Steve Bannon, Cardinal Burke, Minister Salvini, and the Plot to Take Down Pope Francis [View all]

[DonViejo]

A trio of conservative henchmen are now working closely with each other against the pontiff’s efforts to defend human rights and equality—even on World Refugee Day.

BARBIE LATZA NADEAU
06.20.18 4:58 AM ET

ROME—It sounds almost like a lame joke. A former Trump strategist, a conservative cardinal with a penchant for fancy ceremonial gowns, and a far-right xenophobe walk into a bar in Rome. In this case, the Trump strategist is Steve Bannon, the conservative cardinal is American Raymond Burke, and the xenophobe is Italy’s new interior minister Matteo Salvini. No, they aren’t in a bar, but they are conspiring against one man, Pope Francis, on the issue most dear to him: immigration.

It is no secret that Francis, whose first ever apostolic voyage was to the Italian island of Lampedusa to give support to the hundreds of thousands of migrants who have crashed onto the shores there, supports an open-border policy. He has celebrated mass on the Mexican border with the United States, and he has warned world leaders to prioritize the acceptance of migrants over national security concerns and to avoid “discrimination, racism, extreme nationalism and xenophobia.”

In a series of statements ahead of World Refugee Day on Wednesday, Francis called for integration and acceptance, not borders and closed ports. “I hope that the states involved in these processes reach an understanding to assure, with responsibility and humanity, assistance to and the protection of those who are forced to flee their own country,” he said in one of his many messages to mark the occasion.

But the pope’s words have fallen on the deaf ears of many politicians, and sparked outrage from Bannon, Burke, and Salvini. Bannon told ABC News this week that the Catholic Church was “one of the worst instigators of this open borders policy,” singling out Francis as the main reason for the migration crisis in Europe (which began long before Francis was elected in 2013). Bannon, who proclaims his own Catholic faith, previously has said the Catholic Church just needs “illegal aliens” to fill its pews.

When Bannon was in Rome in early June to celebrate Italy’s new populist government run by Salvini, Five Star Movement leader Luigi Di Maio and their previously unknown puppet Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, he also took a side trip to the Trisulti monastery. It’s an 800-year-old gem of real estate a few hours from Rome being developed by Benjamin Harnwell, a conservative British Catholic with ties to UKIP, the party that built its reputation pushing for Brexit, as a bastion for right-wing-thinking types.

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