Steve Bannon 'told Italy's populist leader: Pope Francis is the enemy'

[Eugene]

Source: The Observer

Steve Bannon ‘told Italy’s populist leader: Pope Francis is the enemy’

Trump’s ex-strategist advised Matteo Salvini ‘to target pontiff’s stance on plight of refugees’

Mark Townsend Home affairs editor
Sat 13 Apr 2019 12.53 BST Last modified on Sat 13 Apr 2019 19.00 BST

Donald Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon advised Italy’s interior minister Matteo Salvini to attack the pope over the issue of migration, according to sources close to the Italian far right.

During a meeting in Washington in April 2016, Bannon – who would within a few months take up his role as head of Trump’s presidential campaign – suggested the leader of Italy’s anti-immigration League party should start openly targeting Pope Francis, who has made the plight of refugees a cornerstone of his papacy.

“Bannon advised Salvini himself that the actual pope is a sort of enemy. He suggested for sure to attack, frontally,” said a senior League insider with knowledge of the meeting in an interview with the website SourceMaterial.

After the meeting, Salvini became more outspoken against the pope, claiming that conservatives in the Vatican were on his side. One tweet from Salvini’s account, in May 2016, said: “The pope says migrants are not a danger. Whatever!” On 6 May 2016, Salvini, after the pope’s plea for compassion towards migrants, stated: “Uncontrolled immigration, an organised and financed invasion, brings chaos and problems, not peace.”

-snip-

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/13/steve-bannon-matteo-salvini-pope-francis-is-the-enemy

[MFM008]

1. WHY?

Do they ask this fat slovenly drunk anything important?

[AlexSFCA]

3. I'd say cause trump wouldn't be president if not bannon

whose campaign put him over the top with extreme alt right white nationalism agenda and sharpening the cult. Pope is a globalist in the eyes of bannon and thus a mortal enemy to western white supremacy movement.

[safeinOhio]

2. A few years ago I visited Italy.

Quite a few told me, the rich people are going to poison Papa Franko, just you watch a see.
My favorite place was Assisi. It was the birthplace of St Francis and St Claire. I'm not Catholic, but learned some respect for it during my trip.

[Ron Obvious]

5. Why would they want to do that?

The only way Francis differs from his predecessors is that he seems nicer.

[safeinOhio]

6. He took the name of St. Francis of Assisi.

The patron St. of the poor and animals.

[DetlefK]

7. Do you remember when Fox News demanded that the Catholic Church impeach Pope Francis?

Pope Francis had just been elected and had the gall to suggest that we take care of poor people. IIRC Fox and Friends on Fox News were all stunned and shocked and asked whether it's possible to impeach the Pope. (There is no impeachment for Popes.)

Or maybe it was this:
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/enough-is-enough-pope-francis-should-resign