The dumbest motive to raise the antichrist (spoilers)

So, in this movie, apparently, there is a clique of neocons in Vatican that are perhaps not devil-worshipers per se, but, you see, the world of the 1960s and 70s has gone too secular, so they *need* the antichrist to... I don't know... draw the attention of disinterested masses...to the Church???

And this makes that climax scene of Margaret birthing the antichrist confusing. The nuns from the orphanage are there and so is Bill Nighy. He wears his cardinal vestments, while the nuns are disrobed, some wearing black hooded robes that one often sees in depictions of a satanic mass. But Nighy is not a devil worshiper, he blesses the antichrist child with the regular sign of the cross. He is humane enough to bring the newborn child to his mother. So he really is one of those influential clergy who wants to engineer the antichrist and "control" him.

And it's not faithful to the franchise: it doesn't add up with what happens in the original film and its sequels. The antichrist there is totally unconstrained. The priests that want to stop him are genuine exorcists. I mean, someone would show up and said, "Look, Father, let him be for a while. Seen the new church-attendance statistics? Our plan works!"

It would make sense if there was a satanist cult hidden among the top brass in Vatican, but here we are explained that they are not that, but rather people with ostensibly good-ish intentions and a really stupid strategy.