Peter Thiel — PayPal co-founder, Palantir architect, early Trump donor, JD Vance mentor — decided to give a four-lecture series on the Antichrist in Rome this week. Invitation-only. Sunday through Wednesday. Right in the Vatican’s backyard.
And every Catholic institution within a five-mile radius is now pretending they’ve never heard of him.
The lectures were supposed to happen at the Pontifical St. Thomas Aquinas University (the Angelicum, if you’re keeping score). Best known as the place where the current Pope Leo XIV wrote his canon law thesis back when he was Father Robert Prevost. Solid academic pedigree. Respectable venue.
Except the Angelicum issued a statement faster than you can say “plausible deniability”: “We would like to clarify that this event is not organized by the University, will not take place at the Angelicum, and is not part of any of our institutional initiatives.”
Translation: We saw the headlines coming, and we want no part of this.
The Institutional Shell Game
The event announcement — seen by the Associated Press — listed joint organizers: the Vincenzo Gioberti Cultural Association (an Italian group dedicated to “renewing Italian political culture”) and the Cluny Institute at Catholic University of America in Washington.
The Gioberti folks confirmed their involvement. Proud of it, even. Said they believe in “promoting research and encounters based on the great tradition of classical and Christian thought.”
Catholic University of America? Not so much.
“The Catholic University of America is not sponsoring or hosting an event featuring Peter Thiel this month in Rome,” a spokesperson told AP. “The Cluny Project is an independent initiative incubated at the university.”
Incubated. Not sponsored. Not hosted. Incubated — like a side project that might hatch into something embarrassing later.
What Thiel Actually Talks About
Thiel’s fascination with the Antichrist isn’t new. He’s lectured on it before — four parts in San Francisco last September. The Rome series appears to follow the same blueprint.
“His remarks will be anchored on science and technology, and will comment on the theology, history, literature, and politics of the Antichrist,” one invitation read. “Religious thinkers upon whom Peter will draw include René Girard, Francis Bacon, Jonathan Swift, Carl Schmitt, and John Henry Newman.”
In a November essay for First Things (a Catholic magazine), Thiel wrote: “Christians debated these prophecies for millennia. Who was the Antichrist? When would he arrive? What would he preach?”
He frames the Antichrist not as fire-and-brimstone prophecy but as a lens for understanding existential risk — the choices humanity faces when confronting technology, politics, and the collapse of meaning.
The Palantir Problem
Part of the controversy isn’t just theological. It’s operational.
Thiel co-founded Palantir — the data-mining company now assisting the Trump administration’s migrant deportation crackdown. Palantir recently inked a deal with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to streamline the process of identifying and deporting people the agency is targeting.
So when a tech billionaire whose company is helping deport immigrants shows up in Rome to lecture on apocalyptic theology, Catholic institutions — many of which have been vocal about immigrant rights — suddenly remember they have other commitments.
The Vance Connection
Thiel was an early donor to JD Vance’s political career. Poured millions into Vance’s Senate primary race. Some see him as a mentor to Vance, now the most high-profile Catholic in U.S. politics as Vice President.
Vance’s theological justification for the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown — based on an ancient Christian concept called the “order of love” — received a famous slapdown from Pope Francis just before he died.
A few months before he was elected Pope Leo XIV, Robert Prevost shared an article on X with the headline: “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.”
Vance attended Leo’s installation. Later had an audience with him. Delivered a letter from Trump inviting Leo to visit.
The optics of Thiel lecturing on the Antichrist in Rome — while his protégé navigates Catholic politics and his company enables mass deportations — are not lost on anyone paying attention.
The PayPal Mafia Goes Apocalyptic
Thiel co-founded PayPal in 1998. After it was sold to eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion, he founded the hedge fund Clarium Capital Management and helped launch Palantir. He was part of the so-called “PayPal Mafia” — a group of entrepreneurs that included Elon Musk, Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman, and YouTube co-founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen.
Most of them went on to build empires. Thiel went on to think about the end of the world.
He was a key advisor and donor to Trump during his first administration. Retained some ties to the White House. Palantir is one of the donors to the White House’s ballroom project. David Sacks — who worked with Thiel at PayPal — is now chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
The Hottest Ticket No One Will Admit They’re Hosting
The Rome lectures are invitation-only. Word circulated in Italian media about “secret lectures on the Antichrist by Thiel at the pope’s alma mater.” Universities scrambled to clarify. Organizers stayed quiet.
But the invitations went out. The lectures are happening.
And somewhere in Rome this week, a tech billionaire who helped build the infrastructure for digital payments and mass surveillance is standing in front of a room talking about the Antichrist, René Girard, and the choices humanity faces at the end of history.
The Vatican’s backyard just got a lot more interesting…