Steve Bannon Moves Conservative Catholics to Embrace His “Conservatism,” to Oppose Pope Francis
By Julio
Severo
“Bannon advised Salvini himself that the
actual pope is a sort of enemy. He suggested for sure to attack, frontally” the
pope in 2016, said The Guardian in an April 2019 report.
Bannon’s speech is sure to draw
conservative support because he appeals for the necessity of a global Christian
coalition against the evils of socialism, atheism and Islam. He said,
“We
are at the very beginning stages of a global conflict. If we do not bind
together as partners, with others in other countries… [then] this conflict is
only going to metastasize.”
Bannon is seeding his traditionalistic
insurrection against the papacy by allying with Francis critics both within
Catholicism and outside, building effectively a cross-denominational Christian
traditionalist front.
By Bannon’s own admission, he knows how to
openly exploit anger and resentment as a strategy to draw collaboration across
conservative movements. His maneuver is working. A NBCNews report titled “Steve
Bannon and U.S. ultra-conservatives take aim at Pope Francis” identified Bannon
as the eminence gris somehow behind conservative Catholics openly complaining
about heresies in the pope. And with a report titled “NBC report on
‘ultra-conservative’ Catholics smears Steve Bannon, anti-globalists,” LifeSiteNews,
the largest Catholic pro-life website in the world, defended both Bannon and
the Catholic complainants.
Bannon’s Catholic-centric, pro-family and
pro-life message resonates with conservative Catholics — including Italy’s
Salvini and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán. With their help, he is finalizing
preparations for the opening of a traditionalistic academy, in a monastery in
mountains not far away from the Vatican. The Academy of the Judeo-Christian
West will, Bannon claimed, serve as an incubator for nationalist leaders of the
future.
The issue is that conservative Catholics
see Bannon as a good Catholic trying to help the Catholic Church to be more
traditionalist, even though he himself, as a Catholic, has divorced three
times. Just one divorce is unacceptable for a true traditionalistic Catholic.
But divorce is not his biggest problem. And the actual roots of Bannon’s
traditionalism are not Catholic.
There
is a book that reveals Bannon’s dark spirituality. In “Devil’s Bargain: Steve
Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency” (Penguin Publishing
Group, 2017), author Joshua Green, who personally interviewed Bannon and Trump,
has argued that he has found the “secret, strange origins of Steve Bannon’s
nationalist fantasia,” and the secret is that Bannon is inspired by a number of
occult sources.
Green
explained that when Bannon was a young man, he was “a voracious autodidact” and
he “embarked upon what he described as ‘a systematic study of the world’s
religions,’” adding, “Taking up the Roman Catholic history… he moved on to
Christian mysticism and from there to Eastern metaphysics… Bannon’s reading
eventually led him to the work of René Guénon, an early-twentieth-century
early-twentieth-century French occultist and metaphysician who was raised a Roman
Catholic, practiced Freemasonry, and later became a Sufi Muslim.”
According
to Green, Bannon has a “deep interest in Christian mysticism and esoteric
Hinduism” and a special “fascination with Guénon.”
Green
explained that “Guénon developed a philosophy often referred to as
‘Traditionalism’ (capital ‘T’), a form of antimodernism with precise
connotations. Guénon was a ‘primordial’ Traditionalist, a believer in the idea
that certain ancient religions, including the Hindu Vedanta, Sufism, and
medieval Catholicism, were repositories of common spiritual truths, revealed in
the earliest age of the world, that were being wiped out by the rise of secular
modernity in the West.”
Green
said that “The antimodernist tenor of Guénon’s philosophy drew several notable
followers” and “The most notorious of these was Julius Evola,” who “had struck
an alliance with Benito Mussolini, and his ideas became the basis of Fascist
racial theory; later… Evola’s ideas gained currency in Nazi Germany.”
According
to Green,
“The common themes of the collapse of
Western civilization and the loss of the transcendent in books such as Guénon’s
The Crisis of the Modern World (1927) and Evola’s Revolt Against the Modern
World (1934) are what drew Bannon’s interest to Traditionalism (although he was
also very much taken with its spiritual aspects, citing Guénon’s 1925 book, Man
and His Becoming According to the Vedanta, as ‘a life-changing discovery’).
Bannon… brought to Guénon’s Traditionalism a strong dose of Catholic social
thought.”
So
alarmed he was with the state of the Catholic Church that in 2013 Bannon began
his activities in Rome and took a Vatican meeting with Cardinal Raymond Burke
in an effort to prop up Catholic traditionalists marginalized by Pope Francis.
Green explained Bannon’s efforts to infuse Guénon’s Traditionalism in the
Catholic Church:
“Expounding on this view at a 2014
conference at the Vatican, Bannon knit together Guénon, Evola, and his own
racial-religious panic to cast his beliefs in historical context.”
Bannon
has sought to bring Guénon’s Traditionalism among ultra-conservative Catholics
around the world. Green said,
“Wherever he could, he aligned
himself with politicians and causes committed to tearing down its globalist
edifice: archconservative Catholics such as Burke, Nigel Farage and UKIP,
Marine Le Pen’s National Front, Geert Wilders and the Party for Freedom.”
Guénon’s
ideas are more successful among Catholics. Brazil, the largest Catholic nation
in the world, has a legion of adherents of Guénon.
It
was not only Catholics that Bannon was using. According to Green:
“In the summer of 2016, Bannon
described Trump as a ‘blunt instrument for us.’”
Trump
was never able to see the dark spirituality driving Bannon. How then was Trump
able to escape its pitfalls? According to Green:
“Bannon’s fall from his exalted
status as Trump’s top adviser wasn’t the result of a policy dispute, but the
product of Trump’s annoyance that Bannon’s profile had come to rival his own.
Trump grew incensed at the popular notion that Bannon was the one really
running the show—that he was, as an infamous Time cover put it, ‘The Great
Manipulator’… ‘You have to remember, he was not involved in my campaign until
very late,’ Trump told the New York Post. ‘I’m my own strategist.’”
Besides, Trump is surrounded by many
evangelical advisers who regularly pray with him. So prayer and the God of
answers delivered Trump from Bannon.
Trump
fired Bannon in a time that he was being called “Trump’s Rasputin.” Trump fired
him in a time that even the secular press was seeing Bannon’s occultism, with a
secular website publishing a very clear article titled “The Trump era is
turning out to be a golden age for esoteric fascist intellectuals.”
Yet, what many traditionalistic Catholics
are seeing in Bannon is not occultism, esotericism and Guénon. They are seeing
“conservatism” and “stances against Islamic immigration.” Between Bannon and
Pope Francis, they prefer Bannon. Their choice is not much different from the
choices of Catholics in Nazi Germany, which was overrun by communist parties
and politicians of all stripes, and the only anti-Marxist hope was nominal
Catholic Adolf Hitler.
Hitler was also involved in occultism, but
desperate German Catholic voters did not look at it. They
looked only at his stance against Marxism.
Even though today well-meaning Catholic
right-wingers have
accused Nazism and fascism of being left-wing, one of the main influences in
these movements was Julius Evola, the most prominent disciple of Guénon.
Both Evola and Guénon were anti-Marxist. In fact, Evola was for the populist
Nazi and fascist movements in the 1930s what Bannon is today for the populist
movements in Europe. So it is no surprise that Bannon praised Evola and Guénon at
the Vatican.
Evola was the author of right-wing
handbooks, including “A Handbook for Right-Wing Youth.” He was also the author
of several occult books, including “Introduction to Magic: Rituals and
Practical Techniques for the Magus.”
Nevertheless, traditionalistic Catholics
who love Bannon’s anti-immigration stances are having a hard time to connect
the dots. And Guenonian traditionalists, including Bannon, are exploiting this
Catholic weakness. Perhaps Francis, who is not seeing the peril of Islamic
immigration, is seeing the peril of Bannonian populism, because he said that
“growing populism in Europe could lead to the election of leaders like Hitler.”
If populism did it through Evola in the 1930s, why not today through
revolutionaries who praise Evola and his master Guénon?
In turn, Bannon is capitalizing on the sex
scandals in the Catholic Church and using them against Francis by alleging that
Francis has mismanaged numerous sex abuse scandals and by saying the pope is
not treating the issue seriously enough. Such speech is enough to draw
traditionalistic Catholics to Bannon’s camp. It is working.
Conservative Catholics as Cardinal Raymond
Burke have joined Bannon. Burke and Bannon reportedly met at the Vatican in
2014 in the same conference where Bannon openly praised esoteric fascists Evola
and Guénon.
Now Burke and Bannon are together working
in a controversial project in Italy to restore a Carthusian monastery and to
make it the center of a political and cultural movement in Europe. The
monastery is the headquarters of the Dignitatis Humanae Institute (Institute
for Human Dignity), headed by Benjamin Harnwell.
In January 2017, Bannon became a patron of
the institute, whose honorary president is Cardinal Burke.
Burke is president of the Institute’s
board of advisers. Other Catholics are also board members, including Dom
Eugenio Romagnuolo O.Cist., Cardinal Renato Raffaele Martino, Mgr. Roberto de
Odorico and Abbot Eugenio Romagnuolo.
In 1947, the monastery’s prior was shot
dead in his frescoed chambers. An investigation led to the monastery being
disbanded and the monks scattered to the four corners of Italy. “The official
reason is finance but maybe [it was] a homosexual thing,” said Bannon.
So the monastery that had a suspicious end
will have a suspicious rebirth, with Catholic leaders willing to do everything,
including alliance with occultists, to oppose Francis.
Bannon’s increased engagement with the
Institute demonstrates how his involvement in Europe extends beyond electoral
politics to an effort to build a populist faction inside the Catholic Church.
According to Harnwell, Bannon is helping to draw up the coursework for a
training program for conservative Catholic political activists and leaders.
One
of the trustees of the Institute for Human Dignity is an outspoken critic of
Pope Francis, Austin Ruse, who’s also one of the main leaders of the World
Congress of Families and director of the Catholic Center for Family and Human
Rights.
I cannot understand how Ruse, who has a
great pro-life work, is financially involved in the support of a Bannon’s
initiative. Years ago he
questioned Scott Lively, who is a Pentecostal minister, and his pro-family
activism, by saying that he was an invention. Aren’t Bannon, his “The
Movement” and the Institute for Human Dignity also an invention to draw and
fool good conservative Catholics? How can Ruse “see insightfully” problems in
Lively but no problem in Bannon?
While some refurbishment is needed in the
monastery, the academy of the Institute for Human Dignity will be ready for the
first classes in the next months.
According to Bannon, one of the professors
of the faculty will be Olavo de Carvalho, a Brazilian writer who has
extensively propagandized that the Inquisition was a fiction invented by
Protestants. Like Bannon, Carvalho was also, during decades, influenced by the
writings of Guénon, who is his main anti-Marxist base. During the 1970s and
1980s, he worked as a professional astrologer. He was also a Muslim, having
received from Saudi Arabia an award for a biography of Mohammed he wrote. His history is basically occult.
Like Bannon, Carvalho is also having huge
penetration among Catholics — in Brazil. Carvalho,
who is considered the Rasputin of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, has
also propagandized extensively, and has indoctrinated his adherents to
propagandize extensively, that he was the main figure behind Bolsonaro’s
victory.
Carvalho’s propaganda
that the Inquisition was a Protestant fiction is contested by voluminous
historical facts, including from Jewish historians. But it has huge appeal
among traditionalistic Catholics. Even
LifeSiteNews has already published articles defending the Inquisition, which
was refuted by me, because a pro-Inquisition message is deeply troubling and
antagonistic to a real pro-life message. If LifeSiteNews defended Bannon
for the sake of traditionalism, what would hinder it from defending Carvalho
for the sake of the Inquisition?
Carvalho’s self-propaganda that he was the
man responsible for Bolsonaro’s victory is
contested by Benjamin Harnwel, who said, “Evangelicals helped elect
Bolsonaro president of Brazil. After announcing the result of the first round,
the first statement given by the then PSL presidential candidate was to thank
evangelical leaders.”
Interestingly, Harnwell, who said that
Bannon is the patron of his institute, recognizes that evangelicals were vital
for Bolsonaro and that in his first statement after the first round, when he was
in extreme need of their votes, Bolsonaro thanked them. But Harnwell did not
mention that immediately after the second round, when Bolsonaro’s victory was
confirmed and he no longer needed to depend on evangelicals, in his first
statement he did not thank any evangelical leader. He thanked specifically an
adherent of Guénon — Olavo de Carvalho.
Strangely, in a March interview with Pat
Robertson’s CBN, Bolsonaro said that his victory was thanks to evangelicals.
Yet, in practice, he has appointed devotees of Carvalho for his administration.
The current Brazil’s Foreign
Minister introduces himself as a Catholic conservative, but he is an open
devotee of Carvalho, Guénon and Evola.
Trump
could see Guenonian Bannon (the American Evola) as an opportunist but Bolsonaro
is unable to see Guenonian Carvalho (the Brazilian Evola) as an opportunist. Or
perhaps Bolsonaro is using some opportunism too. In its report titled “Brazil’s
Bolsonaro denies ties to strategist Steve Bannon” last October, the Associated
Press said, “Far-right presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro said Thursday his
campaign has no ties to former White House strategist Steve Bannon.”
But
it seems that Bolsonaro has not been transparent with his voters. Bannon’s
partner Mischael Modrikamen said to the Brazilian magazine Crusoe in May 2019,
“During the campaign of Jair Bolsonaro, Steve Bannon gave advice to his team.”
Why did Bolsonaro deny and hide his real
connections with Bannon during his campaign? What is obvious is that Bolsonaro
is hiding Bannon’s activity in Brazil. I, as millions of Bolsonaro’s
evangelical voters, have not been told the truth by Bolsonaro. And as an
evangelical I have concerns about the American Evola and his esoteric fascism.
Writing for the Oxford University
Press, author Mark Sedgwick said about Trump and Bolsonaro,
Some point to similarities in the
electorates that helped both presidents into office. Famously, 81% of white US
evangelicals voted for Donald Trump in 2016, and it has also been argued that
Jair Bolsonaro owes his presidency to Brazilian evangelical voters.
Evangelicals are an ever more important group in Brazil, where the Catholic
Church continues to hemorrhage members.
Bolsonaro, in contrast, came to power
without help from Carvalho…
Although Bannon’s and Carvalho’s
roles differ somewhat, it is not wrong to call Carvalho “Brazil’s Bannon.”
So are Brazilian evangelicals being
fooled by a Bolsonaro fooled by two Evolas to make Guenonian traditionalism great
again? They have been fooled, but not massively, because there are some evangelical
voices crying in the wilderness. In contrast, Catholics have been fooled
massively by the traditionalistic message of the Brazilian Evola.
Two
Evolas, Bannon and Carvalho, have transformed Brazil, through the Bolsonaro
administration, in a big revolutionary laboratory by hijacking Catholic
conservative movements and by exploiting political victory at the expense of
evangelical voters.
In spite of the fact that today
Carvalho, with Bolsonaro’s propaganda, portrays himself as
the decisive force in Bolsonaro’s victory, Benjamin Harnwell himself said about
bringing evangelicals to his Guenonian movement exactly because even he, who is
directly connected to Bannon, knows that evangelicals, not Carvalho, were such
decisive force. He said, “The alliance with evangelicals may be the answer we
seek… I would be very happy to be able to work closely with evangelicals… See,
for example, it’s the evangelicals that are supporting the Trump
administration, it’s evangelicals who are against abortion in Brazil…
Catholicism has left the battlefield.”
Carvalho has made some efforts to use and
exploit some low-profile Brazilian evangelicals, but televangelist
Silas Malafaia, the most prominent evangelical leader in Brazil, has called him
an astrologer recently.
Yet, different from Bannon, who has had no
support from Trump, but only derision, Carvalho has enjoyed unparalleled
support from Bolsonaro, who is mesmerized by the new Rasputin, just as the
original Rasputin enjoyed unparalleled support from the mesmerized Russian
Tsar. Recently, a
Brazilian government minister, who is an adherent of Carvalho, compared
Bolsonaro with Jesus Christ after Bolsonaro gave Carvalho the highest award of
the Brazilian government.
Taking
advantage of his close relationship to Bolsonaro, Carvalho has publicly called on
Brazil’s Federal Police to investigate me on the grounds that my denunciations
against him involving the Inquisition and occultism are collusions paid by the
Russian government that threaten Brazil’s national security.
In this sense, I am a big fan of Trump,
who called “the American Olavo de Carvalho” (Steve Bannon) an opportunist.
Living as a self-exiled Brazilian immigrant in the U.S. for over 13 years,
Carvalho portrays himself as a victim while he uses his refuge in the U.S. to
revile, attack and threaten his real victims. I am one of his victims. Isn’t
this opportunism?
Because
of his influence on Bolsonaro, Carvalho, who is with Bannon,
managed to convince Bolsonaro to make Bannon his especial
guest in a dinner at the Brazilian Embassy in Washington in March.
So in this special dinner, Bannon was at one side of Bolsonaro and Carvalho at
other, to show to everybody how powerful these two Evolas are for him and his
administration.
Even
though living in the U.S. for years, Carvalho is not known in major American conservative
circles. But his adherents are working hard to propagandize his personality
cult in the U.S. The Acton Institute, of Fr. Robert Sirico, has published some
three articles praising Carvalho. The articles were authored by a Brazilian
adherent of Carvalho.
The Acton Institute and Robert Sirico are
very traditionalistic Catholics. The penetration of both Bannon and Carvalho
among traditionalistic Catholics shows how Guenonian traditionalism has a
formidable appeal to traditionalistic Catholics. In fact, Bannon has also
promised to propagandize Carvalho and his ideas in the U.S.
With Bannon and Carvalho at the Institute
for Human Dignity, future Catholic leaders will be indoctrinated and formed in
the Guenonian traditionalism, just as Julius Evola (the Bannon or the Carvalho
of the 1930s) indoctrinated Nazis and fascists in the Guenonian traditionalism.
With the exception of Pope Francis, who
has rightly said that this populism (Guenonian traditionalism) will lead to a
new Hitler, few traditionalistic Catholics care about occult influences on
Bannon or Carvalho. In a recent report of Robert Moynihan, who discusses issues
inside the Vatican, he addressed the Institute for Human Dignity, the monastery
and Bannon. There were three groups of Catholics answering:
(1)
Catholics supportive of the initiative.
(2)
Catholics deeply skeptical about or opposed to the initiative.
(3)
Catholics who see Bannon’s efforts as attempts to restore the Catholic faith in
an increasingly secularized, post-Christian Europe.
In the second group, Catholics deeply
skeptical about or opposed used my articles to question Bannon’s and Carvalho’s
connections to Guénon. They saw Bannon’s initiative as occult.
I am glad to help Catholics identify
occult roots in allegedly “conservative” movements. Since the 1980s, I had
contact with Fr. Paul Marx, the founder of Human Life International (HLI),
which was the largest Catholic pro-life organization in the world. Besides its
main pro-life mission, HLI also distributed books against New Age, including
evangelical books. I have these books even today and I can testify how serious
Fr. Marx was against New Age.
Bannon’s and Carvalho’s Guenonian
traditionalism is basically New Age “conservatism.” It is just the other side
of the same occult coin. If he were alive today, Fr. Marx could probably
identify it easily.
Expelled and derided by Trump as an
opportunist, Bannon will likely never again be accepted among conservative
Republicans in the U.S., but has instead become an eminence gris in Catholic
movements inside and outside the Catholic Church. Nigel Farage, Brexit leader
who has been flattered by Bannon, isn’t shy about paying Bannon back: He’s
called him the “greatest political thinker and activist in the Western world
today.”
Bannon has also flattered other
conservative movements in Europe to receive from them equal flattery. All the
European conservatives bewitched by Bannon are not impressed by any of his
credentials, which are never shown. The only credential used to draw European
conservatives is that he was “Trump’s strategist.” So even though Bannon did
not help him, by Trump’s admission, to win the U.S. election, Trump’s fame is
helping Bannon in his Guenonian revolution.
His “The Movement” has been popular among
Catholics in Europe. Its official representative for Latin America is Eduardo
Bolsonaro, the son of the Brazilian president.
How does Bannon intend to widen “The
Movement”? One way is Bannon’s establishment of what he terms the “Academy for
the Judeo-Christian West” in the monastery he intends to repurpose as a
“gladiator school for culture warriors.”
Behind the pompous Christian title, there
are occult intents.
In a report about Bannon, the Israeli
newspaper Haaretz said that U.S. evangelicals are pouring millions of dollars
into European right-wing religious groups connected to Bannon. U.S.
evangelicals should investigate it because millions of dollars should be
invested in good evangelical causes, not in occult causes.
Why
fund occult causes with evangelical money if there are good evangelicals causes
lacking financial support? I myself, with seven children, am in dire need of
such support. Scott Lively, Peter LaBarbera and Mike Heath are other evangelicals
who deserve massive financial support.
Haaretz said, “The trans-Atlantic movement
Bannon now represents, no matter how awkwardly or how much as a result of his
own PR, dovetails globally with other right-wing populists, especially those
who benefit from crucial support from right-wing evangelicals.”
U.S.
evangelicals should as soon as possible investigate how U.S. evangelical money is
being canalized to Bannon’s contacts involved in the Guenonian revolution.
Haaretz also noted, “Bannon is a mass of
contradictions, a self-marketeer supreme and narcissist whose grandiose visions
are often mirages or spin.”
Is this a Guenonian characteristic?
Because by describing Bannon, Haaretz also unknowingly described Olavo de
Carvalho, who is as narcissist as Bannon is.
Haaretz added, “To credit Bannon alone
with the incremental successes of the European far right’s political and
religious crusade would be internalizing his own narrative as the continent’s
great savior…” Again, Haaretz also unknowingly described Carvalho, who knows
the Guenonian tricks. He repeats so many times to himself and his adherents,
making them to repeat it to themselves and others, that he saved Brazil that
they eventually internalize such narrative.
When even the Brazilian president and his
sons have internalized such narrative, the problem is not small. It is massive.
Thank God, Trump did not internalize
Bannon’s Guenonian narrative.
Bannon has steadily been building
opposition to Pope Francis through his Institute for Human Dignity. But what
conservative Catholics, including Raymond Burke and Austin Ruse, are not seeing
is that Bannon’s victory will not be a true Catholic conservative victory. It
will be the same kind of “victory” the Bannon or the Carvalho of the 1930s
(Julius Evola) was able to get by inspiring and influencing the advancement of
fascism and Nazism.
After
Evola, this is the first time devotees of Guénon exploit populist causes to
influence governments. With Evola’s example, both Bannon and Carvalho have
become eminences gris in governments.
By
capitalizing on the people’s fear of Marxism, Evola sabotaged true
conservatism. In similar way, Bannon’s movement sabotages true conservatism and
Christianity, which does not tolerate occultism, whether in its form of
left-wing or right-wing political activism. True conservative Christians have a
responsibility to sabotage the saboteur’s occult maneuver against them.
There
are cases when a remedy is worse than a disease. Even though Bannon’s
“conservatism” has been presented as the “remedy” against pope’s socialism, it
is not a remedy at all. It is as evil, harmful and deadly as Marxism is,
because occultism, even in its form of political activism, is no remedy. It is
another deadly disease.
If conservative Christians are unable to
identify and confront the wave of devotees of Guénon and their traditionalism
influencing populist movements and governments in Europe and Brazil and
encourage presidents to get rid of them, just as Trump did to Bannon, our era
is going to turn out to be actually a golden age for esoteric fascist
intellectuals.
With information from The Intercept, NBC News,
Robert Moynihan Report, Haaretz, The Guardian and Financial Times.
Portuguese
version of this article: Steve Bannon move católicos conservadores para abraçar
seu “conservadorismo” para se opor ao Papa Francisco
Source: Last Days Watchman
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