Peter Thiel's Antichrist lectures stir controversy in Vatican's backyard

One of the hottest tickets in Rome these days is for a four-lecture series on the Antichrist being given by Silicon Valley tech billionaire Peter Thiel. The invitation-only conference, from Sunday to Wednesday, has proven so controversial that the Catholic institutions initially associated with it have all denied official involvement. Thiel is a co-founder of PayPal and Palantir, the data-mining company that has been assisting the Trump administration’s migrant deportation crackdown. An early donor to the political career of Vice President JD Vance, Thiel is also deeply interested in the apocalyptic concept of the Antichrist and end-of-world Armageddon.