Detroit — The Catholic Church has faced a variety of pre-cursors of the Anti-Christ throughtout history, but all such efforts to destroy the Church have been doomed to failure, says a new book by a local priest.

Fr. Joseph Esper, pastor of St. Edward on the Lake Parish in Lakeport, reviews those failed attempts in his new book, “Defiance! The Anti-Christs of History and their Doomed War on the Church,” just out from Queenship Publishing.

Some have been political leaders, some military, some religious heretics,while others have sought to remake society based on some social, cultural or sexual model that opposes Church teaching, but the Church has withstood their onslaughts, Fr. Esper maintains.

What they have had in common is “putting themselves up against the Truth and the divinely appointed vehicle for expressing the truth,” he says of the theme of this, his 10th book.

And not only have they failed in their campaigns to destroy the Church, but “almost all of them died very unhappy and sometimes horrific deaths,” Fr. Esper adds.

The book recounts the stories of Church foes ranging from Herod the Great and the heretic Arius and some Roman emperors through history to leaders of the French Revolution, 19th-century occultists such as Madame Helena Blavatsky and Aleister Crowley, to 20th-century dictators such as Hitler, Stalin and Mao, and promoters of sexual license such as Alfred Kinsey and Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger.

Fr. Esper says he began reflecting on the subject about a year ago, and came to the realization that such a review could be useful in preparing people spiritually for such attacks on the Church as may yet come.

“We can learn something of the nature of the future Anti-Christ from the nature of his predecessors, but the most important thing to learn is that he will fail and the Church will emerge victorious from his persecution,” he adds.

Fr. Esper is “a very good, down-to-earth author” and his books are very good sellers, says his publisher, Claire Schaefer, who heads Queenship Publishing.

“He approaches the issue with both urgency and faith. He wants us to be aware of everything we may face, but also that God is in charge, ” Schaefer adds.

Several of Fr. Esper’s previous books are also available from Queenship.