Donald Trump Pope Leo XIV
Washington: American officials allegedly threatened Pope Leo XIV’s US ambassador by invoking the Avignon Papacy, the period when the French Monarchy used military force to bend the Bishop of Rome to its will, according to a report from Letters from Leo.
In a closed-door meeting at the Pentagon, the Under Secretary of Defence for Policy (USDP), Elbridge Colby, summoned Pope Leo XIV’s then ambassador to the US, Cardinal Christophe Pierre, and delivered a lecture.
Journalist Mattia Ferraresi from The Free Press spoke to Vatican officials who confirmed the Pentagon meeting. Colby and other officials reportedly tried to influence and intimidate the Catholic Church to align with US policy.
Robert Francis Prevost was elected as the first American-born Pope of the Catholic church and sovereign of the Vatican City.
Colby’s team allegedly lectured the ambassador on the Pope’s first State of the World address line by line, reading it as a targeted message aimed at the Donald Trump administration.
On January 9, the Pope warned of a global shift from dialogue to diplomacy based on force, criticising rising military reliance, and instead advocated for peace.
“A diplomacy that promotes dialogue and seeks consensus among all parties is being replaced by a diplomacy based on force,” the Pope had said. The Pentagon officials took the statement as a direct challenge to Trump’s foreign policy of asserting American dominion over the western hemisphere.
Although the cardinal sat through the lecture in silence, other Vatican officials speaking to The Free Press described it as a “bitter lecture warning” that the US can do whatever it wants with its military power and that the Church had better be on its side.
According to a senior Vatican official, the Holy See, the Catholic Church’s governing body, had initially considered US Vice-President JD Vance‘s personal invitation to visit America. However, the Pope later postponed it indefinitely as US-Vatican tensions deepened.
Pope Leo XIV has publicly opposed the Trump-Vance administration’s mass deportation policy and recently spoke out against the US-Israel war on Iran.
On Easter Sunday, April 5, he urged everyone to “search for peace and not violence, to reject war – especially a war which many people have said is unjust, which is continuing to escalate and which is not resolving anything.”
“The administration tried every possible way to have the Pope in the US in 2026,” one Vatican official said.
However, after the Pentagon meeting, it is unclear if the Pope will visit the US as long as Donald Trump remains in office.
This post was last modified on April 9, 2026 6:06 pm