Standing: against, as now argued.

What Scripture reveals: Mark 13 on The First Beast · How this reading is weighed: Mark 13 on Apocalypse 13

14. The response asked of the faithful

The text. "Whoever has ears ought to hear these words. Anyone destined for captivity goes into captivity. Anyone destined to be slain by the sword shall be slain by the sword. Such is the faithful endurance of the holy ones" (Revelation 13:9–10). "Here is what sustains the holy ones who keep God's commandments and their faith in Jesus" (Revelation 14:12).

My reading. This mark is not about the beast; it is about us. It is not graded, because it is not a claim about anyone. It is the test of my whole reading. If what I have written makes you afraid, angry, curious about dates, or hostile toward any person, I have failed, whatever else I have gotten right. If it makes you more faithful, more patient and more loving, it has done what Revelation 13 was written to do.

What I ask of my readers.

• Hear. Read the chapter yourself, with the Church, and test what I say against it (1 Thessalonians 5:21). How I read Revelation 13 sets out my method and its limits.
• Endure. Prepare now, while the sacraments are freely given: the Eucharist, confession, the Rosary, freedom from money, the works of mercy (Preparing Now).
• Keep faith, and refuse the mark. Know what the mark is and what it costs, and learn now to give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's (Stand Firm; Discerning Now).
• Do not take up the sword. "All who take the sword will perish by the sword" (Matthew 26:52). The holy ones answer the beast with witness and endurance, never with its own weapons. Learn from those who would not bow (The Courage of the Martyrs).
• Love, even now. Pray for all in authority (1 Timothy 2:1–2), love those who follow him, and love those who think this reading is wrong (Love Even Now). I judge words and deeds, never a soul (CCC 1861).
• Do not be afraid. The beast's time is measured, and the Lamb conquers (Revelation 17:14). Keep watch without fear (Stay Awake).

How this mark is weighed. By its fruit (Matthew 7:16). If my reading proves wrong, these practices are still the Church's way of holiness, and nothing in them is lost. If it proves right, they are the readiness Revelation asks for.

What Scripture reveals: Mark 14 on The First Beast · How this reading is weighed: Mark 14 on Apocalypse 13

Two reflections, not evidence

These are my reflections on the times. They are not evidence for my reading, they are not graded, and by their nature they cannot be tested. I set beside each what a reader should weigh.

1. The opening of the abyss.

What the sources say. Revelation says the beast comes up from the abyss (Rev 11:7; 17:8), and it pictures the shaft of the abyss opened, with smoke like a great furnace darkening the sun and the air (Rev 9:1–2). The Second Vatican Council condemned acts of war aimed at the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities as a crime against God and man (Gaudium et Spes 80), and Pope St. John Paul II named Hiroshima and Nagasaki beside Auschwitz as places marked by man's sin (National Catholic Register). Venerable Fulton Sheen dated the moral collapse of his country to 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945, when the bomb fell on Hiroshima (What Now America?, as quoted in the Register). He also read the sun falling at Fatima as possibly a warning of the atomic bomb (The World's First Love; NCRegister). Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich, as recorded by Clemens Brentano, heard that Lucifer would be freed for a time "fifty or sixty years before the year 2000": between 1940 and 1950 (Life of Jesus Christ, vol. 4, on Christ's descent into hell; text).

My reflection. The bombings fall within Emmerich's window, and the Church judges such acts a crime against God and man. I read them as an opening of the abyss in the sense of Revelation 9: not a literal portal, but an evil so great that it loosed the spirit of antichrist upon our age. Satan cannot become incarnate; he must prepare one man. St. John Damascene says the Antichrist is "nurtured in secret, and on a sudden he rises up and rebels and assumes rule" (Exact Exposition IV.26). Donald Trump was conceived within weeks of the bombings. I offer this as a reflection on the times, not as proof.

What a reader should weigh. None of these sources names anyone or ties the spirit of antichrist to a birth. Emmerich's words are private revelation, which adds nothing to the faith (CCC 67); she hedged them herself ("if I do not mistake"), and Brentano's records were set aside in her beatification. Her window also fits the war, the camps and many others born in those years. Two other prophecies often cited do not fit: the La Salette secret as published in 1879 names 1864, and is disputed; the "75 to 100 years" dialogue in Pope Leo XIII's vision is later legend (Aleteia).

2. "Offspring of fornication," read spiritually.

What Damascene says. The devil does not become man as the Lord did; rather, the Antichrist "becomes man as the offspring of fornication and receiveth all the energy of Satan" (Exact Exposition IV.26, NPNF translation). Arminjon repeats it (p. 43).

My reading. I take Damascene's words not of a literal birth but of a spiritual lineage: one formed from his youth to serve false gods.

What the record shows.

• A father who wanted killers. His biographer Gwenda Blair reports that Fred Trump's message to his sons was to compete, to win, and to be a killer interview for PBS Frontline, The Choice 2016. His niece Mary L. Trump, a clinical psychologist, writes that Fred wanted his eldest son to be a "killer"; Fred Jr. was temperamentally the opposite, and Donald, seven and a half years younger, learned by watching his father humiliate him (Too Much and Never Enough, 2020; Boston Globe). When Fred Jr. chose to fly airliners instead, the father turned to Donald as his heir.
• Military school. In 1959, at thirteen, with a history of trouble at school, he was sent by his father to the New York Military Academy, where he rose to cadet captain; he has called those five years formative and said he did very well under the military system (Washington Post, via Santa Fe New Mexican).

My reflection. Satan, preparing one man, could build on a family history. By his biographer's account, his grandfather made his first fortune in the Klondike partly from liquor and prostitution; his father prized the killer over the gentle son. His father saw in him the killer instinct he could not find in his eldest son, and fostered it. He sent him to military school not to break that instinct but to give it structure and teach him to use it. What he handed on was the creed the Catechism names as idolatry: power, pleasure and money in the place of God (CCC 2113). That is the household I mean when I read Damascene's words spiritually.

What a reader should weigh.

• Readers may take "offspring of fornication" literally, so the page must say plainly that his parents, Fred Trump and Mary Anne MacLeod, were married in 1936, ten years before his birth.
• The reporting says he was sent to military school to be straightened out. That the aim was to give his instinct structure, and that his father taught power, money and pleasure as gods, is my reading of the record, not something the sources state.
• Mary Trump's book is the account of an estranged niece who was in litigation with the family; he called it a lie. Blair's is an independent biography.
• Scripture teaches that the son does not bear the guilt of the father (Ezek 18:20). His formation explains; it does not condemn. What he made of it is his own, and it is judged by his own acts.
• His grandfather, Friedrich Trump, died in 1918, when Fred was twelve, so any influence on Fred was brief. The account of Friedrich's Klondike restaurant-hotels and their "private rooms for ladies" rests on Blair's biography (via CBC) and is disputed by a Park Service archaeologist (Juneau Empire). I include him only as part of the family history in my reflection, not as evidence, and with these caveats.

More marks will be added here as they are written: worship demanded, war on the holy ones, universal reach, the forty-two months, and the number.