Recent documents released by the US Department of Justice reveal that Steve Bannon, former adviser to US President Donald Trump, and convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein discussed strategies to oppose and, as Bannon wrote, "overthrow" Pope Francis.
The text messages, insistences and communications from 2019 show that Bannon, after leaving the Trump administration, communicated with Epstein to disparage and undermine Pope Francis' position, the report says. CNN.
Bannon was a fierce critic of Pope Francis, whom he saw as an opponent of political ideas oriented around nationalism and populism. In one of the messages to Epstein, Bannon wrote that he would “take down Francis.”
He perceived the Pope as an obstacle to expanding his ideological vision and, according to documents, he also exploited the debate surrounding the book "In the Closet of the Vatican" by French journalist Frederic Martel, which highlighted internal issues of the Catholic Church.
Experts who commented for CNN assess that Bannon sought to instrumentalize religion and the figure of the Pope for political purposes, an approach that critics say constitutes an attempt to exploit religious sentiments to strengthen his agendas.
The released documents are part of a broader Justice Department dossier on Epstein's relationships and communications with various public and political figures, even after his conviction for sex crimes. /Telegraph/
