Steve Bannon’s plan to set up a “gladiator school” for the political alt-Right in a former Carthusian monastery in Trisulti, central Italy, is back in play. Lazio’s administrative court has overturned last year’s decision by the Ministry of Culture to revoke the 19-year lease handed to the Dignitatis Humanae Institute, the body through which President Donald Trump’s former chief strategist is setting up his new academy.

In crude political terms, it means that Mr Bannon can now resume his battle against Pope Francis, someone the political adviser and former executive chairman of Breitbart News reportedly described as “the enemy”. The 83-year-old Roman Pontiff stands as a counterweight to the divisive nationalist politics pursued by Mr Bannon.

“The world sees us only as on the Right or Left, with this ideology, with that one,” the Pope said during Mass on Pentecost Sunday, days after news that the Bannon academy had won a legal victory. “The Spirit sees us as sons and daughters of the Father and brothers and sisters of Jesus. The world sees conservatives and progressives; the spirit sees children of God.”