Peter Thiel’s Antichrist Tour Steps onto the Pope’s Turf

Back in September, I wrote with some amusement about Peter Thiel’s lecture series on the Antichrist — the demonic figure in Christian tradition whose appearance would lead to the end of the world and the Second Coming of Jesus. At that time, the tech titan (funder of Facebook and founder of PayPal Holdings Inc. and Palantir Technologies Inc.) was delivering his talk in San Francisco to a paying audience of 200 or so Silicon Valley futurists, wannabe intellectuals, conservative fanboys and the industry’s increasing number of Christians. Attendees had to accept non-disclosure rules, which meant there’d be no public details about how Thiel connects the tech world to conceptions of the Antichrist.

This time, he’s taken his message to Rome and the doorstep of the Vatican. This gathering is even more exclusive because attendance is by invitation only. But now I’m finding it less amusing and more alarming. The date of its first lecture — the Ides of March — was ominously apt.