Newly released documents from the Justice Department have cast fresh light on disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein’s long-running fixation with the Catholic Church and his private exchanges with Steve Bannon, a former adviser to President Donald Trump, about efforts to “take down” Pope Francis.
The tranche of emails and text messages, dating primarily from 2014 to 2019, reveals a pattern of mockery, ideological hostility, and political strategizing centered on the Vatican.
Epstein was convicted in 2008 of child sex offenses and later died in federal custody in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
The records showed that in the years between those events he remained engaged with powerful political and media figures — including Bannon — and expressed particular contempt for the Roman Catholic Church and its papacy.
The most politically charged revelations involve text messages exchanged in 2018 and 2019 between Epstein and Bannon, the former White House chief strategist who had become an adviser to Epstein in the years after he was found guilty of sex charges.
In a June 2019 message, Bannon wrote to Epstein: “Will take down [Pope] Francis. The Clintons, [Chinese President] Xi [Jinping], Francis, EU — come on brother.”
The language suggests that Francis was viewed by Bannon as part of a broader set of geopolitical and ideological adversaries.
At the time, Francis was a vocal critic of nationalism, xenophobia, and anti-immigrant policies — positions that placed him at odds with segments of the populist right and traditional Catholics.
Hellbound and Down 