Behind God's Facade - Brief Article

The Antichrist is alive, well and campaigning furiously to undermine the Catholic Church according to Cardinal Giacomo Biffi, Archbishop of Bologna, who is the main contender to succeed Pope John Paul II. The thing in question is neither seven-headed, nor a beast. Rather, he warned, the Antichrist is a 'man of immense charm' equipped with a 'fascinating personality', and a general 'plausibility' that has 'deceived his enemies'. Though Biffi refused to confirm the identity of the Antichrist, he made it clear during his talk at a conference in Bologna that he had a prominent figure in mind.

But how has Biffi achieved this monumental task? With the help of my associates at The Ecologist, similarly convinced that the world's current predicament is due to the workings of an Antichrist, I too have tried to pin down the identity of the Beast. The obstacle we faced was that there are just too many candidates for the label. Indeed it is as if Antichrist has already harnessed the winds of change that elevated Dolly to international stardom.

I began by reading through the largely forgotten texts of the Book of Enoch, and found immediately what is almost certainly a reference to the World Trade Organisation summit in Seattle last year. 'And Semijaza [Moor], who was their leader, said unto them: "I fear ye will not indeed agree to do this deed, and I alone shall have to pay the penalty of a great sin." And they all answered him and said: "Let us swear an oath, and all bind ourselves by mutual imprecations not to abandon this plan but to do this thing." [ldots]And they were in all 200 who descended on the summit of Mount Hermon[Seattle].' Surely one prominent contender then must be Michael Moor, 'the leader among them'. It would be a hard task to find an organisation whose raison d'[hat{e}]tre is more in line with the undermining of life on Earth, and more in conflict with the interests of its inhabitants. What's more there are plenty of candidates for the role of disciple, the WTO being as it is a platform for the promotion of big business.

Which brings me to the next contender. Enoch's fallen angels were embarking on a mission that besides the usual fornication involved the 'corruption of all things' and more specifically making mortals 'acquainted with plants'. Who else but Monsanto's Shapiro could Enoch have had in mind? Cunningly disguised now as a German CEO of a 'new' corporation, Pharmacia, his is a mission of which an Antichrist of old would barely have dared to conceive. Monsanto/Pharmacia has set its sights, indeed has already initiated, the corruption of the natural world through its constituent parts, the genes. Under the guise of improving God's grossly inefficient creation, and equipped both with the backing of leading politicians and an enormous propaganda budget, due we are told to increase dramatically during the coming summer, Monsanto looks set to cause chaos on Earth.

And there is Tony Blair. He is both fruitful and multiplying, much to the horror of the Conservative party. A devout Christian, he has great personal charm, and a 'deceptive plausibility'. He and his henchmen are committed to enabling big business to flourish, even risking a loss of votes in the case of genetic engineering. And he too is part of the cult that mistakenly believes McDonaldisation to be an evolutionary necessity.

If desecration of God's creation is the priority for any Antichrist, then we would have to consider the qualifications of some key members of British Nuclear Fuels. That organisation has placed great chunks of the planet on the razor's edge of catastrophe. It has been linked to the death by cancer of many thousands of people. Moving on, we couldn't fail to mention President Clinton, another charmer. Who else but an Antichrist would risk world war in a nuclear age in order to divert attention from his libido? Sir Richard Doll, who declared that asbestos, Agent Orange, radiation emission, power lines and numerous pesticides are safe, and who has through the results of his 'research' undoubtedly helped these monsters to flourish, is yet another serious candidate.

Astonishing then, with so many possibilities, that Cardinal Biffi chose to identify the beast as an ecological philanthropist, concerned with human rights and promoting dialogue between the various Christian denominations and other religions. Besides sounding strikingly similar, as a number of our readers have pointed out, to our own Edward Goldsmith, founder of The Ecologist, Biffi's Antichrist is more of an Anticlimax, and certainly an Antidote. With a global environment in tatters, the health and wealth of the world's people in ruins and social harmony at an all-time low, one would have thought that the least obvious choice of Antichrist would be someone attempting to reverse these ungodly trends.

Certainly Biffi's priorities are thrown into question. Could it simply be that he is a throwback to ancient times? Catholic history, like most, has its share of torture, abuse and wholesale destruction. It has been said that the Gods of one civilisation invariably become the demons of the next.

Or could it be that Cardinal Biffi is himself the Antichrist, pushing for ecological and social breakdown worldwide, while hiding cunningly behind this Godly facade?

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