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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   15326 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 6, 2026

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It turns out Greenland/Denmark and Canada aren't the only friendly countries that the US has been threatening, the Vatican's ambassador to the US (according to The Free Press and Letters from Leo a Catholic focused blog) was given both explicit and coded threats of military force against the Holy See.

In January, behind closed doors at the Pentagon, Under Secretary of War for Policy Elbridge Colby summoned Cardinal Christophe Pierre — Pope Leo XIV’s then-ambassador to the United States — and delivered a lecture.

“America,” Colby and his colleagues told the cardinal, “has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world. The Catholic Church had better take its side.”

As tempers rose, one U.S. official reached for a fourteenth-century weapon and invoked the Avignon Papacy, the period when the French Crown used military force to bend the bishop of Rome to its will.

JD Vance, a Catholic himself, has done a pretty rare thing for the Trump admin and said they're gonna get to the bottom of it first, instead of immediately dismissing it as fake news.. This doesn't confirm it as real, but that it wasn't immediately denied and dismissed like the typical M.O. is quite interesting.

This could help explain why Pope Leo has felt so emboldened to speak up against Trump's war efforts in Iran, cause the administration officials have been warmongering against them behind the scenes. The chance that the admin actually pulls the trigger and attacks the Vatican is obviously low, but that they keep threatening many of our allies both publically and privately seems quite concerning to me. It also opens up a new thing to consider, how many other allies are they threatening behind closed doors too?

This is incredibly based. A USG-sanctioned breakaway hierarchy might be our only shot at getting real Catholicism back. Once we've conceded that "Eternal Rome" means something different from, "the guy currently running The Vatican," then there is absolutely no reason that "Eternal Rome" can't be located in Dillwyn Virginia.

In historical reality, the threat of government-backed antipopes was the last line of defense against Rome's temporal power. The Avignon Papacy was a direct reaction to the papal bull Unam Sanctam, which is still on the books, and which declares the papacy as strictly superior to temporal rulers. Technically, the pope could order JD Vance to end the war, under penalty of excommunication and eternal damnation.

… which incidentally is exactly why people were worried about JFK becoming the first Catholic president back in the day: would he refuse orders from Rome if his immortal soul were on the line?

That's interesting. I'm not an expert in the topic, but my reading it seems to me that there is a rich history of political leaders ignoring the Catholic hierarchy's orders. Maybe political leaders, historically, even ignored its orders more often than they followed them, though I really don't know.

Catholics are not allowed to ignore the pope. A Catholic potus has an obligation to obey the pope or they are not Catholic. I’ve always said Jews have the same issue with Israel and their tribe.
The pre-eminent Catholic school in Americas motto is literal God-Country-Notre Dame.

That being said Catholic and Jews have already conquered this country and the Wasp are dead so the old evangelicals have already made their choice to back the Catholics.

Catholics are not allowed to ignore the pope. A Catholic potus has an obligation to obey the pope or they are not Catholic.

Billions of Catholics ignore the pope's directives every day. You may feel this is some sort of contradiction of the religion, but you are grossly, vastly outvoted.

Insert Ex Cathedra explanation here

You are correct it needs to be taken only when he’s speaking “infallible”. When he’s speaking like on Iran then it’s just under advisement. My point stands though at “certain” times a Catholic POTUS obligation would be to what Rome says over domestic popular opinion. On his Iran speaking it would need to be taken under advisement and their own moral judgement.

My opinion is military target strikes are mostly fine. Targeting the electric grid probably not ok.

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