Pentagon Threatened the Pope After He Criticized Trump
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
It was so bad that Pope Leo changed his plans to travel to the U.S.
Relations between the U.S. and the Catholic Church have not been the same since January, when senior U.S. defense officials shared an abrasive message with a Vatican official.
Days after Pope Leo XIV delivered his State of the World speech, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby summoned Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the Vatican’s U.S. representative, to a closed-door Pentagon meeting for a bitter lecture.
“The United States,” Colby said, according to a blistering new report by The Free Press , “has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world. The Catholic Church had better take its side.”
One U.S. official present at the meeting brought up the Avignon papacy, a period in the 14th century in which the French monarchy bent the Catholic Church into submission, ordering an attack on Pope Boniface VIII that led to his downfall and subsequent death and forcing the papacy to relocate from Rome to Avignon, a region inside France.
The Trump administration had taken issue with the pope’s critique of its militaristic proclivities. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other top Pentagon officials were particularly aggrieved by portions of Leo’s January 9 speech in which the pope argued that “a diplomacy that promotes dialogue and seeks consensus among all parties is being replaced by a diplomacy based on force,” and that “war is back in vogue, and a zeal for war is spreading.”
The pope’s address was dissected line by line and interpreted as a hostile message toward the administration, reported Letters from Leo Substack writer Christopher Hale.
It was difficult not to interpret Leo’s comments as an immediate commentary on Donald Trump’s second administration, which had at that point bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities, kidnapped Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, fiercely advocated for the dissolution of NATO, and threatened America’s allies, including claiming that the U.S. would seize control of Canada and Greenland.
But the blatant intimidation tactic is the first of its kind ever made by American officials to the Catholic Church. There are no public records of any previous meetings between Vatican and U.S. officials at the Pentagon, let alone an instance in which the world power suggested that it could force the Bishop of Rome into captivity.
The Vatican was so alarmed by the Pentagon’s warning that Pope Leo cancelled his plans to visit the U.S. later in the year, reported Hale, who noted that “many in the Vatican saw the Pentagon’s reference to an Avignon papacy as a threat to use military force against the Holy See.”
Tensions had not been mended by February, when the Holy See rejected the White House’s invitation to host Pope Leo—the religious order’s first U.S.-born pontiff—for America’s 250th anniversary in July. Instead, the Catholic leader has arranged to visit a very different locale on July 4: Lampedusa, a tiny island between Tunisia and Sicily where North African immigrants wash ashore by the thousands.
“Robert Francis Prevost is too deliberate a man to have chosen that date by accident,” commented Hale.
The White House has dismissed the entire account, writing in a statement to reporter Barbara Starr that “the Free Press’s characterization of the meeting is highly exaggerated and distorted.”
“The meeting between Pentagon and Vatican officials was a respectful and reasonable discussion,” the Defense Department official continued. “We have nothing but the highest regard and welcome continued dialogue with the Holy See.”
This story has been updated.
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FAFO
phase 2 of bibi's plan of worldwide religious revenge and retribution ...
Previous popes have criticized Trump, that he chooses now to threaten the Vatican shows how much this regime is spiraling out of control.
the pope is an american and trump thinks all americans should bend a knee for him, instead of flexing a finger ...
If he's not careful, Trump will have ICE deport him to that maximum security prison in El Salvador!
A Maduro-style extraction from the Vatican...
There's rumors that Vance might be excommunicated for his starring role in this sorry excuse for a war
stephen miller is mia ...
I hope he stays that way
Take note that Cardinal Christophe Pierre was not summoned to the White House. Why is that significant? It means Donald Trump is not in charge. Trump has turned into another shadow President like Joe Biden. So, who is really pulling the strings?
Enjoy your morning bagel and lox.
that looks delicious!
meh, I'd rather have a half inch thick layer of cream cheese on my bagel ...
Strawberry!
That's exactly why no one ever, ever confuses my physique with Michael Phelps.
Errr what exactly is that?
Bagel with creamed cheese, topped with cured or baked salmon, onions and capers
... none of it works with vegemite.
What does?
I can't think of anything else but toast ...
Morning...why would you ruin good Vegemite by putting stuff on it?
It stands alone in all its glory..😊
Just ask Roger the roo.. he'll tell ya..
... bloody hell mate, you put vegemite on that? ... how?
They rub it on their fur..
Good for the complexion..😁
I can't picture myself holding a handful of vegemite, let alone trying to rub it on some overgrown oz jack rabbit ...
Wuss..😁
Can't see the problem myself..
bloody hell, we only have to worry about geese, deer, or the occasional alligator on the golf courses here ...
Read Project 2025, the fact that they are tearing down the Department of Education is just phase one.
The push for school vouchers, charter schools, and injecting evangelical religious indoctrination in schools was just the beginning of the evangelical takeover.
Catholic schools that many parents pay for may have been a loose model to emulate the new evangelical takeover of schools and you can rest assured government evangelicals don't want a competing religion once they get a stranglehold on our schools.
Or we'll destroy your whole civilization.
Why doesn't Trump just declare himsel Pope, the Mar-a-Lago papacy? That would solve everything.
BTW, Avignon is a very nice city. We stayed there for several days a few years ago. Very historic.
But trafffic is already pretty bad there, and an influx of pilgrims would make it worse!
If Leo returns to Chicago, ICE will arrest him.
trump heard the pope has a lot of gold trinkets in the vatican basement ...