Recent disclosures from the U.S. Justice Department have revealed a striking collaboration between Steve Bannon, a former White House advisor under President Donald Trump, and Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender who passed away in 2025. Communications from 2019 indicate that Bannon, after his departure from the first Trump administration, engaged Epstein in discussions concerning strategies to actively oppose and “take down” Pope Francis. These messages underscore a concerted effort by Bannon to recruit the late financier in his attempts to challenge the pontiff’s authority.
The newly unveiled documents highlight Bannon’s deep-seated criticism of Francis, whom he perceived as a direct adversary to his “sovereigntist” ideology. This particular strain of nationalist populism gained significant traction across Europe between 2018 and 2019, contrasting sharply with the Pope’s globalist views. The revelations suggest Epstein played a role in assisting Bannon’s movement, further entangling a figure known for his criminal activities with high-level political maneuvering.
One particularly direct exchange, dating back to June 2019, shows Bannon explicitly stating his intentions. “Let’s take down (Pope) Francis,” Bannon wrote to Epstein, expanding his targets to include “The Clintons, Xi, Francisco, the European Union – let’s go, brother.” These communications paint a clear picture of an aggressive agenda aimed at dismantling institutions and figures perceived as obstacles to Bannon’s vision.
Disclosures shed light on unlikely alliance
The extensive cache of documents, released as part of a larger leak last month, lays bare the unexpected alliance between Bannon and Epstein. Their exchanges confirm Bannon’s persistent pursuit of the magnate’s influence and resources in his post-Trump White House efforts to diminish the Pope’s standing. This collaboration suggests a calculated move by Bannon to leverage Epstein’s network, despite the latter’s known criminal history.
The motivations behind Bannon’s vehement opposition stemmed from a fundamental ideological clash. Pope Francis consistently represented a significant impediment to the nationalist populism championed by Bannon, frequently criticizing such movements and emphasizing global solidarity. This ideological divide provided fertile ground for Bannon’s strategic moves against the Vatican leader.
A clash of ideologies: nationalism versus globalism
Bannon’s disapproval of Pope Francis was vocal and public. In 2018, he reportedly labeled Francis “despicable” in an interview, accusing the pontiff of aligning with “globalist elites.” Reports further suggest Bannon urged Matteo Salvini, then Italy’s deputy prime minister, to “attack” the pontiff, leveraging political influence to amplify his opposition.
Salvini, for his part, integrated Christian iconography and religious language into his anti-immigration agenda, reflecting a broader trend of intertwining religious symbolism with nationalist politics. This fusion demonstrated the strategic importance of religious and cultural narratives in the populist movements Bannon sought to cultivate across Europe.
Vatican critiques and political maneuvering
Rome and the Vatican held considerable strategic significance for Bannon. He established a Breitbart News bureau in Rome and was actively involved in a controversial initiative to create a “gladiator school” for political training. This academy, intended to uphold Judeo-Christian values, was planned near the Eternal City, further highlighting Bannon’s deep-seated interest in shaping conservative discourse within a traditionally Catholic stronghold.
Pope Francis, throughout his pontificate, consistently offered a stark counterpoint to the Trumpist worldview. He vociferously critiqued nationalism and made the defense of migrants a signature policy, directly challenging the core tenets of Bannon’s political ideology. This unwavering stance positioned Francis as a major moral and political foil to the global populist wave.
The “Vatican closet” plot and its implications
The recently declassified U.S. Justice Department files extensively detail Bannon’s attempts to discredit Pope Francis through various means, including leveraging a controversial book. Bannon specifically referenced “In the Closet of the Vatican,” a 2019 book by French journalist Frédéric Martel that exposed alleged secrecy and hypocrisy within the Catholic Church’s highest echelons. Martel’s work stirred considerable debate by claiming a significant portion of the Vatican clergy was gay and explored how they maintained their sexuality in secret.
This issue of homosexuality within the Church has long been a contentious point for some conservatives, who interpret it as evidence of a deeper systemic crisis, sometimes controversially linking it to sexual abuse scandals. However, the vast majority of experts and researchers unequivocally consider any association between sexual orientation and abuse as scientifically inaccurate and misleading.
Bannon evidently saw Martel’s book as a potent weapon, expressing interest in transforming it into a film after meeting the author in a high-end Paris hotel. In his messages, the former advisor appeared to suggest Epstein could serve as the film’s executive producer, stating, “You are now the executive producer of ‘ITCOTV’ (In the Closet of the Vatican).” The seriousness of this proposal remains unclear, as Epstein did not directly acknowledge the offer in their exchanges, instead inquiring about Bannon filming Noam Chomsky. Frédéric Martel later clarified that while Bannon was keen, Martel’s publishers already had a film deal in place with another company, preventing Bannon from moving forward. Martel told CNN that Bannon’s intention was to “instrumentalize” the book for his campaign against Pope Francis.
Divergent views on church and sexuality
The communications further illustrate Epstein’s engagement with Bannon’s anti-Francis efforts. On April 1, 2019, Epstein notably emailed himself the phrase “in the Vatican closet” and subsequently sent Bannon an article titled “Pope Francis or Steve Bannon? Catholics need to choose,” to which Bannon tersely replied, “easy choice.” Austen Ivereigh, a biographer of the late Pope, suggested that Bannon misjudged both the nature of Martel’s book and Pope Francis himself, believing he could use the exposé to embarrass the pontiff while claiming to “purify” the Church.
Father Antonio Spadaro, a Vatican official who worked closely with Francis, reflected that Bannon’s messages demonstrate a desire to merge “spiritual authority with political power for strategic purposes.” Spadaro explained that Pope Francis consistently resisted such a fusion. He added, “What these messages reveal is not merely hostility against a pontiff, but a deeper attempt to instrumentalize faith as a weapon – precisely the temptation he sought to disarm.” These interactions occurred several years after Epstein’s 2008 conviction for sex crimes and shortly before his 2019 arrest for sex trafficking minors.
Legal battles and an abandoned “gladiator school”
The period between 2018 and 2019 was characterized by intense opposition to Pope Francis, marked by events such as Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò’s August 2018 dossier. This document, from the former apostolic nuncio to the U.S., accused Francis of negligence in addressing abuses by Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, though a subsequent Vatican investigation ultimately cleared the pontiff. Bannon’s film aspirations surrounding Martel’s book inadvertently cost him an ally within the Vatican hierarchy. Cardinal Raymond Burke, a prominent conservative critic of Francis, publicly stated, “I am by no means in favor of the book being adapted for the cinema,” particularly as Burke himself was portrayed unfavorably in Martel’s work.
This rupture extended to Burke severing ties with the Dignitatis Humanae, a conservative institute founded by Benjamin Harnwell, a British political advisor and close associate of Bannon based in Italy. Harnwell had been collaborating with Bannon to establish an academy aimed at training nationalist-populist leaders within an 800-year-old monastery, the Certosa di Trisulti, located 75 kilometers southeast of Rome. Harnwell is currently embroiled in a legal battle with the Italian Ministry of Culture concerning the monastery’s conversion, with a hearing scheduled for February 11, 2025. The Italian government had revoked the monastery’s lease in 2019, citing irregularities and false declarations by Harnwell; however, a Roman court acquitted him in 2024, and he now seeks to reclaim the contract. Harnwell has consistently maintained that Epstein was “not involved with Trisulti.”
Epstein’s macabre humor and ominous undertones
Beyond political plots, Epstein’s communications with his brother, Mark, reveal a darkly jocular side, with the magnate joking about inviting Pope Francis for a “massage” during the pontiff’s 2015 U.S. visit. Three years later, Epstein messaged Bannon about attempting to “organize a trip for the pontiff to the Middle East,” adding the intriguing “title: tolerance.” In another instance, when Bannon shared an article about the Vatican condemning “populist nationalism,” Epstein responded with a chilling quote from John Milton’s biblical poem “Paradise Lost,” referencing Satan’s expulsion from heaven: “Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.” This exchange highlights the profound ideological chasm and the cynical perspective shared between the two men regarding power and authority.
