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Counter-church & The Antichrist
"[Satan] will set up a counterchurch which will be the ape of the
[Catholic] Church. . . . It will have all the notes and characteristics
of the Church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content."
--Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen, 1948
The Antichrist will not be so called; otherwise he
would have no followers. He will not wear red tights, nor vomit sulphur,
nor carry a trident nor wave an arrowed tail as Mephistopheles in Faust.
This masquerade has helped the Devil convince men that he does not
exist. When no man recognizes, the more power he exercises. God has
defined Himsel as "I am Who am," and the Devil as "I am who am not."
Nowhere in Sacred Scripture do we find warrant for
the popular myth of the Devil as a buffoon who is dressed like the first
"red." Rather is he described as an angel fallen from heaven, as "the
Prince of this world," whose business it is to tell us that there is no
other world. His logic is simple: if there is no heaven there is no
hell; if there is no hell, then there is no sin; if there is no sin,
then there is no judge, and if there is no judgment then evil is good
and good is evil. But above all these descriptions, Our Lord tells us
that he will be so much like Himself that he would deceive even the
elect--and certainly no devil ever seen in picture books could deceive
even the elect. How will he come in this new age to win followers to his
religion?
The pre-Communist
Russian belief is that he will come disguised as the Great
Humanitarian; he will talk peace, prosperity and plenty not as means to
lead us to God, but as ends in themselves. . . .
. . .
The third temptation in which Satan asked Christ to
adore him and all the kingdoms of the world would be His, will become
the temptation to have a new religion without a Cross, a liturgy without
a world to come, a religion to destroy a religion, or a politics which
is a religion--one that renders unto Caesar even the things that are
God's.
In the midst of all his seeming love for humanity
and his glib talk of freedom and equality, he will have one great secret
which he will tell to no one: he will not believe in God. Because his
religion will be brotherhood without the fatherhood of God, he will
deceive even the elect. He will set up a counterchurch which will be the
ape of the Church, because he, the Devil, is the ape of God. It will
have all the notes and characteristics of the 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. . . .
. . .
But the twentieth century will join the
counterchurch because it claims to be infallible when its visible head
speaks ex cathedra from Moscow on the subject of economics and politics,
and as chief shepherd of world communism.
(from Fulton J. Sheen, Communism and the Conscience of the West,
Bobbs-Merril Company, Indianapolis,1948, pp. 24-25)
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