GET THEE TO A MONASTERY!

Just think:  had you acted fast enough, you could have rented the 800-year-old Trisulti monastery, located only two hours outside Rome (pictured above), for a little more than €8,000 per month.  You could have turned it into the world’s largest Airbnb, an artists’ colony, or a luxury spa hotel in the grand European tradition.  But you didn’t act fast enough, and so the monastery is set to become a right-wing think tank dreamed up by Benjamin Harnwell and Steve Bannon.  

This austere building, once the secluded sanctuary of monks silently praying, reading, illuminating manuscripts, and concocting medicinal remedies from their herb garden, is now the future site of the Academy for the Judeo-Christian West, a modern “gladiator school for culture warriors.”  Optimistically scheduled to open in 2020, it will be the point of embarkation for a 21^st century crusade whose Holy Grail is the re-ascendance of traditional Christian values.  The crusade will be waged by an army of populist foot soldiers trained in the dark arts of social media at this redoubt in the Apennines.  

The academy is part of Bannon’s obsession with what he describes as “Islamic fascism” and his apocalyptic vision of a global war with radical Islam.  Bannon’s first call to arms was delivered via Skype to a conference organized by Harnwell in 2014 at the Vatican.  Harwell is a mid-40s British former political operative who worked his way up in U.K. politics to become the chief of staff to a British member of the European Parliament.  His experience in Brussels was a kind of conversion therapy which turned him into a staunch Euro-skeptic.  He is joined in this nationalist catechism by his good friend, Bannon.  

Steve Bannon and Benjamin Harnwell in Rome

Before the academy can open, though, the monastery requires an immodest amount of modernization:  plumbing, wiring, roofing, and sewage treatment; bathrooms, dormitories, Internet access, and better cellphone coverage.  Plus a faculty and accreditation.  Bannon says the school will be geared toward mid-career people “looking to do something different.”  Harnwell envisions two-week, intensive masters-level courses in theology, philosophy, economics, and history.  Bannon has agreed to teach a session on the applied arts of the new media.  Thus illuminated, like a manuscript, the students will descend the mountain road, return to from whence they came, and foment world-wide populist revolt.

But who will pay for the toilets, showers, and high-speed data connections?  Apart from some funding out of Bannon’s own pocket, Harnwell is tight-lipped about where the money will come from.  In an interview with L’Espresso, however, he did admit to receiving €12,000 from an Italian politician accused of accepting millions in illicit funds from shadowy Azerbaijani figures.  Harnwell took the Italian politician’s word for it that the money wasn’t laundered and he didn’t investigate further.  A matter of faith, I'm sure.

The Trisulti Pharmacy

In the search to bankroll this shining city on a hill, Bannon turned north, to Princess TNT.  She is also known as Princess Gloria von Thurn und Taxis, and she lives in a 500-room (no typo) palace in Regensburg, near Germany's southeastern border with the Czech Republic. Princess Gloria inherited the palace from her late husband, Johannes, the 11^th Prince of Thurn und Taxis.  Despite being raised Catholic and spending summers in the Black Forest with her great aunt, a Benedictine nun, Princess TNT wasn’t always a serious practitioner of the faith.  She was, truth be told, quite the ‘80s  party animal, as The New York Times' Jason Horowitz details in a tongue-in-cheek profile drooling with sarcasm (07.12. 2018).

 

Princess Gloria von Thurn und Taxis wearing a 2-foot coif, with husband, Johannes, New York, 1987

She met her late husband, an eccentric bisexual 34 years her senior, at a Supertramp concert in Munich.  His family had made its fortune providing postal services to the Holy Roman Empire.  They married in 1980 and produced three children in between hanging out with Mick Jagger, Andy Warhol, and other club celebs in smart watering hole-cum-discos around the world.  When the prince died in 1990, the princess was hundreds of millions of dollars in debt and had to get a job.  Unfazed, she studied business, took her palace public, and auctioned off the family jewels, silver, wine cellar, and some art.  So, she’s a pretty tough cookie.  

Princes Gloria met Bannon at her Roman palace (yes, she has more than one) overlooking the Forum.  Her southern residence functions as the preferred salon for cardinals and bishops who oppose the pro-migrant pronouncements of Pope Francis.  It is also a gathering place for politicians from the Lega Nord, the far-right anti-immigrant party, and Cinque Stelle, the anti-establishment party, who together make up the populist coalition partners which currently badly govern Italy.  At one of these soirees, Bannon tried to persuade the princess to invest in his gladiator school, but she was having none of it.  While she welcomed Bannon’s contributions to orthodox Catholicism, she found the idea of investing €100 million in a monastery---where "she was horrified to encounter a colony of bats"---frankly, ridiculous.  

 

Prior Don Ignazio Rossi, the last monk at Trisulti

So for now, Trisulti is waiting for its make-over, caught between its former spiritual life and the Bannon-Harnwell wet dream.  The resident monks have all gone now, except for the 83-year-old gardener-chef, who prepares Harnwell’s meals.  Forlorn and falling into disrepair, Trisulti was tendered to the highest bidder.  Harnwell made an offer that couldn't be refused and snapped it up for a little over €8,000 per month.  If only you had known.  You could have set back the next crusade and saved the world from global religious war.

Keep it real!

Marilyn