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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   16751 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?

The administration has now denied it, so given the truism that the Trump administration always lies and will always do the stupidest and most thuggish thing possible, we can safely assume it is not only true but probably worse than reported.

The Catholic Herald and the Pillar(both much better news sources than Letters from Leo) are both taking the editorial stance that this meeting went nothing like what was described.

The pillar gave basically the same description, except without the 'avignon papacy' comment, which was kind of ridiculous.

One senior official in Rome described the conversation as being “tense” at times and suggested that U.S. officials had been “aggressive” and “bullying” at points, but insisted that the conversation had been mutually forthright, with Cardinal Pierre “making himself heard, too.” “There was no question of anybody threatening anyone,” the Vatican official said. No one at the Vatican Secretariat of State contacted by The Pillar could recall or confirm any reference to the Avignon papacy during the conversation.

Another source told NBC that the meeting was "most unpleasant and confrontational."

The catholic herald appears to just have the 'no comment' from the vatican.

[Cardinal Pierre][https://x.com/BrianBurchUSA/status/2042307511504519366] also denies it.

He's also denied it to the Catholic Herald, so this isn't just the US government covering for its embarassing actions.

Nope, he actually declined to speak about it at all. https://thecatholicherald.com/article/vatican-stays-silent-over-reported-pentagon-meeting

He did not deny it.

Vatican stays silent over reported Pentagon meeting

Cardinal Christophe Pierre has declined to comment on reports of a contentious meeting between United States defence officials and the Holy See’s representative in Washington.

And this is more or less a denial and being treated as such by non-joke commenters. Even fr James Martin released a statement about how it didn’t happen but the trump admin is gross enough to do it.

There are norms for Vatican communication, and ‘Letters from Leo’ is not a good source(and there are good liberal sources on this stuff, albeit often published monthly rather than daily/weekly). This is a salacious rumour that was being treated as fact on Twitter, I don’t blame you for being taken in briefly- but holding to it so tightly is a bit queer, thé USCCB doesn’t believe it, thé Catholic journalists with any standards at all don’t believe it, even if they’re liberal activist hacks- this is simply a thing that didn't happen, and the Trump admin is denying it for that reason.

And this is more or less a denial

It's literally declining to speak on the matter, not a denial.

James Martin released a statement about how it didn’t happen but the trump admin is gross enough to do it.

Ok sure I checked that too and you're also wrong about his statement. https://x.com/JamesMartinSJ/status/2042335054072873249

Now, I have little doubt that some officials could have spoken bluntly, even rudely, to Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the former Vatican ambassador to the US, given the language that has come out of this administration and its response to Pope Leo XIV's repeated calls for peace. Did someone at the meeting mention, of all things, the Avignonese papacy? Who knows? It sounds like something that someone with a grudge against the church wished had been said to Cardinal Pierre. But I highly doubt that Cardinal Pierre, a smart man, a kind priest, and, above all, a consummate diplomat, will ever say anything about what was said on the record. Nor will the Holy See or the current nuncio.

His statement is we don't know, and the cardinal along with the other holy see officials are not the types of people who would ever officially confirm or deny this story regardless of truth.

There are norms for Vatican communication, and ‘Letters from Leo’ is not a good source(and there are good liberal sources on this stuff, albeit often published monthly rather than daily/weekly).

This story was broke by The Free Press, I think it's interesting that almost all the derision here I've seen is entirely focused on letters from leo (who simply said they independently verified TFP) and basically no one has tried to target the story's credibility from TFP. That is Bari Weiss's news outlet, she hasn't shown herself and her editorial and management team to the type to be publishing mere rumors made from whole cloth has she?

Either The Free Press made a huge mistake here and fell for a fake source (they currently at least seem to be sticking with it, I don't see any edits on the article).

Or there's a real source but the source lied about it for some reason.

Or they've made it up completely, which why? No one would think this would hurt Trump much to hear an undersecretary vaguely threatened the Vatican behind closed doors when he openly threatens Canada and Greenland without much pushback already. And again this is Bari Weiss's outlet, she's pretty Trump friendly overall now.

Or there is something to the story.

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