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US tech billionaire and Maga donor Peter Thiel is starting a series of closed-door lectures about the antichrist in Rome on Sunday, putting him on a collision course with Pope Leo XIV, the Catholic Church’s first American pontiff.
Thiel, the founder of data intelligence company Palantir Technologies — the Pentagon contractor whose AI systems are being used in the US and Israeli attack on Iran — is preoccupied with the risk of a “one-world, totalitarian state” obstructing scientific and technological progress. He depicts those who lobby for tech regulation as harbingers of the antichrist.
“The way the antichrist would take over the world is, you talk about Armageddon nonstop,” Thiel told the New York Times last year. “You talk about existential risk nonstop, and this is what you need to regulate . . . The thing that has political resonance is: we need to stop science, we need to just say ‘stop’ to this.”
Thiel’s views stand in stark contrast to those of Pope Leo, who has warned of the dangers of artificial intelligence and called for stronger regulation to minimise its risks. The four-day series of lectures is not taking place at the Vatican — though its exact location in Rome remains secret — and is co-organised by a new fringe Italian group with links to Italy’s far right and Catholic conservatives in the UK.
In the run-up to Thiel’s lectures, the Catholic newspaper Avvenire — which is owned by the Italian bishops’ conference — has published a series of articles criticising Thiel and Palantir, saying that “to save humanity . . . he proposes devices that ultimately restrict what is most human in humanity”.
Pope Leo said earlier this year that his call for AI regulation was not aimed at stopping innovation “but rather to guide it and be aware of its ambivalent nature”. The pontiff and US bishops have also been highly critical of US President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, which Palantir has benefited from, with its services used by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency to track migrants.
Massimo Faggioli, professor of ecclesiology at Trinity College Dublin, said Thiel’s appearance in Rome was an implicit challenge to Leo by ultra-conservative Maga Catholics.
“This is an operation that I see as hostile to the papacy,” Faggioli said. “This pope is very critical of AI and Thiel is one of the Mr AIs. This is part of an attempt to create an alternative American circle in Rome in competition with what Pope Leo is saying.”
The Vatican viewed Thiel as someone engaged in a “violent project to tweak the future” which is fundamentally at odds with the vision and values of the contemporary Catholic Church, Faggioli said.
“If you think that every possible solution, and ultimately salvation — immortality — comes from technology, you have made technology your god,” he added.
Father Paolo Benanti, the Vatican’s adviser on AI, wrote on Le Grand Continent website on Saturday that Thiel’s career “can be read as a prolonged act of heresy against the liberal consensus: a challenge to the very foundations of civil coexistence, which he now considers outdated.”
Another article in Avvenire described Palantir as “a Big Brother that puts Orwell’s prophecies to shame”.
Pope Leo has said his call for AI regulation is not aimed at stopping innovation ‘but rather to guide it and be aware of its ambivalent nature’ © Yara Nardi/Reuters
Thiel’s Rome lectures were co-organised by the Vincenzo Gioberti Cultural Association, which advocates for “the restoration of Catholicism as the cornerstone of [Italy’s] national identity” and has organised events for Italian far-right politicians.
The association was co-founded three years ago by Alberto Garzoni, who studies political theory at Oxford university and also chairs the UK’s Catholics in the Conservative Party, which encourages Catholics to support the Tories and to enter public life.
The Thiel lectures are shrouded in secrecy, with both the guest list and the venue itself not being made public. No phones or recording devices will be permitted.
“It’s a gentleman’s agreement,” said Garzoni. “We did share an NDA with a few individuals who collaborate with the press, but the average invitee is only bound by their conscience.”
Garzoni said he hoped Thiel’s lectures would “empower conservative forces to think deeply about issues that are extremely important for the future of the west and our civilisation”.
Thiel is only the latest member of the US alt-right to make high-profile visits to Rome in recent years.
Both Maga ideologue Steve Bannon and Thiel’s PayPal co-founder and longtime friend Elon Musk have forged ties with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. The Italian premier herself has warm relations with Trump and with vice-president JD Vance, whose political career was largely bankrolled by Thiel.
Members of the Italian opposition have called on Meloni to clarify whether she will be meeting Thiel. She has not responded.
A spokesman for Thiel did not respond to requests for comment.