Latest news with #Antichrist
The Herald Scotland
16 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
It has Sean Bean but Tudor murder mystery is as slow as week in Tower
** ENGLAND 1536, and the forecast is for a dark and stormy night with a blizzard of introductory captions. King Henry VIII has broken with the Roman Catholic Church; monasteries are resisting reform; crows caw and swoop as a messenger on a horse thunders through the gloom. By 'eck it's grim out there in STV's new historical drama Shardlake. I say 'new' historical drama but admirers of CJ Sansom's novels will know this period murder mystery has been this way before. It first aired on Disney+ in 2024, but after four episodes the show wasn't renewed; it can be grim out there in streaming land, too. Welcome back, then, to a world of mud, candlelight, intrigue, religion, politics and Sean Bean. We'll get to the mighty Bean in a mo, but first, to the titular young Matthew Shardlake, here earning his crust as a Tudor lawyer/detective. Shardlake is disabled, which puts him at a disadvantage in a society that sees difference as a curse. We know what Shardlake thinks of that, and much else, because he has a handy habit of talking out loud to himself. 'Ready Matthew, ready for what this day might bring?' he asks his reflection in the window. The day has brought a summons from Thomas Cromwell (Sean Bean). A commissioner has been murdered in a distant monastery and Cromwell wants Shardlake to have a gander. Since every Sherlock must have his Watson, Cromwell sends young buck John Barak (Anthony Boyle) to accompany Shardlake, much to our hero's annoyance. Mark Rylance rather made Cromwell his own in Wolf Hall, so all power to Bean's elbow for taking on the gig. His Cromwell is more swaggering than quietly sinister. As for accent, Bean goes for a sort of posh Yorkshire compared to Rylance's soft, indeterminate burr. Either way, these are not men to be messed with. The monastery lot are less than delighted to see the pair, with one brother (Paul Kaye) going so far as to call Cromwell the Antichrist, which rather puts a kink in dinner. But Shardlake has his orders and is determined to stick around and solve the case. What his detractors don't realise is the power Shardlake derives from his disability. 'It is I and I embrace it,' he says in another one-to-one with himself. 'It's my disguise.' It also gives him empathy with society's weak and vulnerable, which in this case means women and a young lad being bullied mercilessly by a senior monk. The attitudes toward disability, the attempts at witty asides, the empathy, makes Shardlake a modern affair, presumably to widen its appeal. But the more talk, less action approach also makes the hour seem as slow as a week in the Tower. Shardlake also wants to have its period cake and eat it, which means lots of gloomy scenes where you can barely make out what is going on. There is always Sean Bean, however, even if the glimpses of him so far have been few and far between, and when he is on screen you half expect him to start banging on about a certain brand of tea. You don't get that with Mark Rylance.
Wall Street Journal
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Wall Street Journal
Pope Francis' Favorite Dystopian Novel
Were you to have asked Pope Francis to name his favorite book, he would probably have said the Bible. Asked for his favorite novel, however, he might have mentioned a dystopian thriller in which the Antichrist is a senator from Vermont. The Holy Father certainly talked it up during his papacy. 'I was deeply struck when I read it,' he wrote in 'Hope,' his memoir, published in January. He praised the book as 'a prophecy' in one of his earliest papal homilies and recommended it to journalists in 2015: 'I advise you to read it.'
Daily Maverick
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Daily Maverick
What will the Antichrist look like? According to Western thought, an authoritarian king
In casting himself as supreme leader and pope, Donald Trump inadvertently invoked the Christian understanding of the Antichrist. The US presidency and the papacy came together on May 3 when Donald Trump posted an AI-generated photograph of himself dressed as the pope to Truth Social. The image was then shared by the White House's accounts. Seated in an ornate (Mar-a-Lago-style) golden chair, he was wearing a white cassock and a bishop's hat, with his right forefinger raised. Trump has since told reporters he 'had nothing to do with it […] somebody did it in fun'. — The White House (@WhiteHouse) May 3, 2025 See the full post here: This image of 'Pope Donald I' is of historical significance, for reasons of which, no doubt, the White House and Trump were blissfully unaware. It is the first ever image to combine the two most important understandings of the figure of the Antichrist in Western thought: on the one hand, that of the pope, and on the other, that of the authoritarian, despotic world emperor. On April 22, the day after Pope Francis' death, Trump declared 'I'd like to be pope. That would be my number one choice'. On April 28, Trump told The Atlantic 'I run the country and the world'. So, both pope and world emperor. The Imperial Antichrist In the New Testament, the First Letter of John says, before Christ came again, the Antichrist will appear: the most conspicuous sign that the end of the world was near. The Antichrist would be the archetypal evil human being who would persecute the Christian faithful. He would be finally defeated by the forces of good. As Sir Isaac Newton suggested, 'searching the Prophecies which [God] hath given us to know Antichrist by' is a Christian obligation. The first life of the Antichrist was written by a Benedictine monk, Adso of Montier-en-Der, around 1,100 years ago. According to Adso, the Antichrist would be a tyrannical evil king who would corrupt all those around him with gold and silver. He would be brought up in all forms of wickedness. Evil spirits would be his instructors and his constant companions. Seeking his own glory, as Adso put it, this king 'will call himself Almighty God'. The Antichrist was opposite to everything Christ-like. According to the Christian tradition, Christ was fully human yet absolutely 'sin free'. The Antichrist, too, was fully human, but completely 'sin full'. The Antichrist was not so much a supernatural being who became flesh as a human being who became fully demonised. Influenced by Christian stories of the Antichrist, Islam and Judaism constructed their own Antichrists – al-Dajjal, the Antichrist of the Muslims, and Armilus, the Antichrist of the Jews. Both al-Dajjal and Armilus are king-like messiahs. Over the centuries, many world leaders have been labelled 'the Antichrist' – the Roman emperors Nero and Domitian were Antichrist figures, and the French emperor Napoleon was named the Antichrist in his own time. There have been more recent leaders who have been likened to the Antichrist, among them former president of Iraq Saddam Hussein, King Charles III, former Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev, al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden, and Trump. The Papal Antichrist In the year 1190, King Richard I of England, on his way to the Holy Land, was informed by the Italian theologian Joachim of Fiore (c.1135–1202) that the next pope would be the Antichrist. In the history of the Antichrist, this was a momentous occasion. From this time on, the tyrannical Antichrist outside of the Church would be juxtaposed with the papal deceiver within it. That the Catholic pope was the Antichrist was the common reading of the pope in the 16th-century Protestant Reformation. Martin Luther (1483–1546), the founder of the Protestant revolution, declared the pope 'is the true […] Antichrist who has raised himself over and set himself against Christ'. Just as all Christians would not worship the Devil as God, he went on to say, 'so we cannot allow his apostle the pope or Antichrist, to govern as our head or lord'. As he was about to be burned by the Catholic Queen Mary for his Protestant beliefs, the Anglican bishop Thomas Cranmer (1489–1556) declared, 'as for the pope, I refuse him, as Christ's enemy and antichrist with all his false doctrine'. Even in 1988, as Pope John Paul II addressed the European Parliament, the Northern Ireland hardline Protestant leader Ian Paisley roared, 'Antichrist! I renounce you and all your cults and creeds' – to which, we are told, the pope gave a slight, bemused smile. Except among the most extreme of Protestant conservatives, the idea of the papal Antichrist no longer has any purchase. The papal Antichrist has vacated the Western stage for the imperial Antichrist. The Antichrist and the end of the world In the history of Christianity, the idea of the Antichrist was a key part of Christian expectations about the return of Christ and the end of the world. In the final battle between the forces of good and evil, the Antichrist would be defeated by the forces of Christ. In short, the rise of the world emperor who was the Antichrist was a sign that the end of the world was at hand. In the light of the Western history of 'the Antichrist', the image of the imperial and papal US president is a powerful sign that the global order, at least as we have known it for the last 80 years, may be at an end. DM
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Yahoo
MS-13 member ‘Antichrist' to be locked up for 55 years for savage quadruple machete massacre in Long Island park
A vicious MS-13 gangbanger known as 'Antichrist' will spend the next 55 years in federal prison for his role in savagely hacking four suspected rivals to death with machetes in a Long Island park. Omar Antonio Villalta, 29, was handed the lengthy prison term Wednesday for conspiring with other members of the notorious El Salvadoran gang to plan and execute the bloody massacre in Central Islip on April 11, 2017, according to the US Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York. Villalta — whose alias was 'Anticristo' (Spanish for Antichrist) — is the sixth person sentenced in the quadruple killing of Michael Lopez, 20; Justin Llivicura, 16; and Jorge Tigre and Jefferson Villalobos, both 18. More than a dozen MS-13 members and associates, who incorrectly believed the victims were rival gang members, were charged with their heinous murders, prosecutors said. 'My Office and our law enforcement partners have worked endlessly to hold MS-13 accountable for their unspeakable crimes and the harm they've caused to countless victims and their loved ones,' United States Attorney Joseph Nocella, Jr. said in a statement. 'This sentencing and others demonstrate our relentless pursuit to dismantle MS-13 and other violent criminal organizations in totality.' On April 11, two female MS-13 thugs lured the four men to a wooded area near the community park, where Villalta and more than a dozen other gang members and associates waited to pounce, according to prosecutors. Villalta handed out machetes, knives and blades, while others fashioned clubs from tree limbs to attack the victims – who they believed mocked the gang on social media. The ruthless mob surrounded the young victims and butchered them to death – before piling their lifeless bodies in a secluded spot in the woods and fleeing, prosecutors said. Villalta, who is a member of the Guanacos Lil Cycos Salvatruchas clique of the violent criminal enterprise, fled to Charlottesville, Virginia, following the attack. While in the Old Dominion State, he killed Marvin Rivera Guevara on July 3, 2017, after the victim reportedly flashed an 18th Street Gang sign, an MS-13 rival. Prosecutors said Villalta persuaded the victim to drive with him to a secluded area under the guise of smoking marijuana and meeting women before the convicted killer and other gang members forced Guevara at gunpoint deeper into the woods, where he too was murdered with machetes and knives. The violent group later threw the victim's eviscerated body off a nearby bridge into the river. Villalta pleaded guilty in March 2023 to racketeering for all five killings. 'Omar Antonio Villalta, an MS-13 member, repeatedly played judge, jury, and executioner by unlawfully issuing death sentences to five victims perceived to be disrespectful or rivals to the gang,' FBI Assistant Director in Charge Raia said. 'These slaughters reflect the gang's gruesome retributive tactics while demonstrating utter disregard for life with the rapid succession of murders. May today's legitimate sentencing reflect the FBI's steadfast commitment to dismantling any gang from plaguing our communities with rampant violence.' President Trump designated MS-13 as a foreign terrorist organization when he declared a national emergency at the southern border earlier this year.
New York Post
08-05-2025
- New York Post
MS-13 member ‘Antichrist' to be locked up for 55 years for savage quadruple machete massacre in Long Island park
A vicious MS-13 gangbanger known as 'Antichrist' will spend the next 55 years in federal prison for his role in savagely hacking four suspected rivals to death with machetes in a Long Island park. Omar Antonio Villalta, 29, was handed the lengthy prison term Wednesday for conspiring with other members of the notorious El Salvadoran gang to plan and execute the bloody massacre in Central Islip on April 11, 2017, according to the US Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York. Villalta — whose alias was 'Anticristo' (Spanish for Antichrist) — is the sixth person sentenced in the quadruple killing of Michael Lopez, 20; Justin Llivicura, 16; and Jorge Tigre and Jefferson Villalobos, both 18. 5 Michael Lopez, 20, Justin Llivicura, 16, and Jorge Tigre and Jefferson Villalobos, both 18, were killed on April 11, 2017. More than a dozen MS-13 members and associates, who incorrectly believed the victims were rival gang members, were charged with their heinous murders, prosecutors said. 'My Office and our law enforcement partners have worked endlessly to hold MS-13 accountable for their unspeakable crimes and the harm they've caused to countless victims and their loved ones,' United States Attorney Joseph Nocella, Jr. said in a statement. 'This sentencing and others demonstrate our relentless pursuit to dismantle MS-13 and other violent criminal organizations in totality.' 5 Omar Antonio Villalta, 29, is the sixth person sentenced in the quadruple killing. CBS NEW YORK On April 11, two female MS-13 thugs lured the four men to a wooded area near the community park, where Villalta and more than a dozen other gang members and associates waited to pounce, according to prosecutors. Villalta handed out machetes, knives and blades, while others fashioned clubs from tree limbs to attack the victims – who they believed mocked the gang on social media. 5 Leniz Escobar, 24, was sentenced in October to 50 years in prison for the quadruple murder. SMoore-Glasgow The ruthless mob surrounded the young victims and butchered them to death – before piling their lifeless bodies in a secluded spot in the woods and fleeing, prosecutors said. Villalta, who is a member of the Guanacos Lil Cycos Salvatruchas clique of the violent criminal enterprise, fled to Charlottesville, Virginia, following the attack. While in the Old Dominion State, he killed Marvin Rivera Guevara on July 3, 2017, after the victim reportedly flashed an 18th Street Gang sign, an MS-13 rival. 5 The victims' bodies were found piled up in the woods the following day. CBS NEW YORK Prosecutors said Villalta persuaded the victim to drive with him to a secluded area under the guise of smoking marijuana and meeting women before the convicted killer and other gang members forced Guevara at gunpoint deeper into the woods, where he too was murdered with machetes and knives. The violent group later threw the victim's eviscerated body off a nearby bridge into the river. 5 MS-13 gang associate Keyli Gomez was also charged in the heinous killing. EDNY Villalta pleaded guilty in March 2023 to racketeering for all five killings. 'Omar Antonio Villalta, an MS-13 member, repeatedly played judge, jury, and executioner by unlawfully issuing death sentences to five victims perceived to be disrespectful or rivals to the gang,' FBI Assistant Director in Charge Raia said. 'These slaughters reflect the gang's gruesome retributive tactics while demonstrating utter disregard for life with the rapid succession of murders. May today's legitimate sentencing reflect the FBI's steadfast commitment to dismantling any gang from plaguing our communities with rampant violence.' President Trump designated MS-13 as a foreign terrorist organization when he declared a national emergency at the southern border earlier this year.
