I was never in that camp and as a matter of fact, I haven't heard 'the Pope is the anti-christ' talk since the 80's.
I think Catholics are getting nervous.
Let me tell you that “the pope is the antichrist” is alive and well! In way too many churches, in fact. A few years back, I was driving a van full of friends and family to a (undisclosed) shopping trip. One person in the van spoke up and stated that the Pope, which was John Paul II, was the Antichrist, spoken of in the Bible. Next to me was a very good friend, a devout Catholic, who was almost in shock. I quickly said that I, too, had grown up being taught that, but since about age 35/36 had come to my senses and through vigilant study, had come to disavow that belief. I gave a lot of experiences over the years and talked about how I had evolved from that teaching to the one pretty much the same as this one.
I agree with the writer that there are quite a few Americans who still believe this stuff and they are going to wonder about their faith...is it Truth? When your belief system is based on the teachings of men, your faith will be sorely tried. Jesus alluded to those teachers who had made THEIR traditions more important than the Torah and He was quite frank with them.
I know that this dispensational teaching has somewhat diminished over the years, but I also know that if you talk to some about anything different than the status quo, you are scorned, called a heretic, left alone. I have family members that would take up a gun and shoot me over this, say I was a heretic. That is how deeply some adhere to it. I’m glad that is changing, but I feel that Christ, Himself, addressed this when He stated that the “love” of many would become cold, that there would be those who persecute others in the name of the Lord, thinking they are doing Him a service, and while I believe this applies mostly to Muslims today, I believe it also applies to those who have come to faith on the teachings of men (believing them to be Truth) and they will become more intolerant of those with differing views. Does Westboro Baptist Church ring a bell?