Catholic Samurai said:I the anti-christ would prefer to be something like a god-emperor. I imagine he would have an anti-pope who would probably be the false prophet, but then it's likely that the false prophet is someone other than an anti-pope and would be some occult leader.
I think you're right. I think it would gall the Anti-Christ to have to hide behind the mantle of the papacy. The whole point of the Anti-Christ is that this is like Satan revealing himself in the form of a man. He wants to be worshiped in himself, not just twist the Catholic truth and be worshiped as a bad Pope.
We know he sits in the temple of God, which is wherever the Vatican is at that time. It is not the Jєωιѕн temple, but the Vatican may very well be in Jerusalem. At least one prophecy speaks of the Great Monarch dying there, so in all likelihood he reclaims it for Catholicism too. Isn't he really the last and greatest Crusader, and wouldn't it make sense that he succeeds where the others failed?
We also know from the Apocalypse that Enoch and Elias preach in the city where Christ was crucified -- Jerusalem. I think we can safely say, then, that Rome and Jerusalem will eventually coincide, and that the world itself ends in Jerusalem, as Michael and Christ come in splendor to burn the Earth and replace the perverted earthly Jerusalem with the heavenly one.
So yeah, I think the Anti-Christ will be a Nero-type absolutely disgusting madman who sits, as it were, in the ruins of the Vatican, having reduced the Vatican to its pagan origins, with the false prophet as an anti-Pope. The question is, if he is this evil, how can so many people fall for his tricks? Well, first you have the false prophet who is the Merlin to his King Arthur. Then he will be provided with all kinds of black magic to surround himself in mystery. His true revolting nature will be kept private, except for his penchant for murdering and torture, but he will make people think that his violence is necessary to remove all the "heretics" -- who will be the real Catholics, namely Enoch and Elias and their followers. They will be mangled and tormented in ways unheard of before. It is through these hideous, stomach-turning torments that the Antichrist will reveal what a monstrous, sadistic pig he is, but the people will hate Enoch and Elias so much that they will think it is all justified.
Unfortunately, some of the tortures inflicted by Catholic governments in the past were pretty harsh themselves ( read about the death of Ravillac ), but the Antichrist's torments will go much further. I used to watch a lot of horror films before being Catholic and I think the spirit of Anti-Christ is in those films, what is called "torture porn" films. I don't want to repeat these tortures because I don't want to give anyone any ideas, but there are lots of vile ways to kill someone.