Carthusian gladiators go to school

Steve Bannon meets Catholic reaction meets Danish bank meets fraudulent signature – and then Godzilla appeared! No but really:

The Italian government has delivered a potentially fatal blow to Steve Bannon’s plans to transform a medieval monastery near Rome into a training academy for the far-right.

It makes sense, doesn’t it. You want conservative? I’ll give you conservative: how about a medieval fucking monastery?! That’s right! I said medieval monastery!

But then it all fell apart.

Italy’s cultural heritage ministry announced on Friday (May 31) that it would revoke a lease granted to Bannon after reports of fraud in the competitive tender process. The former Breitbart chief and aide to US president Donald Trump was reportedly paying €100,000 ($110,000) per year to rent the 13th Century Carthusian monastery, but now will have to search for another spot.

The Italian state allowed the conservative Catholic organization Dignitatis Humanae Institute (DHI) to use the building early last year. Bannon happens to be a trustee of the institute, and planned to convert the space into a “gladiator school for cultural warriors,”where students would learn philosophy, theology, history, and economics, and receive political training from the former Trump aide himself.

Can’t you just see Bannon gladiating?

Related image

Yep, that’s Bannon all right.

But earlier this month, Italian newspaper Repubblica reported that a letter used to guarantee the lease was forged. The letter had the signature of an employee of Danish bank Jyske, but the bank said that employee hadn’t worked there for years, and called the letter fraudulent.

Oops. Oh well, he didn’t want to wear sandals anyway.

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