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The Pentagon Threatened Pope Leo XIV's Ambassador with the Avignon Papacy
- yladiz 7mo agoWhy are they referring to Elbridge Colby as the Under Secretary of War for Policy? That’s not his title.
- anigbrowl 7mo agohttps://www.war.gov/About/Biographies/Biography/article/1230279/elbridge-a-colby/ https://www.war.gov/About/Biographies/Biography/article/1230... I fully agree that only Congress can change the official title of the Department of Defense to Department of War, but the vast majority of Americans are so authority-slavish that they just accept the administration wiping its ass with the Constitution.
- slater 7mo ago"Elbridge Andrew Colby (born December 30, 1979) is an American national security policy professional who is the under secretary of defense for policy since April 9, 2025." probably just a mix-up re: "war" department
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- jjgreen 7mo agoExcommunicate the US military.
- frm88 7mo agoI doubt many are Catholic. J.D. Vance would be an option, tho.
- the_af 7mo agoDon't know about the leadership, but a quick googling tells me about 25% of the US military identify as Catholic. That's not nothing...
- School-Cotton 7mo agoMy guess is the vast majority of those are Hispanic Americans who have been Catholic since birth, and not part of the modern far-right Catholic conversion movement (like Vance).
- petesergeant 7mo agoMAGA antipope is only a matter of time
- bregma 7mo agoTrump for pope! I hear he's going to be looking to do something new in a few years.
- water_badger 7mo agowell, ~21% of americans are catholic
- embedding-shape 7mo ago"are Catholic" is so fuzzy though. "identify as" and "practices" are wildly different experiences, at least on the receiving end. I'm sure that percentage is mostly consisting of "identify as" rather than "practicing".
- water_badger 7mo ago100,000 people joined the catholic church in america this week. At this point I don't think anything other than the church retains the ability to present a coherent moral or metaphysical intellectual framework to people who care about that kind of thing. I would be very surprised if the united states is not majority catholic in ~100 years
- empath75 7mo agoThere is nothing more catholic than not practicing catholicism.
- bluGill 7mo agoFor this purpose identify is enough - as anyone who identifies will be horrified even if they otherwise don't care about the church. Many non-Catholics (including non-Christians) are also horrified even though they otherwise don't care about what the pope says at all.
- ImPostingOnHN 7mo agoI don't think supporters of the current US president would be horrified. They already support his anti-christian behavior, and seem more interested in being part of that group than they are in the religion itself. More likely he would just assert that the Pope isn't actually the Pope, and thus any excommunications are void, and his supporters would roll with it. Some of them already believe this. Any words, true or false, which make them feel better to believe. That's religion, right? He is their true religion.
- tekla 7mo agoI'm confused as to why you think one of the most popular religions on Earth would not be a decent chunk of the American military.
- frm88 7mo agoI pledge ignorance. Yeah, sorry should have looked that up before posting. I was always under the impression, North America tended towards other faiths, like Baptism or Mormon.
- lukan 7mo agoIf you take this argument that general, then I would say Islam is also one of the most popular religions on earth but well, very lowly reprecented in the US army (below 0.4 percent) https://soldiersangels.org/the-diversity-of-our-service-members/ https://soldiersangels.org/the-diversity-of-our-service-memb... History is why catholics are at 20%. Which is a significant force and a dangerous game to alienate them.
- sonotathrowaway 7mo agoWait until you find out how many Latino people serve in the military.
- ks2048 7mo agoWait until you find out how many Latinos aren't catholic. (Yes, it's a lot, probably most, but in some LATAM countries Catholics are now outnumbered by evangelicals).
- redwood 7mo agoLatinos (~20% of the military) plus the very military-forward Italian and Polish American communities plus countless others... what a ridiculous statement
- joezydeco 7mo agoA significant number of SCOTUS judges are Catholic. Start there, since they enabled this.
- I-M-S 7mo agoBiden was Catholic, yet not even him sponsoring a genocide was enough to warrant an excommunication.
- CobrastanJorji 7mo agoHe was denied communion on one occasion, though it was for his stance on abortion (he didn't support making it a crime).
- 8593376393 7mo ago[dead]
- iamtheworstdev 7mo agoThat wouldn't be punishment to Hegseth, he seems pretty clear that he's more supportive of his Protestants than his Catholics.
- mr_toad 7mo agoThe papacy prefers to excommunicate rulers, the idea being that their subjects will turn against them.
- Avicebron 7mo agoIdk which is more impressive that someone referenced the Avignon Papacy in a heat of the moment argument or that the same person who could reference that thought it was a good idea. (Not Catholic...but like...why?)
- pavel_lishin 7mo agoIt doesn't sound like a heat-of-the-moment reference, but a very calculated one based on this line from the article: > According to his sources, Colby’s team picked apart the pope’s January state-of-the-world address line by line and read it as a hostile message aimed directly at the administration.
- colechristensen 7mo agoIt sounds like some hothead idiot driven by the big orange hothead idiot prompted Claude about how to threaten the Vatican and then used its talking points on the ambassador. So "calculated" maybe, but only because AI could come up with the answer, I have serious doubts that many of these people possess more than basic literacy much less the ability to come up with something like this. Or some CIA analyst who hates their job came up with this to mock their bosses.
- ecshafer 7mo ago[flagged]
- triceratops 7mo agoDespite being a middle schooler with more than a passing interest in history I only learned about it when I started playing Crusader Kings in my adulthood.
- knowaveragejoe 7mo agoNo, they really aren't. But I wouldn't put it past "trad" types.
- owlcompliance 7mo ago[flagged]
- forinti 7mo ago[flagged]
- yoyohello13 7mo agoYou may be joking, but Hegseth unironically believes this. A fact that should scare everyone.
- krapp 7mo agoIt isn't just Hegseth by any means. GWB calling for a new "Crusade" at the rubble of the WTC after 9/11 wasn't an error. The integration of evangelical Christianity, the Republican Party and the military industrial complex is deep. In its soul, the US is a Christian theocracy which has been struggling to free itself from the shackles of secular republicanism (in the government sense, not the party sense) ever since its founding. Pete Hegseth's beliefs aren't even unusual for much of the country, he just isn't canny enough to play the game his predecessors did and not say the quiet part out loud.
- CapricornNoble 7mo agoDon't give Secretary of War Crimes Pete Kegs-breath any ideas. He's already all-aboard the Crusade-train.
- croes 7mo agoThat would mean to invade Israel.
- twodave 7mo agoAs long as you're making fun of people twisting Christianity to suit their goals I guess this is funny. But imagine how frustrating it must be for genuine believers in a Jesus who says, "Blessed are the peacemakers," and, "Bless your enemies and do not curse them," who are now victims of both the original twisting and the future ridicule to come (not to mention those being led astray).
- 7mo ago
- redwood 7mo agoA Straussian comment. Not unexpected sadly.
- newer_vienna 7mo agoA true Straussian would never have spoken so clearly
- rebolek 7mo ago> America, Colby and his colleagues told the cardinal, has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world. Yeah, well. That aged like raw milk.
- GeoPolAlt 7mo agoRepublicans have talked like this for a long time, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality-based_community https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality-based_community
- sqircles 7mo agoI have recently deepened my search in Christianity which started with the Catholic Church, one of few points I struggle with when it comes to Catholicism is the papacy, and the Avignon Papacy debacle and the events that followed (a la Western Schism) has quite a bit to do with that. I was a little confused by what they meant here by “threatening with the Avignon Papacy.” If anyone else is curious, I think the phrase “Babylonian Captivity” will provide better context, as it is what some contemporaries and later historians called it as it appeared that the Church had been “captured” by French political interests, with the popes being seen as too cozy to the French king and less focused on their universal spiritual role.
- CGMthrowaway 7mo agoThere's way too much misdirected emphasis on the pope and ecclesiastical hierarchy imo. I wouldn't think too hard about it. You can be catholic and not like the pope just the same as you can be french and not like the king. Or american and not like the president. There is only one divinity on earth today and that's the holy spirit (consubstantial with the father and son), indwelling and guiding humanity on many levels
- habinero 7mo ago> you can be french and not like the king Famously the French got rid of theirs, several times. Maybe not the best example.
- the_af 7mo agoLet me try again: You can be French and not like cheese. Wait, no, it doesn't work.
- sqircles 7mo agoI appreciate your comment and I understand. My struggles are not about whether or not I like the man who is in the seat.
- 7mo ago
- jgalt212 7mo ago> Under Secretary of War for Policy Elbridge Colby summoned the Holy See’s then-ambassador to the U.S., Cardinal Christophe Pierre, to the Pentagon. Can the DOD do this? This seems more like the purview of State.
- CGMthrowaway 7mo agoThe DoW regularly engages foreign ambassadors on defense matters eg military cooperation, NATO issues, basing, security policy, etc Any exec branch dept can communicate directly with foreign diplomats, and ambassadors are accredited to the USA as a whole, not exclusively to State
- jgalt212 7mo ago> Any exec branch dept can communicate directly with foreign diplomats, Fair enough, but summoning an ambassador is not a regular form of communication, and well out of the purview of DOD.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- bregma 7mo agoThat would be following established rules. Such a thing is not the habit of the current administration.
- whimsicalism 7mo agoAnyone have non paywalled reporting? Technically I think this post is HN guideline-breaking as there is no easy bypass for substack paywalls.
- lxgr 7mo agoThen again, it's also against HN guidelines to complain about paywalls...
- whimsicalism 7mo agoIs it complaining to ask for a workaround and point out HN guidelines? > It's ok to ask how to read an article or to help other users by sharing a workaround. But please do this without going on about paywalls. Focus on the content. I am earnestly curious to read a recounting of what was said by the Trump official.
- frm88 7mo agoIt's now all over the press, like here: https://www.newsweek.com/avignon-papacy-explained-what-reported-us-threat-to-pope-and-vatican-means-11803877 https://www.newsweek.com/avignon-papacy-explained-what-repor... The pope has cancelled his visit to the U.S. because of this incident and Vance is investigating it.
- FrustratedMonky 7mo agoLot of Catholics are MAGA aren't they? The few I talked to recently were really anti-woke, like 'woke' is ruining the world. Very Maga. How does this land with them?
- embedding-shape 7mo agoI guess it's obvious from the outside, maybe not so much from the inside, but it's clear they're massaging the MAGA masses to establish the new pope as someone who isn't a real pope, so probably won't matter much, since this approach is already underway.
- lukan 7mo agoIndeed. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdrg8zkz8d0o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdrg8zkz8d0o Trump is the real pope obviously.
- twodave 7mo agoNot a Catholic, but a Christian, and I think Christians in general are in a very difficult position in the US, which has not historically been the case. Today any party-line vote is a vote against one Christian core belief or another.
- ruffrey 7mo agoIn my Catholic circle, there are broad views on different policies. There are both political affiliations and lack of affiliation. For example, the official Catholic position is pro-life and pro-migration/pro-immigrant/mercy toward migrants. There's strong patriotism too. Doesn't fit cleanly into left vs right US politics at this time.
- tastyface 7mo agoI think a true Orthodox/Catholic political orientation would be socially very conservative (without being hateful) and fiscally very liberal (giving/sharing as much as possible). This sort of party doesn't really exist, but it's almost entirely antithetical to MAGA, which caters to the rich and focuses on power, vengeance, and grievance politics.
- croes 7mo ago> America, Colby and his colleagues told the cardinal, has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world. I‘m pretty sure the god they often mentioned would see that differently. Not that anybody really believed they are true believers and just hypocrites.
- 8593376393 7mo ago[dead]
- mullingitover 7mo agoTime in minutes after which christian nationalists will form a circular firing squad once they've cemented their grip on the US government: 2 The past which the 'make america great again' people want to take us back to absolutely loathed Catholics, something I don't think modern Catholics realize. The colony of Maryland was originally intended to be a safe place for Catholics, and the first chance the Puritans got, they revolted, invaded, burned the Catholic churches down and persecuted their worshippers. The US was explicitly not founded on religious tolerance, it was founded on freedom to persecute Catholics.
- ygmelnikova 7mo ago[dead]
- Analemma_ 7mo agoYes, the stupidity and shortsightedness of American Catholic integralists like Vermuele is stunning to me. If America does ever become a Christian theocracy, it's going to be a Protestant theocracy. It wouldn't be an altar-and-throne continental monarchy, it would be more like Cromwell's England, where "Papists" were considered enemies of the state. Do these guys not remember that Jack Chick wrote just as many comics villainizing Catholics as he did atheists? That's how evangelicals actually think, once any temporary alliances of convenience have accomplished their goals.
- b3ing 7mo agoIt’s going to be Evangelical. Some variety of megachurch prosperity teaching that faults the poor with some kind of republican ideology. That’s why anyone that believes in separation of religion and state should tell these folks anytime they push for Christianity in schools, just tell them: ok but it needs to be the true Christianity- Jehovah Witnesses- then they will shut up. They hate Jehovah witnesses, then Mormons, then Catholics, …
- jakeydus 7mo agoIt stuns me that Republican Mormons think that Evangelicals like them for anything but their political assistance. As soon as Evangelicals remove the non-Christians, their tent will get smaller, just like you're saying. I have Mormon family that thinks that they're welcome in the Evangelical tent (they'll even visit the Ark Experience!), but Evangelicals hate Mormons just like they hate gays, liberals, trans people, atheists, etc. It's just that Mormons (for now) vote the way that Evangelicals want.
- kylehotchkiss 7mo ago[dead]
- kubb 7mo agoWhat is tiresome is how sincerely these people insist on being able to make everyone act according to their will, while simultaneously displaying weakness, incompetence, and extreme pettiness. Trying to threaten people into respecting them. The lack of class is just so unsightly.
- layer8 7mo agoIt’s still much preferable to them being strong and competent in subduing everyone to their will.
- CamperBob2 7mo agoThat comes later.
- switchbak 7mo agoThere was a time when this kind of thing would fly. When the one in charge is a giant orange child-man who can't keep a consistent thought across a single sentence, it makes it clear that the whole thing is narcissistic theatre. It doesn't surprise me that his underlings would try to emulate it, and do a bad job in the process. I don't like being a part of the reactionary 'orange man bad' crew, but this is really shockingly bizarre. It's not the kind of behaviour you expect from a real leader of a real superpower. And it does make you think - perhaps there's something to be said about the USA not being nearly the power that it once was, and maybe this is what it looks like after you crest the apex of power.
- anonu 7mo agoThere is a lot to source from Christian ideals, many of which are the foundations of Western culture: human dignity, moral equality, conscience, limits on power and care for those less fortunate and weaker. Much of what is happening in the world today feels like a stark reversal of those ideals: selfishness and divisiveness manufactured to promote a narrow segment of society. Recent news articles have indicated an increase in church attendance. This makes sense: we have lost our moral compass... Specifically in the USA... And people are searching for a new direction.
- mr_toad 7mo agoFrom what I’ve seen religions derive from basic human virtues and not the other way around.
- thin_carapace 6mo agoand?
- nelox 7mo agoWhat have the Roman’s ever done for us?
- benlivengood 7mo agoI think what actually happened is that the Enlightenment comprehensively developed the concept of natural rights and the Christians were like "well, we're not beating that with divine right of kings, better adopt it as the thing God did all along".
- krapp 7mo agoThe absolute, immutable, eternal and unchanging nature of God somehow changes with the times. Even in scripture. Odd, that.
- ndsipa_pomu 6mo agoThere's a big difference between the Christian ideals and the practices of organised Christian churches. The acquisition of wealth and power seemed to be a major goal for organised Christianity through to the Middle Ages. My opinion is that Christianity held back human civilisation for maybe a thousand years with their doctrine (c.f. Copernicus). As an atheist, I find it grating to hear people talking about only the idealistic side of Christianity and ignoring all the wars, torture and denigration of people that it caused. Of course, other religions are also responsible for a lot of the same sins. That said, I do have respect for the teachings of Jesus - he seemed to be very much into socialism and very anti-Captialist.
- amarcheschi 7mo agoA non expedit towards American Christians would be so fun before elections https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non_Expedit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non_Expedit
- pelorat 7mo agoTo be fair most self-proclaimed MAGA Christians in the USA are heretics. So this is not really surprising.
- twodave 7mo agoI think what's most clear to me about the Papacy and the Pentagon is that neither of them actually believes scripture.
- fleroviumna 7mo ago[dead]
- shiftydodgy 7mo ago[flagged]
- delichon 7mo ago> a diplomacy that promotes dialogue and seeks consensus among all parties is being replaced by a diplomacy based on force The history of American diplomacy is mostly of an iron fist wearing a thin glove. This administration removes the glove. It is in line with the transparency of the Department of War v. Defense. Consensus is the label they put on the package of sausages to save face.
- rocqua 7mo agoThere was a lot of forceful diplomacy by the US. Sure, but there was also a lot of actually good diplomacy happening. Calling all of that a thin glove is underselling the good work of a lot people. The good side of US diplomacy was one of the most positive forces in the world. Trump fully dismantled that. Not just the US aid work, but also the Pax Americana that really limited the scale of war in the world. There were horrible missteps at the same time. The US wasn’t all good. Maybe it wasn’t even net good. But there was a significant good side, and its dismantling isn’t a small thing in the world.
- snowwrestler 7mo agoThe glove was there for a reason: it made it a lot easier for the U.S. to get what they want. Appeals to “transparency” are just an attempt to distract from worse outcomes. The fatal flaw of this administration is that they care more about looks than substance. They would rather look tough and lose than look meek and win. It doesn’t even occur to them that it is possible to win while looking meek.
- triceratops 7mo agoNew antipope when?
- Havoc 7mo agoUS really is on a crusade to burn every bridge they can find
- ourmandave 7mo agoWell, one of us is anyway. Sadly, he's sitting in the top office.
- 9dev 7mo ago77 Million of you, who voted him into office, are. A lot more are silent enablers. Don’t think the rest of the world is going to forget about your role in what is happening right now.
- nojvek 6mo agoThat’s the messiness. 77 million voted for a slightly worse life. Higher food and gas prices. Less jobs. Higher rents. All in the name of “immigrants are root cause problems” The average person really has one choice “red” or “blue” and there isn’t much reason other than my group votes a certain way so I vote that way. Trump came to power because he tapped into people’s anger. I don’t see a world where this gets better. Social media and news propagates fear and hatred like wildfire. Algos massively boost up anything that improves engagement. Engagement improves adclicks. So we may actually end up destroying the empire for a bunch of adclicks.
- lostlogin 7mo agoThey are, literally too. These crusaders bombed out a bridge, double tapped the first responders and referenced their god etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karaj_B1_bridge_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karaj_B1_bridge_attack https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-iran-threat-strait-of-hormuz-b2951875.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...
- tty456 7mo agoThis administration is 100% acting in a way that it never plans to leave.
- drumhead 7mo agoThreatening the holy father is not something I entirely expected, but when you couple that with statements like "We have the military power to do what we want" it becomes rather terrifying.
- lostlogin 7mo ago> “We have the military power to do what we want" it becomes rather terrifying And it turns out they don’t have the power to do what they like. The US is terrifying, but it’s military looks weaker.
- etiam 7mo agoThey may be vastly overestimating how much military power lets them do whatever they want, but it's plenty for throwing one hideous narcissist vengeance tantrum when the frustration hits.
- lostlogin 7mo agoExactly. As we have just seen. And the ease with which Trump is manipulated by those with skills in that area is horrifying. Eg Netanyahu, Putin.
- xrd 7mo agoThis confirms Trump's suspicion that he isn't getting into heaven.
- christkv 7mo agoI would care more about the plight of the pope if it the church was not still covering for nonces and other malfeasance. I do not view them as arbiters of morality.
- Imustaskforhelp 7mo agoNon Christian here, I feel like How I feel can be accurately summarized by this poem First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a socialist ...[0] Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me. What this feels is just an escalation. There are some devout catholics who might've voted for Trump and his antics, perhaps feeling for a christian identity. I definitely feel like there was something similar to that poem where they first came for W,X and Y people and people didn't speak out now its Z people and no one is left to speak. It's easy within humanity to hate a particular outside group and sometimes that becomes the basis of the inside group. I wish to say that Humanity has multiple problems, we can try to make a better world by co-operation and hope that we learn from this dark chapter in history from the last year or two. I don't wish to blame anyone because blaming leads to nowhere, Sadly, we haven't learn from the past atrocities thus we are within the present but I just hope that with open-ness we can learn from the past, we can learn from the present and I hope that we can only leave a better future for the next generation to come. It's hard to give hope right now in reality but I hope to give others what I am lacking right now myself at times. all these things are truly for petty reasons. I expect better from humanity but perhaps this is an weird form of equilibrium but we are humans and we can think for ourselves and change things and build a better future for all of us hopefully. We can do better, and I hope so that we will. Have a nice day to all. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_They_Came https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_They_Came (The poem continues but I am trimming it for context of this message)
- blitzar 7mo agoGo ahead do it. Make Trump the pope while you are at it, we all need a good laugh.
- _doctor_love 7mo agoWow. I knew the current administration was bad but this is something extra. It also shows the short-sightedness of the "scholars" in the administration. Sure, the Avignon Papacy did occur, that's historical fact. It's also a historical fact that the Catholic Church is an actually ancient power broker in the world still and they have been around for much, much longer than the United States. The Church is actually quite good at playing the long game (and I say that as someone raised firmly Protestant). I saw a headline in NYT today saying this current historical situation is the United States "Suez Crisis" moment. Hard to disagree and hard to see how America recovers from this. I don't feel the pinch will come in the next few years but by 2036 I think the US will wonder what happened. Also...I don't think a fast-follow conflict in Cuba right after this Iran affair is going to do much good, but that seems like where their appetite is going next.
- reactordev 7mo agoAI, Politics, Social Media, and indifference have all played their part. It’s not just the administration. The administration just knows how to manipulate those things.
- _doctor_love 7mo agoI would reluctantly have to agree. The current administration is the culmination of something like 30 years of effort.
- SauciestGNU 7mo agoI'd say closer to 90-100. At least since the New Deal, but probably since the times leading up to it. The America First movement in the lead up to WW2 who thought we should side with the Nazis is indistinguishable from the America First movement today, which is comprised of Nazis.
- ASalazarMX 6mo agoIt's a sombering thought that Germans were not all nazis, their government was. Right now USA has a lot of (semi)closet nazis both in economic and political positions of power.
- nprz 7mo agoCatholics now have to decide if they will continue to support the pro-life party even as the Trump administration demands the pope redefine the catechism of the Catholic Church at Trump's whim.
- iso1631 7mo agoPro Life party? The one that just killed thousands of people in an unprovoked attack and then threatened millions more but only held off because high gas prices might lose them some support at home?
- nprz 7mo agoI am certainly not defending or supporting that title. Republicans are generally in favor of stricter abortion laws and catholics generally prioritize abortion over any other issue. So many catholics vote republican, but now that comes at the risk of distorting the actual catechism of the church. A challenging moral question for catholics.
- nsxwolf 7mo agoSounds like sensationalized hearsay and I’ve been burned so many times by the media reporting on Catholicism I’m not paying this one any mind.
- bsimpson 7mo agoI know that Hacker News can be for anything "hackers find interesting," but I really hope it doesn't become yet another political doomland. There are so many other places to go to raise your anxiety - I'd rather this remain a space for things that are positively interesting.
- layer8 7mo agoI find it positively interesting that pope Leo’s outspokenness is apparently considered such a threat by the Pentagon.
- cjs_ac 7mo agoTFA provides insight into what’s going on behind the scenes, and has sparked an interesting discussion. It’s not the nonsense you get on /r/politics, where everyone behaves as though they’re auditioning for the writers’ room on one of those late night chat shows.
- owlcompliance 7mo agoJust to give you an idea of how much this forum has degenerated, you got downvoted for expressing a respectful opinion. I got -4 for cracking a joke. This forum is full of intolerant digital Karens. Some guy tried evaluating me based on my Karma. Many people on here literally don't realize that this forum is not real life. They forget a world outside this website exists. It's wild.
- ticulatedspline 7mo agoI love this: >According to his sources, Colby’s team picked apart the pope’s January state-of-the-world address line by line and read it as a hostile message aimed directly at the administration. >What enraged them most was Leo’s declaration that “a diplomacy that promotes dialogue and seeks consensus among all parties is being replaced by a diplomacy based on force.” they then proceed to insinuate use of force.
- layer8 7mo agoThey don’t disagree that they conduct diplomacy based on force. They disagree that they should instead promote dialogue and seek consensus among all parties.
- geerlingguy 7mo agoWorth noting: the source of this claim is anonymous, and so far the framing of the statement feels a little more radical than maybe what was said in the meeting. Other news publications are trying to get the full story: https://x.com/jdflynn/status/2042076430406672829?s=46&t=u6IW5ZeTxOOP5ybPek9GoQ https://x.com/jdflynn/status/2042076430406672829?s=46&t=u6IW... I wouldn't put anything past the current admin, but I don't know what the US could stand to gain from directly antagonizing the Vatican.
- potatototoo99 7mo agoI don't think the current admin knows what the US stands to gain from antagonizing the EU, China, Canada, Mexico, Japan, catholics, atheists, muslims, etc etc etc the list goes on - either.
- geerlingguy 6mo agoJust adding this from a more trustworthy news source: https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/nuncios-pentagon-meeting-was-frank https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/nuncios-pentagon-meeting-wa... While it sounds like the discussion was "tense" according to Vatican officials, it was blatantly mischaracterized in TFA, and nobody on either side recalls the Avignon papacy being mentioned or referred to.
- ChrisArchitect 7mo agoNon-paywalled coverage earlier: https://newrepublic.com/post/208820/pentagon-threatened-pope-criticized-donald-trump https://newrepublic.com/post/208820/pentagon-threatened-pope... (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47704570 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47704570)
- 50208 7mo agoWW3 is shaping up to be a theocratic holy war struggle between Christianity, Judaism, Islam ... and all of us secular folks have to suffer for their ignorance and intolerance.
- brobdingnagians 7mo agoStrangely enough (or maybe to be expected), I'd say that at least on the Christian and Jewish sides, it's led by people who have no sincere belief in the respective religions, but hijack it for their personal power. Reminds me of Germany in WWII where Christian symbolism with "Positive Christianity" was used until it was no longer useful then they went full pagan (gottgläubig and other movements) because the sincere Christians opposed them. This administration is as likely to quote Jesus with "love thy enemy" as Germany was in 1942.
- mna_ 6mo ago>on the Christian and Jewish sides, it's led by people who have no sincere belief in the respective religions, but hijack it for their personal power. Have you read the Old Testament? It's full of war.
- datadrivenangel 7mo agoThreatening to send the pope back to chicago is one strategy for sure..
- ourmandave 7mo agoMakes you pine for the good old days when it was just QAnon and Pizza Gate. Now we're fast tracking the Rapture. Assuming that doesn't work out for them, who are they going to follow when the Chosen One doesn't get a 3rd term?
- jollyllama 7mo ago"The Pope? How many divisions has he got?" - Joseph Stalin
- ygmelnikova 7mo ago[dead]
- duxup 7mo agoThis administration seems so emotionally fragile that they threaten anyone who disagrees… often completely unnecessarily…
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- mcookly 7mo agoI'm not sure why this is on Hacker News, and I'm even less sure why the papacy is so important to MAGA right now. In any case, perhaps we will soon see the return of Catholic persecution in the U.S. due to "conflicting" loyalties between Pope and country...
- surgical_fire 7mo agoAny surprise there? If the people ruling the US nowadays ever read the Bible they would likely reject the word of Jesus as woke bullshit. And if they do read the book, they likely only care about the bits related to the end of the world, and are hellbent (hah) in speeding it up.
- amai 7mo agoThis is similar to Joseph Stalin who famously asked, "How many divisions does the Pope have?" to dismiss the Vatican's political and military influence.
- LocalH 7mo agoI can't speak my mind openly because it would be fedposting. However, something must be done about this group of outlaws that has assumed power in the US.
- anonair 7mo agoThis is the administration claiming to fight middle-eastern theocracies ))
- vetrom 7mo agoThe U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See is on record saying this is a fabrication? https://xcancel.com/BrianBurchUSA/status/2042307511504519366 https://xcancel.com/BrianBurchUSA/status/2042307511504519366 I'm going to put this in the "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof" bin.
- frm88 6mo agoIf it is a fabrication, why did the pope cancel his visit to the US or at least - as some news outlets put it - may not visit... - https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/pope-leo-visit-us-trump-president-b2954080.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...
- vetrom 6mo agoPapal visits to the United States have fairly long intervals to begin with. Wikipedia reports 10 trips between 1965 and 2015 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_visits_to_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_visits_to_the_United_Sta...). Given the relative rarity of visits, not having planned a trip during any given presidency would even be normal. It doesn't surprise me at all. That's still a good question, though. Do any of them have anything more substantial than 'anonymous' sources, or even their own anonymous sources not linked to the breaking article's? I am generally suspicious when anonymous sources quoted these days, but I am rather more suspicious of reports that only come from a single source and get repeated in multiple outlets more or less immediately. I know there is some amount of synchronicity induced by syndicated news feed outlets like AP, but like many single source/anonymous stories, this reads to me like some 'suggested copy' was sent out to some reporters or outlets ahead of time. Anonymous sources are important for the integrity of reporting, but it must also be recognized that they are essentially non-authenticatable information. The author of the secondary source I see most mainstream sources quoting (Mattia Ferraresi) has also come out and said people are stretching and misrepresenting what he wrote: https://xcancel.com/mattiaferraresi/status/2042492566239686672 https://xcancel.com/mattiaferraresi/status/20424925662396866... There is at least one outlet that appears to have asked the both Pentagon and the Church what was up and both parties told them the meeting was overstated as well: https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/nuncios-pentagon-meeting-was-frank https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/nuncios-pentagon-meeting-wa...
- aubanel 6mo agoA fan of niche medieval history might have threatened the pope with an Outrage of Anagni, much cooler reference than Avignon
- krapp 6mo agoThe Pope would probably just counterspell it. He's a Cleric but given his position he might have multiclassed high enough in Wizard or Paladin by now.
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- michaelhoney 6mo agoI guess this is what happens when you get a government composed of ignorant assholes. These times are challenging for those of us who believe in democracy.