"Reasonable discussion": Pentagon denies reports that official threatened Pope Leo

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Salon

Published April 9, 2026 4:50PM (EDT)


Relations between Pope Leo XIV and the Trump administration are under intense scrutiny this week following reports of a contentious January meeting between a Vatican envoy and Defense Department officials. The meeting came after the pope directly addressed the U.S. war in Iran during his State of the World speech in January. In his speech, the pope warned of “escalating tensions” worldwide. War is back in vogue, and a zeal for war is spreading,” he said.

In the days following, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby met with Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the Vatican’s U.S. representative, in a closed-door meeting at the Pentagon, according to reporting from The Free Press. Colby reportedly gave the cardinal a dressing down. “The United States,” Colby said, “has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world. The Catholic Church had better take its side.”

A separate U.S. official reportedly brought up the fourteenth-century Avignon papacy. This was a time tensions between the French monarchy and the papacy that lead to a seven-decade-long relocation of the papacy from Rome to the French-controlled Avignon. A Vatican official, speaking to The Free Press, called such a meeting “unprecedented.” The Vatican recently canceled a planned July 4 trip to the U.S. “The Pope may well never visit the United States under this administration,” a Vatican official reportedly said.

The Pentagon called reports of the meeting “highly exaggerated and distorted,” saying it was “a respectful and reasonable discussion.”. “We have nothing but the highest regard, and welcome continued dialogue with the Holy See,” it said in a statement to Salon. The White House also downplayed the controversy, stating that Trump has “a positive relationship with the Vatican” and praising his policies.

Read more: https://www.salon.com/2026/04/09/reasonable-discussion-pentagon-denies-reports-that-official-threatened-pope-leo/

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Any purported "Catholic" in the administration should be excommunicated.

REFERENCE - https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143646788

[hlthe2b]

1. Starting with Vance.. Then every damned one of the Opus Dei SCOTUS

[msongs]

2. record every talk with a trump agent, audio at least and video is better nt

[tetedur]

3. So the Pope is a liar?

Or his people are just "highly exaggerat[ing] and distort[ing] the facts because Trump's people are so "respectful"?

Right. . .

[Whip-poor-will]

4. The pope is against raping little children

Satan's servants at it again

[Scrivener7]

5. Sure, Jan. You never acted in a way that's completely consistent with past actions and the Pope is lying. Sure.

(Not that I think the Vatican is above lying, but I think this Pope is an actual decent person.)

[Prairie Gates]

6. Still no journalist has explained how the Pentagon is "summoning" foreign ambassadors

That's not done by Defense, but by State.

I'd like to hear a clear explanation of how this meeting was represented by the Pentagon. I would bet that it was pitched as a discussion about chaplain issues for Catholic service members. There's no scenario in which an Undersecretary of Defense "summons" a foreign ambassador to a meeting at the Pentagon to discuss foreign policy issues and the foreign ambassador appears.

The Ambassador of the Holy See was lured to this meeting under false pretenses.