Former Trump advisor Steve Bannon urged Italy’s interior minister to attack Pope Francis on the subject of migration, according to a Saturday report in the Guardian newspaper.

Bannon reportedly gave the advice in April 2016 in Washington, DC, telling Matteo Salvini that Italy’s anti-immigration League party should target the pope over his vocal support of migrants.

“Bannon advised Salvini himself that the actual pope is a sort of enemy. He suggested for sure to attack, frontally,” a top League insider told website SourceMaterial, according to the Guardian.

Salvini became more critical of the pope after the meeting, the newspaper reported, pointing to a May 2016 tweet in which the official stated, “The pope says migrants are not a danger. Whatever!”

In addition to supporting migrants, Francis has criticized nationalist movements around the world.

“He’s the administrator of the church, and he’s also a politician,” Bannon told NBC News earlier this week. “This is the problem … He’s constantly putting all the faults in the world on the populist nationalist movement.”

Since leaving his post as White House chief strategist in 2017, Bannon reportedly has sought to support right-wing movements in Europe.

With Post Wire Services