Inside The Catholic Conundrum That Is Steve Bannon
(ANALYSIS) Steve Bannon is brilliant and brutal in equal measure. A man of fierce intellect and darker instincts, he’s a practicing Catholic who talks like a knight trapped in a news cycle. For him, politics isn’t about policy alone. It’s about purpose — a battleground where soul and state collide.
As the architect of MAGA’s rise, he turned populist anger into a kind of liturgy, complete with crowds, chants, and a chosen savior. He built an altar from the wreckage of globalization and told America to kneel — preferably in a red cap. His genius lies in turning grievance into Gospel, finding in every cultural crack the makings of a holy rebellion. For Catholics like myself, he remains both magnetic and mildly heretical — a zealot who fights for God’s kingdom but occasionally forgets the King’s humility.
Bannon's Catholicism isn’t of candles and contemplation but of clash and conquest. Less monastery, more melee. He quotes Aquinas, channels Augustine, and — on particularly caffeinated mornings — summons the Apocalypse before lunch.
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To him, the Vatican is a floundering firm and the “church militant” a brand in need of a relaunch. His conviction can be contagious, but the church he claims to guard has always warned against that swagger. Saints may burn with conviction, yes — but rarely with a business plan.
Still, one can’t deny the man’s genius. Bannon saw before most that politics had become a kind of secular liturgy — a place where the faithful gathered to confess, condemn, and commune. Trump, in his hands, became less a politician than a prophet in a Brioni suit, railing against the Pharisees of the Beltway.
It was Bannon who turned the movement’s fury into ritual, who taught the forgotten factory worker to see himself as a soldier in an existential war for the soul of the nation. Say what you will about his methods, but few strategists in modern politics have managed to baptize anger so effectively.
And yet, the same man who preaches about corruption once found himself indicted for it. The “We Build the Wall” scheme, that most American of crusades — a privately funded pilgrimage to protect the nation — ended with Bannon accused of pocketing donor money. He called it a misunderstanding; prosecutors called it fraud.
The episode felt like a modern parable: a man who spoke of saving civilization was detained on a billionaire’s yacht. If Dante were alive, he’d have to dust off his quill and draw up a fresh circle — somewhere between greed and hypocrisy — for men who build empires in the name of eternity.
Catholics, naturally, don’t quite know what to do with him. On one hand, Bannon speaks our language: sin, sacrifice, civilization under siege. On the other hand, he seems to treat salvation like a campaign strategy — something to be gamed, not granted. His life resembles less a monk’s retreat than a moral rollercoaster with no brakes. He loves the Church, but not always her shepherds. He reveres Christ but prefers the Hollywood version — more fury, less forgiveness.
There’s also his flair for prophecy. Bannon recently hinted that Trump could serve a third term — apparently unaware that Catholic doctrine frowns on Caesar worship.
For him, democracy is an experiment and destiny a calling card. He has the air of a man who believes history will end not in judgment but in a triumphant press conference. It’s audacious, almost operatic — the kind of theology that would make St. Peter raise an eyebrow and pour a dozen more glasses of wine.
Nevertheless, Bannon taps into something undeniably spiritual: the sense that Western civilization really is under siege. He sees the emptiness of modernity, the way secularism strips life of meaning until only politics remains.
In that diagnosis, he’s not wrong. Catholics share his alarm at a culture that has traded confessionals for comment sections. But where the Church calls for renewal, Bannon calls for revolution. Where Christ sought souls, Bannon seeks enemies. His Gospel is less “turn the other cheek” and more “turn up the volume.”
Again, though, one can’t help admiring his strange devotion. He prays daily. He knows his Scripture. Perhaps that’s his real genius. He understands that in an age of growing disbelief, conviction itself becomes currency.
If Trump does stage a third act, and the odds say he just might, Bannon will be in the front row, rosary in hand, microphone nearby, ready to rally the faithful. One can imagine him at the gates of the Capitol, shouting orders like Charlemagne with a camera crew and a comms team.
But perhaps, in a brief moment between battles, even he might remember that the real kingdom he serves isn’t of this world, and it certainly isn’t tax-deductible.
John Mac Ghlionn is a researcher and essayist. He covers psychology and social relations. His writing has appeared in places such as UnHerd, The US Sun and The Spectator World.