Name: Secretive tech mogul Peter Thiel brings his Antichrist lectures to the Vatican's doorstep | DW News
Uploaded: 2026-03-22T17:12:29.000Z
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Now, geopolitical conflicts around the world are not the only challenge for Pope Leo.

He also faces global challenges from big tech.

The Vatican has been working on a set of moral principles to guide the development of artificial intelligence and other emerging technology.

And that has received pushback from some major players, including Peter Thiel.

The Silicon Valley billionaire is not a Catholic, but

grew up in an evangelical Christian household and has served strong views about the intersection of technology and religion.

As a reminder, if you don't know, Thiel founded the payments app PayPal, helped launch a company called Palantir, a tech company that has contracts with the U.S.

immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency at the center of America's currently unpopular immigration enforcement.

And Thiel has been a key adviser and donor to President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. vance.

So you can imagine the attention and concern when Thiel decided to hold a series of lectures on the Antichrist in Rome on the Vatican's doorstep.

I also want to bring in Fritz Espenlaub, who is a journalist and co author of Deutschland Funk's podcast series here in Germany.

It's a multi part series on Peter Thiel, including one episode examining Thiel's theory of the Antichrist.

I'm going to start by like Peter Thiel, holding these Antichrist lectures in Rome was definitely, surely a choice of two questions.

Why did he do this in Rome and what are his views of the Antichrist?

I'm going to go to Fritz first and Massimo, I might ask you a question and a follow up.

So Peter Thiel's fascination with the Antichrist has to be seen in the context of sort of his whole intellectual Persona or his whole intellectual journey.

He has always painted himself as a contrarian.

He likes to provoke, he likes to raise eyebrows.

So that I think is at least a part of the explanation why he did it, particularly in Rome.

He has helped Antichrist lectures before in the Bay Area, I think also in Paris, if I remember correctly.

And if you look at what exactly he says, like, these are private lectures, these are not open to the public.

But he's been on the record what he means by the Antichrist and there have been reports of people participating in these lectures.

So if you look under the hood, it's not, I think, that special.

So it's not that he really wants to kind of like establish some sort of serious theology there in the end, it's him kind of like ranting against Regulation a little bit, because at the end of the day, he's a venture capitalist, he's a tech person.

Regulation is something that always is in conflict with technological revolutions like right now, AI There's a big discourse on AI regulation.

And for Thiel, what he means by Antichrist is basically he refers to some part of the Bible where I think the terms are the peace and safety of the Antichrist or something like that.

So for him, the Antichrist is sort of a stand in for a desire of state institutions, mostly international institutions, to regulate technological innovation, which he's against.

Massimo, I've been seeing your facial expression during this explanation.

And what are the Church's views in terms of the Antichrist that differ from Peter Thiel's?

You know, he came tothese conferences were held in Rome and a number of institutions that had previously believed to have been connected to these talks came out in Italy to deny any connections to these talks.

What does the Vatican make of all of this, Massimo?

So, yes, the choice of holding that lectures in the Vatican has a particular timing because there's an American Pope who's writing on AI and was said a number of things already on the risk to create a post human anti human world.

And second, because this war in the Middle east that will, we're seeing as being called by many the first AI War.

Catholic institutions were the ones who invited him.

And so one in Italy and one which is located in the Catholic University of America in Washington D.C.

which is the University of the U.S. catholic Bishops.

But you're right, many other institutions in the Vatican and in Rome that are connected to the Catholic Church, anyone who could take distance from Teal, they did take distance from Teal.

And so there's been a visible effort not to be involved in this.

But at the same time a certain number of American Catholic clerics or students or institutions that are connected with U.S.

So they have been invited, so they received personal invitations to go.

And so there's been a gray area, let's say, between what the Vatican officially says and the reluctant skepticism or wars, and

some circles of Catholicism that are more convincible, that are less skeptical.

And I just want to clarify, I believe I misspoke.

A little earlier, Thiel was in Rome, only he didn't wander into the Vatican.

Now, Massimo, I want to ask if you can expound a little bit more about the Vatican's artificial Intelligence policy, because that seems to be touching on Peter Thiel's world and where he takes issue.

Does the Vatican have an official policy on artificial intelligence?

Striking to me because AI is moving at such a rapid pace in terms of its development and changes.

And the Vatican is not necessarily an institution one thinks of for its nimbleness.

But I believe that the Vatican has been studying artificial intelligence development for the last few years.

They are studying this also because they were contacted by Silicon Valley in 2015.

Silicon Valley told the Vatican, we're not going necessarily to follow your advice, but

we want to know what you in the Vatican think about this.

And so there is a reflection going on there.

The Vatican is skeptical about this, essentially because.

So there's a view of technology that can be destructive of the personal dimension of the human life and of the interpersonal.

There's no official policy to speak of, but there are already some documents.

And I think that the next encyclical, the first one of Poplio, which will be published, it seems shortly after Easter in April, will have a section on AI.

And so there is a great distance between what Peter Thiel thinks that technology and is the salvific source for our world, so that salvation will come from technology to solve everything, wars, environment, medicine.

And the Vatican that has a deeply skeptical view about this godlike view of technology.

So there is a real clash of visions about what is the role of technology in our world, in our humanity.

And these are impossible to reconcile, I think.

And speaking of Thiel in Rome, do we know where he ended up speaking, whether which venue was willing to actually host them?

I don't know if either of you guys know and want to say something about it.

Okay, shake from the head from Fritz and Massimo, do you?

Yes, he spoke in a baroque palace in the city center, but

Rome is very small, so you can see the Vatican from every window of an important Roman palace, if you want to.

a number of American Catholic priests and seminarians showed up at that conference.

So there was a distance, but not in a separate city.

That could have been like Milan is the city of technology in Italy.

Now, Fritz Thiel's views seem to be pretty apocalyptic, and he uses strong Christian imagery in his language.

I want to see if you can talk a little bit more about that.

I know you touched on that a little earlier, but how extreme are his views?

So you have to again, look at the context of the AI industry, of the tech industry.

And the same schism that Massimo was talking about also exists there.

There's broadly two camps, or have been two camps since the very beginning of the AI revolution.

On the one side are those that really want to regulate it, that are very worried about, to the regular person, very sci fi sounding existential risks of like a rogue super artificial intelligence that's super powerful and threatens humanity.

And on the other side are those like Peter Thiel, that more emphasize the promises of the technology.

And in this context, Thiel sort of like positions himself as a contrarian in contrast to the safety minded people, to the ones that want to regulate AI and, and

says no, well you are talking about the AI apocalypse, but

the real apocalypse would be if humanity stopped technological progress.

Because like there's a second scenario where he says sometimes he talks about the apocalypse as this sort of like idea of a one world superstate, like a super powerful European Union and mix of like European Union and the Chinese government that uses AI technology to kind of like remove individual freedoms.

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Secretive tech mogul Peter Thiel brings his Antichrist lectures to the Vatican's doorstep | DW News

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