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It's the pope. How many times in recent years has the pope not spoken up against war efforts?
I mean, usually when the administration responds that they're going to look into a situation, that means that the message that's been reported is not what the administration approves of. At least publicly. So this would have to be something where they told Colby to threaten the Vatican, but unlike Canada and Greenland, wanted it kept on the down low? Seems implausible, but I've been wrong before.
It's conceivably possible that Colby overreached, or used heated rhetoric that others in the administration would not have signed off on.
I'm skeptical that the administration would have explicitly decided to try to threaten or bully the Vatican, but it would be pretty believable than Colby was told to be as persuasive and forceful as possible, and that in line with the generally bullying, thuggish culture of the Trump White House, that turned into a threat. Someone like Vance could discover that and sincerely feel appalled.
I am dubious of the story, but "Elbridge Colby" is such a beautifully stereotypical WASP name (and looking him up, he's got the pedigree: New England family roots, went to Harvard and Yale, etc.), I nearly hope he was idiot enough to try it 😂 Nativism Redux!
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Apparently he also grabbed a 14th century weapon?
Seriously, 14th century is awful specific for a weapon's time period, unless it was one of the Swiss Guard's halberds, which, ballsy move there to try to threaten the Pope's envoy with one of his own guardsmen's weapons. Although even then, I think that'd have been 16th century...
Yeah, Swiss guard are early 16th century. Founded in 1506 (so it's their 520th anniversary this year, mark that down on the calendar along with the US semiquincentennial or 250th anniversary), new recruits sworn in every 6th May on the anniversary of the Sack of Rome in 1527, a mere 499 years ago, as memorialised by Sabaton.
If JD can swing an invite for good ol' Elbridge, he could attend the ceremony in May before the July US celebration? 🤣
(As a European, it is kinda cute to watch US guys like Elbridge stomping their feet and throwing their weight about with threats to an entity that survived Diocletian and Napoleon and Hitler. Like, the Swiss Guard last stand is twice as old as your nation's official foundation, my friend, and they're not our oldest part!).
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The Avignon papacy was from the 14th century. That's all it means.
Ah. Weird phrasing, but fair enough, I guess.
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Yes the papacy is typically against war, but Leo seems particularly passionate about this recent one.
What is implausible about threats being made behind closed doors? If anything the Trump admin being openly aggressive against Canada and Greenland is the weird thing. But ok let's say this was done entirely without the top brass, it seems concerning that our under secretaries are apparently going around and threatening our allies and no one above in the chain of command knew about it/cared until it became public.
How would they have known? It's not like he's going up to them after the meeting and saying "Oh, by the way JD, just so you know I told the Pope's ambassador we'd go Avignon on his ass, you cool with that?"
Seeing as how JD killed off the last pope, Elbridge is not gonna impress him with mere threats 😂
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It doesn't seem like it was just Colby considering "and his colleagues". Did none of them think to report that they might have accidently threatened the Vatican with military force? Either Colby did a great job convincing the others that this was planned and to not report anything about it, the colleagues agreed with him (making it multiple admin officials who went with the threat) or it was ignored/supported by the upper brass.
But even if it was just him and he hid it, not a great sign when high up officials are covering up their mistakes instead of reporting them.
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There are two reasons for this- pope Francis was seen as overly conciliatory towards the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine(not totally without reason), and for internal Vatican political reasons this was a major mark against him, so Leo feels the need to make up for lost ground. And also Israel is bombing Christians in Lebanon; yes there's probably no way to invade Lebanon without doing this but the Vatican's perspective is perhaps more on the side of 'well they don't actually technically need to fight this war, now do they?' than about dispassionately measuring collateral damage.
Francis was a Franciscan, Leo is an Augustinian. Different orders, different charisms.
Pope Francis was a Jesuit…
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Technically Francis was a Jesuit, although he saw St Francis of Assisi as a role model and frequently talked like an pietistic Franciscan. Based on the stereotypes the various Orders had back in the day, I would expect a Franciscan to resort to the kind of soft-headed pacifism that generally makes you a useful idiot for the aggressor, an Augustinian to intelligently but not necessarily productively apply Just War theory, and a Jesuit to make a political calculation based on what they thought the interests of the Church were.
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This is the most maga pope ever. Maybe not on explicit agreement, but culturally completely. The popes brother is literally the ranting Facebook maga type and if I get bored maybe I will edit and go find posts.
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