The retired Italian cardinal who preached at this year's papal Lenten retreat warned that modern Christians ran the risk of following the Antichrist if they ignored the hard truths of the faith and turned Christianity into an idolisation of relative values such as "solidarity, love for peace and the respect for nature".

Cardinal Giacomo Biffi, former Archbishop of Bologna, made his comments on 27 February during a week-long series of spiritual conferences he offered Pope Benedict and top Roman Curia officials. Basing his reflections on the final work of the Russian philosopher Vladimir Soloviev (1853-1900) - The Three Dialogues and the Tale of the Antichrist - Biffi, 78, said that Soloviev had prophetically portrayed the Antichrist as an ecumenist, ecologist and pacifist who sought to please the crowds by watering down the message and person of Christ. The cardinal said that the Russian writer was correct in foreseeing this as the "tragedy of the twentieth century".

Cardinal Biffi, well known for his brilliant wit and conservative views, said that Soloviev predicted that the Antichrist would "convoke an ecumenical council and seek consensus among all the Christian confessions, conceding something to each of them". He said the masses would follow him, "except for small groups of Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants".  Soloviev predicted that these would say, "You have given us everything, except that which interests us - Jesus Christ." The cardinal said that the Russian's portrayal of the Antichrist, written more than 100 years ago, was a warning for people today. "We run the risk of having a Christianity that puts aside Christ with his Cross and Resurrection," he reportedly said.

The cardinal said a Christian who downplayed the "salvific fact" of Christ and a personal relationship with him in order to "open oneself to the world and dialogue with everyone" was, in fact, "on the side of the Antichrist". He warned that the Son of God could not be reduced to "a series of good projects sanctioned by the prevailing worldly mentality".

This was not the first time that Cardinal Biffi has cited Soloviev. In a lecture in 2000 he pointed out that his Antichrist would be an "admirable philanthropist, a committed, active pacifist, a practising vegetarian, a determined defender of animal rights ... [and] among other things, an expert exegete [whose] knowledge of the Bible will even lead the theology faculty of Tübingen to award him an honorary doctorate".

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger made the same point by quoting the Russian philosopher in a lecture he gave to scripture scholars in 1988 in New York.

In his 2000 lecture Cardinal Biffi described Soloviev as the exact opposite of the Antichrist: "A passionate defender of the human person and allergic to every philanthropy; a tireless apostle of peace and adversary of pacifism; a promoter of Christian unity and critic of every irenicism; a lover of nature and yet very far from today's ecological infatuations - in a word, a friend of truth and an enemy of ideology."

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