Reports: Pentagon Delivered "Bitter Lecture" to Vatican Ambassador, Warning that the U.S. "Has the Military Power to do Whatever it Wants"
At a closed-door January meeting at the Pentagon, a Defense Department official reportedly invoked the Avignon Papacy, when the French monarchy forced the papacy into exile for nearly seven decades.
This story has been updated.
By Gary Gately
The Defense Department summoned the Vatican’s ambassador to the U.S. to the Pentagon in January and subjected him to a “bitter lecture warning that the United States has the military power to do whatever it wants — and that the Church had better take its side,” according to a published report.
Elbridge A. Colby, the Defense Department’s undersecretary for policy, summoned Cardinal Christophe Pierre, who had served as the Holy See’s apostolic nuncio to the U.S. for a decade before retiring a month ago, The Free Press first reported, citing unnamed senior Vatican sources.
The newsletter Letters from Leo, which covers the Vatican, reported Wednesday that it had confirmed the Free Press account of the closed-door meeting. At one point during the meeting, the newsletter reported, a Defense Department official reached for a 14th-century weapon and invoked the Avignon Papacy, when the French monarchy forced the papacy into exile for nearly seven decades.
The reference alarmed some Vatican officials, who interpreted it as a threat to use military force against the Holy See, Letters to Leo’s Christopher Hale reported, citing unnamed Vatican sources.
Both the newsletter and The Free Press reported that the Pentagon’s treatment of Cardinal Pierre during the meeting played a major role in the Vatican’s decision to scrap plans for Pope Leo XIV to visit the U.S. this year. The first U.S.-born Pope will instead spend America’s 250th birthday on Lampedusa, an Italian island known as the first port of call for migrants sailing from North Africa for Europe.
One Vatican official told The Free Press: “The pope may well never visit the United States under this [Trump] administration.”
Colby, a Catholic convert, summoned the nuncio in response to Pope Leo’s January 9 “State of the World” speech to the Vatican’s diplomatic corps in which he lamented that “war is back in vogue,” the publication reported. Defense Department officials became incensed over Leo’s warning that “a diplomacy that promotes dialogue and seeks consensus among all parties is being replaced by a diplomacy based on force,” according to the report.
A Defense Department spokesperson called the Free Press account of the meeting “highly exaggerated and distorted,” adding in an email to The Catholic Observer: “The meeting between Pentagon and Vatican officials was a respectful and reasonable discussion. We have nothing but the highest regard and welcome continued dialogue with the Holy See.”
The Vatican did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday.
Asked to comment on the Free Press report, Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic convert, initially said he did not know who Cardinal Pierre was before reporters reminded him, then pledged to look into the report.
Speaking in Hungary, Vance told reporters: “I would actually like to talk to Cardinal Cristophe Pierre and, frankly, to our people, to figure out what actually happened. I think it's always a bad idea to offer an opinion on stories that are unconfirmed and uncorroborated, so I'm not going to do that.”
On Wednesday Pope Leo welcomed the two-week ceasefire deal between the U.S. and Iran as “a sign of genuine hope” and called for dialogue and prayers for lasting peace after hours of “extreme tension” for the Mideast and entire world.
Speaking to tens of thousands of the faithful gathered in St. Peter’s Square for his general audience, the Holy Father said: “Following these recent hours of extreme tension for the Middle East and for the whole world, I welcome with satisfaction and as a sign of genuine hope the announcement of an immediate two-week truce.”
Leo called on leaders to pursue the “delicate diplomatic work” and urged prayers “in the hope that readiness for dialogue may become the means to resolve other situations of conflict in the world.”
The ceasefire, announced by Trump on social media, came after his threat Tuesday morning to destroy Iran’s “whole civilization” if the leaders of the Islamic Republic did not reopen the Strait of Hormuz to oil and gas tankers.
Within hours, Trump’s threat drew a sharp rebuke from Pope Leo, who called it “truly unacceptable” and urged U.S. citizens to contact congressional lawmakers and tell them to end the Iran war while reminding them that attacks on civilian infrastructure violate international law and “are also a sign of the hatred, division, and destruction that the human being is capable of.”
The Holy See Press Office noted Wednesday morning that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had said that while Israel supports Trump’s decision to pause strikes on Iran for two weeks, the ceasefire would not stop the Israeli offensive against Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militant group in Lebanon.
Israeli attacks killed at least 182 people across the country Wednesday and injured nearly 900 others, the nation’s health ministry said. Since Israel launched its latest offensive on Lebanon on March 2, more than 1,500 people have been killed, some 4,500 injured and more than a million displaced, including 350,000 children. Human rights groups warn of a growing humanitarian crisis, with dire shortages of safe shelter, food and basic healthcare.
During the first Easter of his pontificate, the 70-year-old Leo issued a fervent appeal for peace in his Urbi et Orbi (“To the City and the World”) message, imploring world leaders to lay down arms and choose dialogue over the death and destruction of war.
“Let us allow ourselves to be transformed by the peace of Christ!” he told more than 50,000 worshipers gathered in St. Peter’s Square. “Let those who have weapons lay them down! Let those who have the power to unleash wars choose peace! Not a peace imposed by force, but through dialogue! Not with the desire to dominate others, but to encounter them!”
Leo had opened his first Holy Week as the leader of the 1.4 billion-member Catholic Church with a forceful Palm Sunday appeal for peace, warning against invoking religion to justify war and saying God rejects the prayers of those who do so.
Leo’s sharp rebuke of those who invoke God to justify war came against a backdrop of Trump administration officials —most notably, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth — employing religious rhetoric to rationalize their aggression against Iran and praying for divine aid in inflicting retribution upon the Islamic Republic.
The religious-infused militaristic rhetoric has drawn widespread outrage among faith leaders across the world.
On Wednesday, Hegseth said the two-week ceasefire had resulted from divine intervention, adding at a Pentagon press briefing: “Our troops, our American warriors deserve the credit for this day, but God deserves all the glory. Tens of thousands of sorties, re-fuelings and strikes carried out under the protection of divine providence. A massive effort with miraculous protection.”
Trump, too, invoked religion when a Washington Post reporter asked him Monday whether he believes God is on the side of the U.S. in the Iran war.
“I do,” Trump replied, “because God is good, and God wants to see people taken care of.”
So the Trump administration speaks for God now? What a bunch of lunatics
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