A Vatican newspaper has accused Steve Bannon, chief strategist for US President Donald Trump, of supporting “apocalyptic geopolitics”. It also claims Trump’s team promotes an “evangelical fundamentalism” that twists scripture to promote conflict and war.
The article in the Argentine issue of La Civiltà Cattolica by editor-in-chief Fr Antonio Spadaro and Argentine Presbyterian pastor Marcelo Figueroa, says Trump’s team uses “a selective interpretation of the Bible to demonise migrants and the Muslims.
“Within this narrative, whatever pushes toward conflict is not off limits”, they said.
“It does not take into account the bond between capital and profits and arms sales. Quite the opposite, often war itself is assimilated to the heroic conquests of the ‘Lord of Hosts’ of Gideon and David.”
Spadaro and Figueroa warn this could lead to “pastors who seek a biblical foundation for [conflict] using the scriptural texts out of context.”
The article also says some American Catholics want “walls and purifying deportations” while forming an “ecumenism of hate” with Evangelical Protestants.
Spadaro and Figueroa call these Catholics “integralists” who “condemn traditional ecumenism and yet promote an ecumenism of conflict” where God’s law (as interpreted by the integralists) rules the state.
The integralists’ vision is “not too far apart” from Islamic fundamentalism, their article says.
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