“Signs Of Our Times”: Ven. Fulton Sheen on Anti-Christ & Crisis in the Church & Society (1947)

‘Signs of Our Times’ A radio sermon by Ven. Fulton J. Sheen delivered on January 26, 1947

Expanded radio address in transcript (below) printed in ‘Signs of Our Times’ In Light Your Lamps, 8th ed., pp. 5-17. (Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor, 1958): https://goo.gl/y7kROm

Also included in Fulton J. Sheen, ‘Communism and the Conscience of the West’ (Bobbs-Merril Company, Indianapolis, 1948), see pp. 22-25 (scanned original): http://goo.gl/1wQPEs
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(5:22) “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 Himself 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.”

(6:38) “How will he come in this new age to win followers to his religion? 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; he will write books on the new idea of God, to suit the way peope live; induce faith in astrology so as to make not the will but the stars responsible for sins; he will explain guilt away psychologically as inhibited eroticism, make men shrink in shame if their fellowmen say they are not broadminded and liberal; he will be so broadminded as to identify tolerance with indifference to right and wrong, truth and error; he will spread the lie that men will never be better until thy make society better and thus have selfishness to provide fuel for the next revolution; he will foster science but only to have armament makers use one marvel of science to destroy another; he will foster more divorces under the disguise that another partner is “vital”; he will increase love for love and decrease love for person; he will invoke religion to destroy religion; he will speak of Christ and say He was the greatest man who ever lived; he will say his mission is to liberate men from the servitude of superstition and Fascism; he will organize children’s games, tell people whom they should and should not marry and unmarry, who should bear children and who should not; he will benevolently draw chocolate bars from his pockets for the little ones, and bottles of milk for the Hottentots; he will tempt Christians with the same three temptations with which he tempted Christ.”
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(7:56) 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 counter-church 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.”