Cardinal: Antichrist tempts Christians to place dialogue above Jesus

Published: 2007-03-01

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Christians tempted to set aside their belief in Christ as the only savior in order to promote dialogue with others are being tempted by the Antichrist, retired Italian Cardinal Giacomo Biffi told Pope Benedict XVI. Cardinal Biffi, who has been leading a Feb. 25-March 3 retreat for the pope and top Vatican officials, cited as "prophetic" a warning about the modern guises of the Antichrist presented in the work of Vladimir Solovyev, a 19th-century Russian philosopher. While the Vatican has not published Cardinal Biffi's talks to the pope, Vatican Radio provided a daily summary and some quotations from his presentations. The cardinal, who wrote the introduction to an anthology of Solovyev's work, said the philosopher's most important message was that Christianity cannot be reduced to a collection of values. In one of the philosopher's works, Cardinal Biffi told the pope, "the Antichrist presents himself as a pacifist, ecologist and ecumenist. He convokes an ecumenical council and seeks the consensus of all the Christian confessions, conceding something to each one."

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