Every Catholic assumes the Church is what holds the Antichrist back. Fr. Jason Charron says it can't be — Christ promised the gates of hell will never prevail against her, and St. Paul's restrainer is something that can be "taken out of the way."
So what is it? Fr. Charron walks through the Fathers, Aquinas, and Cardinal Manning and lands on an answer most Catholics have never heard.

The Fathers, almost to a man, said the restrainer of 2 Thessalonians 2 was the Roman Empire. But Rome fell in 1453 and the man of sin has not come. Fr. Charron's conclusion — offered as a priest's opinion, not dogma — is that the restrainer is the hybrid the Empire and the Church created together: Christendom. Not the spotless Bride of Christ, but the cultural, political, and institutional edifice built around her. When that edifice collapses, the restrainer is removed. After two weeks in Europe and Ukraine, he thinks it is hanging by a thread.

Along the way: his screenplay about the Great Monarch — a hunted heir of the Romanov, Habsburg, and Palaiologos dynasties who restores the Church before the Antichrist comes; why corruption begins with the priesthood and the liturgy before it reaches the laity (the sons of Eli); and what ultimately still holds the Antichrist back — the will of God, and the prayer of the last monk in Rwanda or the last nun in Croatia. When that prayer stops, it begins.

It closes on suffering. Joe admits the hardest lesson of his consecration to Our Lady was realizing Jesus expects us to suffer — and asks whether Catholics are anywhere near ready. Fr. Charron: we have more martyrs now than the Church's first three centuries, and they are praying for us.

Part 2 of 2. Part 1 — "Most Catholics Think They'd Spot the Antichrist. They Won't." — is here: https://youtu.be/vX_MO8ikMTw
Full livestream (Sept. 1, 2026): https://youtu.be/E8aI-WrTSVU

DOWNLOAD the Antichrist Cheat Sheet - https://joemcclane.com/cheat-sheets

CHAPTERS
00:00 When the edifice collapses, the restrainer is removed
00:44 The Antichrist Cheat Sheet, "He Is Coming," and why Fr. Charron is back
01:41 Fr. Charron's screenplay: the Great Monarch and the last heir of Rome
03:53 "I'm interested in saving souls" — why a priest writes end-times fiction
04:50 The most interesting discovery: the restrainer isn't a mystery after all
05:34 Not the Church, not the Roman Empire — the restrainer is Christendom
07:36 Europe is crumbling, and the backstop even atheists relied on is gone
08:55 Corrupt hierarchy or worldly laity — which comes first? The sons of Eli
10:27 What still holds him back: the will of God and the last nun's prayer
11:32 Jesus expects us to suffer — are Catholics ready?
13:13 More martyrs now than in the first three centuries

SCRIPTURE REFERENCED (Douay-Rheims)
2 Thessalonians 2:6-7 — "And now you know what withholdeth, that he may be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity already worketh; only that he who now holdeth, do hold, until he be taken out of the way."
2 Thessalonians 2:3 — "unless there come a revolt first, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition."
Matthew 16:18 — "and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."
1 Kings (1 Samuel) 2:12 — "Now the sons of Heli were children of Belial, not knowing the Lord."
Matthew 26:45 — "Behold the hour is at hand, and the Son of man shall be betrayed into the hands of sinners."
Matthew 24:13 — "But he that shall persevere to the end, he shall be saved."

SOURCES DISCUSSED
Cardinal Henry Edward Manning, The Present Crisis of the Holy See Tested by Prophecy (1861) — on the identity of the restrainer
St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on 2 Thessalonians, ch. 2
St. John Chrysostom, Homily IV on 2 Thessalonians
The medieval legend of the Great Monarch / Last Emperor (Adso and Pseudo-Methodius are covered in the full livestream)
The 21 Coptic Martyrs of Libya (2015); the Ukrainian Greek Catholic martyrs; the underground Church in China

FR. JASON CHARRON
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FrJason

JOE McCLANE
Joe's novel on the rise of the Antichrist, "He Is Coming": https://joemcclane.com/he-is-coming
Books and pilgrimage: https://joemcclane.com/
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