Princess Gloria — once christened “Princess TNT” for her explosive years as a hard partying, art-collecting, punk-haired aristocrat — has grown into the sun queen around which many traditionalist Roman Catholics opposed to Pope Francis orbit. Her Regensburg castle is a potential “Gladiator School” for conservative Catholics on a crusade to preserve church traditions.
Her Roman palace overlooking the ancient forum is a preferred salon for opposition cardinals, bitter bishops and populists like Stephen K. Bannon. Many of them are hoping to use the sex abuse crisis that amounts to the greatest existential threat to the church in centuries to topple the 81-year-old pontiff, who they are convinced is destroying the faith.(...)
Several of Princess Gloria’s close friends have had a rough time under Pope Francis. Last year, the pope fired Gerhard Ludwig Müller, the German cardinal and critic who was the church’s doctrinal watchdog. At her Rome palace, she introduced the cardinal to Mr. Bannon, who subsequently invited the German to his Washington headquarters, better known as the Breitbart Embassy.
Mr. Bannon, who has become close to Cardinal Burke, himself sees the pope as a destructive force in the church. He envisions a Gladiator School for the theological and media training of right-wing Catholics hostile to Francis. And he has sought to persuade the princess to invest in it at a monastery in the town of Trisulti, nearly two hours outside Rome, that is operated by Dignitatis Humanae Institute, an anti-abortion group run by his friend Benjamin Harnwell. Cardinal Burke is the president of its advisory board.
In a recent interview, Mr. Bannon said that he sensed a tipping point for a church besieged by crisis, and that his plan was to use Princess Gloria’s castle in Regensburg for a summer school while other prominent Catholic donors would fund the Trisulti project.