I would guess they dont believe that the Pope will be the Anti-Christ
(as one or two persons have elsewhere claimed)
The Catholic faith has a very long history. I have found that endtimes teaching is not talked about very much in the rc church these days but that was not always the case. Infact it seems to be a very recent phenomonon. However even in todays church there are those who talk of such things. Like i say the faith has a very long history and the best way i have found is not to get hungup on lables but to read the words of the saints matyrs mystics and visionaries the church has had. So to respond to your post it appears that in the eyes of saints mystics and visionaries approved of by Rome herself it appears more than one or two of the saints may disagree with that statement
"Rome will lose the Faith and become the seat of the Antichrist" - our lady of la salette a church approved apperition of St Mary mother of Jesus
"St. Augustine therefore and St. Jerome do think, that this sitting of Antichrist in the temple, doth signify his sitting in the Church of Christ, rather than in Solomon's temple."
"St. John calleth Antichrists as his precursors, should go out of the Church, and the great Antichrist himself should be of the Church, and in the Church, and continue in the same. And yet to them that make the whole Church in revolt from God, this is no absurdity. But the truth is, that this Antichristian revolt here spoken of, is from the Catholic Church: and Antichrist, if he ever were of or in the Church, shall be an Apostate and a renegade out of the Church, and he shall usurp upon it by tyranny, and by challenging worship, religion, and government thereof, so that himself shall be adored in all the Churches of the world which he list to leave standing for his honor. And this is to sit in the temple or *against the Temple of God, as some interpret. If any Pope did ever this, or shall do, then let the Adversaries call him Antichrist"
Original douay rheims (catholic church aporoved) bible commentary on 2thess2
"We are living in the days of the Apocalypse–the last days of our era…. The two great forces of the Mystical Body of Christ and the Mystical Body of Antichrist are beginning to draw up the battle lines for the catastrophic contest.”
“The False Prophet will have a religion without a cross. A religion without a world to come. A religion to destroy religions. There will be a counterfeit church. Christ’s Church [the Catholic Church] will be one. And the False Prophet will create the other. The false church will be worldly ecumenical, and global. It will be a loose federation of churches. And religions forming some type of global association. A world parliament of churches. It will be emptied of all divine content and will be the mystical body of the Antichrist. The mystical body on earth today will have its Judas Iscariot and he will be the false prophet. Satan will recruit him from among our bishops.”
"The Antichrist will not be so called; otherwise he would have no followers. He will not wear red tights, nor vomit sulfur, nor carry a trident nor wave an arrowed tail as Mephistopheles in Faust. This masquerade has helped the Devil convince men that he does not exist. When no man recognizes, the more power he exercises. God has defined Himself as "I am Who am," and the Devil as "I am who am not."
Nowhere in Sacred Scripture do we find warrant for the popular myth of the Devil as a buffoon who is dressed like the first "red." Rather is he described as an angel fallen from heaven, as "the Prince of this world," whose business it is to tell us that there is no other world. His logic is simple: if there is no heaven there is no hell; if there is no hell, then there is no sin; if there is no sin, then there is no judge, and if there is no judgment then evil is good and good is evil. But above all these descriptions, Our Lord tells us that he will be so much like Himself that he would deceive even the elect–and certainly no devil ever seen in picture books could deceive even the elect. How will he come in this new age to win followers to his religion?
The pre-Communist Russian belief is that he will come disguised as the Great Humanitarian; he will talk peace, prosperity and plenty not as means to lead us to God, but as ends in themselves. . . .
. . . The third temptation in which Satan asked Christ to adore him and all the kingdoms of the world would be His, will become the temptation to have a new religion without a Cross, a liturgy without a world to come, a religion to destroy a religion, or a politics which is a religion – one that renders unto Caesar even the things that are God's.
In the midst of all his seeming love for humanity and his glib talk of freedom and equality, he will have one great secret which he will tell to no one: he will not believe in God. Because his religion will be brotherhood without the fatherhood of God, he will deceive even the elect. He will set up a counterchurch which will be the ape of the Church, because he, the Devil, is the ape of God. It will have all the notes and characteristics of the Church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content. It will be a mystical body of the Antichrist that will in all externals resemble the mystical body of Christ…But the twentieth century will join the counterchurch because it claims to be infallible when its visible head speaks ex cathedra from Moscow on the subject of economics and politics, and as chief shepherd of world communism."
Venerable Archbishop fulton sheen
There are many many more even the offical "catholic belif" catechism of the catholic church tells us
67
5 Before
Christ's
second coming the
Church must
pass through a
final trial that will
shake the
faith of many
believers. The
persecution that
accompanies her
pilgrimage on
earth will
unveil the "
mystery of
iniquity" in the
form of a
religious deception
offering men an
apparent solution to their
problems at the
price of
apostasy from the
truth. the
supreme religious deception is that of the
Antichrist, a
man glorifies himself in
place of
God and of his
Messiah come in the
flesh.
