Popes Benedict XVI or Pope St. John Paul II on the subject of the Antichrist and the end times? Has Pope Benedict XVI or Pope St. John Paul II written anything extensively (or even informally supported any author) on the subject of the Antichrist and the end times?

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches the faithful about the Church's final combat:


  675 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 pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh.
  
  676 The Antichrist's deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the eschatological judgment. The Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism, especially the "intrinsically perverse" political form of a secular messianism.
  
  677 The Church will enter the glory of the kingdom only through this final Passover, when she will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection. The kingdom will be fulfilled, then, not by a historic triumph of the Church through a progressive ascendancy, but only by God's victory over the final unleashing of evil, which will cause his Bride to come down from heaven. God's triumph over the revolt of evil will take the form of the Last Judgment after the final cosmic upheaval of this passing world.
St. John Paul II once stated that we are now nearing the final confrontation.


  “We are now standing in the face of the greatest historical confrontation humanity has gone through. I do not think that wide circles of American society or wide circles of the Christian community realize this fully. We are now facing the final confrontation between the Church and the anti-Church, of the Gospel versus the anti-Gospel.
  
  “We must be prepared to undergo great trials in the not-too-distant future; trials that will require us to be ready to give up even our lives, and a total gift of self to Christ and for Christ. Through your prayers and mine, it is possible to alleviate this tribulation, but it is no longer possible to avert it. . . .How many times has the renewal of the Church been brought about in blood! It will not be different this time.” - The Final Confrontation


Prophecy is usually recognized as true while the thing prophesized have run their course. The anti-church and anti-gospel of Pope John Paul II should be seen as something the against the Church and against the Gospels and not as a counterfeit church or a counterfeit gospel, although the Antichrist will no  doubt teach a false gospel of sorts. 


  There are so many mistakes made today regarding the coming of Christ and the coming of the Antichrist by people like Father Gobbi, Michael H. Brown and the like that I simply offer the truth as offered by the early Church fathers.  So many false prophets have made the mistake of thinking that the seat of the Antichrist will be Rome or that the Church will become the seat of the Antichrist or that some future Holy Father will be the Antichrist and all of this is false.  The Jews must return and live in the Holy Land so that they can prepare the way for the Antichrist, for he and he alone will re-build the old Temple of David and this will be his seat and not Rome. - Prophesies of the Antichrist


What have Popes said about Vladimir Soloviev?


  Soloviev is a “Russian figure of extraordinary depth,” said St. John Paul II during his Angelus of July 30, 2000.
  
  He is “one of the greatest Russian Christian philosophers of the 19th and 20th centuries,” John Paul II said again in 2003 in a long message about Soloviev that the Holy Father sent to participants gathered to discuss this major figure on the 150th anniversary of his birth.
  
  In his Crossing the Threshold of Hope, John Paul II refers to Soloviev, and in his encyclical Fides et Ratio (Faith and Reason) he lists Soloviev as standing in a line of distinguished Christian philosophers.
  
  During a talk on Soloviev Cardinal Giacomo Biffi noted that the theologian-mystic was “cited approvingly by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.”
  
  Obviously, Soloviev has exceptional credentials...
  
  Although Soloviev died in 1900 as the door opened on the 20th century, Cardinal Biffi, a noted scholar of his works, pointed out his predictions of things that would happen in the 20th century are "astonishing" in their accuracy. - Vladimir Soloviev, the Mystic Admired by Popes


Both Pope St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI held in high esteem the Russian Philosopher Vladimir Solovyov and his book on the Tale of the Anti-Christ.


  In his Tale of the Antichrist, Vladimir Soloviev details a vision of how events might take place in the 20th century and into the 21st that usher in the Antichrist, and then how that monstrous person would act.
  
  Although Soloviev died in 1900 just as the 20th century began, he clearly showed himself a mystic, that’s along with him also being one of the greatest of philosopher-theologians named in league with the likes of Cardinal Newman — who a little earlier had given lectures on the times of the Antichrist — and even very close to Aquinas. St. John Paul II mentioned or specifically wrote about Soloviev several times. Benedict XVI, as Cardinal Ratzinger, referred to him.
  
  Soloviev was Russian Orthodox but, as John Paul II described him, a figure who “noted with great clarity the tragic division among Christians and the urgent need for their unity…” Soloviev worked for Eastern-Western unity under one religious head, the pope, and in person got Leo XIII’s blessing for his work. Four years before he died, Soloviev became a member of the Eastern Rite Catholic Church. - Soloviev and His Tale of the Antichrist


More on Vladimir Soloviev and the Antichrist and the end times follows here:


  This Antichrist showed himself as a kindhearted humanitarian who appeared to love all forms of life. He was a vegetarian, was concerned about ecology, and was an ecumenist.
  
  “The twentieth century was the epoch of the last great wars and revolutions. The greatest of these wars had its distant cause in the movement of Pan Mongolism which originated in Japan as far back as the end of the nineteenth century.” China became heavily involved. Europe was invaded.
  
  Not long after the defeat of the invaders, the European states started to reorganize. The old institutions become extinct. Soloviev says: “Europe in the twenty-first century represented an alliance of more or less democratic nations — the United States of Europe.”
  
  Sounds a lot like the European Union.
  
  The Freemasons in the European Council have a hand in getting this man elected as president of the United States of Europe then giving him the next title of Roman Emperor — emperor of the world — as the Antichrist promised peace to the world, and food and prosperity under his rule. Governments around the world joined the United States of Europe.
  
  The Holy See was banished from Rome and made its way to St. Petersburg. But, Soloviev says, “In all the other countries, particularly in North America, the Catholic priesthood still had a good many representatives possessed of strong will, inexhaustible energy, and independent character, who welded together the Catholic Church into a closer unity than it had ever seen before…”
  
  As those true to the Faith look to the Gospel and Church Fathers on the Antichrist and see the nations led astray, the exposure of this wicked leader begins. Of course, he confronts them, but in a way not expected.
  
  He invites the true Christians to send representatives to meet with him where he has transferred his imperial residence to Jerusalem where he built luxurious palaces and a huge temple to unite all cults.
  
  Soloviev envisions the reaction of the Jews when they also learn this unmasked wicked imposter has led them astray from the real Messiah, and then the final say with Heaven’s answer. - Soloviev and His Tale of the Antichrist




Vladimir Solovyov (January 28, 1853 - August 13, 1900)