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An arch-conservative cardinal chosen by Pope Benedict XVI to deliver this year’s Lenten meditations to the Vatican hierarchy has caused consternation by warning of an Antichrist who is “a pacifist, ecologist and ecumenist.”

Cardinal Giacomo Biffi, 78, who retired as Archbishop of Bologna just over three years ago, quoted Vladimir Solovyov (1853-1900), the Russian philosopher and mystic, as predicting that the Antichrist “will convoke an ecumenical council and seek the consensus of all the Christian confessions”.

The “masses” would follow the Antichrist, “with the exception of small groups of Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants” who would fight to prevent the watering down and ultimate destruction of the faith.

The Pope traditionally withdraws from public view during the first week of Lent, conducting “Spiritual Exercises” in retreat with close advisers in the Redemptoris Chapel in the Vatican. He cancels all engagements, instead listening to “meditations” by a keynote speaker.

The choice of Cardinal Biffi raised eyebrows in the Vatican, given the cardinal’s forthright and sometimes eccentric views. The cardinal warned of the coming of the Antichrist during his two decades as Archbishop of Bologna, and said an “invasion” of Muslim immigrants was undermining Europe’s Christian values.

La Repubblica noted that Cardinal Biffi’s latest broadside coincided with the re-instatement of the Centre Left coalition led by Romano Prodi, some of whose members embodied “liberal beliefs the Catholic Right most detests”, including pacifism and the legalisation the rights of cohabiting and homosexual couples.

The paper said the cardinal’s profile of the Antichrist would fit “someone like Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio”, the Environment Minister and leader of the Greens. However Francesco Cossiga, the former Italian President, an admirer of Solovyov, said he thought Silvio Berlusconi, the Centre Right leader and media tycoon, was a more likely Antichrist.

“His soulless smile inspires in me a strange spiritual fear, something you feel could corrode your soul” Mr Cossiga said.

Cardinal Biffi said the Antichrist was not necessarily a person but “the reduction of Christianity to an ideology.......The teaching that the great Russian philosopher left us is that Christianity cannot be reduced to a set of values. At the heart of being a Christian is the personal encounter with Jesus Christ.” But he quoted with approval from Solovyov’s “Three Dialogues on War, Progress and the End of History,” which suggest the Antichrist is a real figure.

As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict sternly defended core Catholic doctrines and opposed calls for an ecumenical Third Vatican Council advanced by Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, the liberal former Archbishop of Milan.

Cardinal Biffi said Solovyov’s forecast was relevant today, “when we run the risk of having a Christianity which puts aside Jesus with his cross and resurrection”. If Christians “limited themselves to speaking of shared values, they would be more accepted on television programmes and in social groups. But they will have renounced Jesus and the overwhelming reality of the resurrection. This is the danger Christians face in our days … the Son of God cannot be reduced to a series of good projects sanctioned by the prevailing worldly mentality.”

He said Christianity stood for “absolute values, such as goodness, truth, beauty”. If “relative values” such as “solidarity, love of peace and respect for nature” became absolute, they would encourage “idolatry” and “put obstacles in the way of salvation.”

The choice of Lenten speaker has in the past provided clues to Vatican policy. Both Pope Benedict (in 1983) and John Paul II (in 1967) addressed the Lenten retreat as cardinals. Cardinal Biffi is no longer a papal contender, but the choice reflects the Pope’s apparent approval of his views - although one Vatican source said he had perhaps been chosen because his “verbal fireworks” would keep his listeners awake.

At the start of the retreat Cardinal Biffi reflected on the paradox of current attitudes to death, saying Western society was “obsessed” with physical health and refused to acknowledge mortality, but at the same time “actively promoted” death in the form of euthanasia and abortion.

The apocalyptic idea of an Antichrist who will appear at the end of time and challenge God for mens’ souls appears in the Gospel of St John, but stems from earlier Jewish eschatology. It became popular in the Middle Ages, when it was associated with war, famine and plague. During the Reformation Martin Luther attacked the Pope himself as the Antichrist.