Billionaire Peter Thiel, founder of Pay Pal and Palantir
The founder of Pay Pal and Palantir has a notorious obsession with the apocalyptic concept of Antichrist, a topic on which he has written and given lectures. But the discussion of the Antichrist by a technology billionaire, at the doors of the Vatican, raised some reticence among the Catholic Church.
One of the most coveted tickets around the Vatican these days is for a cycle four conferences on the Antichrist given by the controversial Silicon Valley tech billionaire.
The conferences, which take place in Rome from Sunday to Wednesday and can only be attended by invitation, have proven so controversial that Catholic universities initially associated with the initiative have since joined deny any involvement official, says .
Thiel is co-founder of PayPal and Palantira data mining company that has supported the tightening of deportation policy of migrants under the Trump administration.
A former financier of Vice President J.D. Vance’s political career, Thiel is also deeply interested in the apocalyptic concept of Antichrista topic on which he has written and given lectures.
“Christians have debated these prophecies for millennia. Who was the Antichrist? When would it arrive? What would you preach?”, he wrote, in a meditative tone, in an essay published in November in the Catholic magazine.
A Discussion of the Antichrist by a Tech Billionaireat the gates of the Vatican, raised some reticence among the Catholic Church. Initially, the conferences would take place in Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas.
The Dominican University of Rome, known colloquially as Angelicis currently known mainly for being the place where a young priest named Robert Prevost, now Pope Leo XIVwrote his doctoral thesis in Canon Law.
But, as news began to circulate in the Italian media about alleged Thiel’s secret conferences on the Antichrist At the Pope’s alma mater, the Angelicum withdrew from the initiative.
“We would like to clarify that This event is not organized by the Universitywill not take place at Angelicum and is not part of any of our institutional initiatives,” the university said in a statement published on its website.
According to an announcement of the event consulted by The Associated Press, the conferences were “co-organized” by an Italian organizationthe Vincenzo Gioberti Cultural Association, and the Cluny Institute of the Catholic University of America (CUA), in Washington.
The Gioberti group, which is named after a 19th century Italian Catholic priest-philosopher and describes itself as a cultural association dedicated to the renewal of Italian political culture, confirmed its involvement in the event in a statement, but the CUA distanced itself.
“A Catholic University of America is not sponsoring or welcoming this month in Rome, an event with Peter Thiel,” a university spokesperson told the AP. “The Cluny Project is a independent initiative incubated at the university”.
Thiel is known for having a notorious obsession with the Antichrista biblical term used to describe someone who opposes or denies Christ, and with Armageddon, the final battle between good and evil described in the Bible.
Thiel addresses these concepts in light of the choices humanity faces faced with the existential risks of today’s world.
The Rome conferences appear to follow the model of a four-lecture cycle he gave in San Francisco last September. Some of the invitations circulating in Rome, for example, reproduce the description of the San Francisco event.
“Your interventions will have science and technology as its axisand will address the theology, history, literature and politics of the Antichrist. Among the religious thinkers Peter will rely on are René Girard, Francis Bacon, Jonathan Swift, Carl Schmitt and John Henry Newman,” says one of the invitations.
Thiel, who co-founded PayPal in 1998, and other entrepreneurs at the time, were part of a group that became known as the “PayPal Mafia”, including the executive president of Tesla, Elon MuskYelp Executive Chairman Jeremy Stoppelman, and YouTube co-founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen.
After PayPal was sold to eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion, Thiel founded the investment fund Clarium Capital Management and helped launch Palantir Technologies, which recently signed an agreement with ICEUS Department of Emigration, to expedite the identification process and deportation of people targeted by the agency.
Thiel, whom ZAP called in 2017 ““, was a Donald Trump’s important advisor and financier during his first administration and maintained some ties to the White House. Palantir is also one of the donors to the White House ballroom project.
Thiel is also known for proximity to Vice President JD Vance: invested millions of dollars in his successful primary campaign for the US Senate, where Trump chose him as his running mate and future vice president. Some see Thiel as a mentor to Vancea convert to Catholicism and the most media-centric Catholic in North American politics.
Vance’s theological justification for the Trump administration’s toughening immigration policy, based on an ancient Christian concept of the order of lovehe was publicly censured by Pope Francis shortly before dying.
A few months before being elected Pope Leo XIV, Robert Prevost shared an article from a Catholic publication on his now-inactivated X account with the headline: “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus does not ask us to prioritize our love for others.”
Vance attended the ceremony to begin Leo XIV’s pontificate. Later, he was received in audience, when he delivered a letter from Trump inviting the Pope to pay a visit.
