Most American Catholics have been most likely not anticipating to spend the primary week of Easter making an attempt to determine whether or not their authorities was threatening to overthrow the primary American-born pope.
But a handful of reports reviews this week raised that very unusual risk. They landed simply as each the Roman Catholic Church and right-wing Christian influencers have been ramping up their criticism of the Trump administration over the Iran struggle.
- A report from the Free Press this week blew up tensions on the fitting already escalating over the US-Israeli struggle on Iran.
- It alleged that Pentagon officers met with a prime Vatican diplomat to the US and raised the reminiscence of a darkish time within the Catholic Church’s historical past: when French guidelines exercised energy over the Church and the pope.
- There at the moment are competing accounts of what really occurred in that assembly, and denials by the Trump administration and the Vatican.
- These reviews sparked furor amongst Catholics and non secular conservatives — including gasoline to an ideological civil struggle threatening the American proper, and providing one other instance of the rift between the Vatican and the US.
This burgeoning scandal hinges on information reviews that in January, the earlier ambassador of the Vatican to the USA was known as into an uncommon assembly with Division of Protection officers on the Pentagon and dressed down. The Pentagon officers, reportedly, needed to complain a few speech Pope Leo XIV gave in Rome that appeared to criticize American international coverage. Throughout the assembly, one official issued what some within the church noticed as a veiled risk to the Vatican: a warning that the US wields limitless army energy, and that the pope ought to take heed to that.
If true, this episode would mark a low level in fashionable Vatican-American political relations — on prime of being a serious non secular scandal for Catholics within the US.
The Trump administration denies these accounts; the Vatican is protecting principally quiet. In the meantime, the reporters and writers who first surfaced these allegations are standing by their tales.
Regardless of the fact finally ends up being, this scandal factors to some vital fracture strains in American non secular life, and affords a key to understanding the way in which the Iran struggle is cracking up the non secular proper. It additionally matches right into a broader battle that’s testing MAGA Catholics’ resolve, and establishing the Catholic Church as one of many Trump administration’s most seen and related critics.
So what precisely is the scandal?
This entire saga started with a report from the Free Press on Wednesday, through which Italian journalist Mattia Ferraresi reported on a beforehand unknown assembly between Undersecretary of Protection for Coverage Elbridge Colby, then-top Vatican diplomat within the US Cardinal Christophe Pierre, and a handful of Pentagon officers.
The assembly, which is now confirmed to have occurred, was uncommon, Ferraresi and different reviews famous, due to the place and when it occurred: on the Pentagon, as an alternative of with diplomats of the Division of State, and after Pope Leo had delivered a speech decrying the breakdown within the post-war worldwide order and the escalating use of pressure and violence overseas by nations, together with the US, to attain their goals.
“Warfare is again in vogue and the zeal for struggle is spreading,” Leo had stated in his speech to diplomats.
That the assembly occurred isn’t doubtful; however nobody appears to agree on what was really stated within the encounter. The Free Press reported that the assembly was meant to be a warning to the Vatican, a reminder that militarily, the US can do “no matter it needs…and that the Vatican, and Leo, higher take its facet.” And so, it devolved right into a “bitter lecture.”
The Pentagon, in the meantime, stated Thursday that the group “had a substantive, respectful, {and professional} assembly” and that “current reporting of the assembly is very exaggerated and distorted.” The US ambassador to the Holy See (the Vatican’s political authorities) echoed that sentiment, and known as media reviews exaggerations and fabrications.
However different information shops additionally started selecting up on the fallout. NBC Chicago, of the pope’s hometown, quoted a Vatican supply who known as the Pentagon assembly “most disagreeable and confrontational.” The Monetary Occasions reported that the assembly was speculated to ship a “pleasant message” to the pope, and to ask the Vatican to be extra supportive of the Trump administration’s insurance policies, however unraveled when Pierre stated the pope would observe Catholic values in conducting Vatican international coverage.
That’s when one particular time period jumps out, which brought about this entire episode to turn out to be an precise scandal. Somebody within the room, in keeping with the Free Press, the Monetary Occasions, and impartial journalist Christopher Hale, invoked the title “Avignon” — which some Vatican officers reportedly understood to be a army risk in opposition to the Vatican.
Why did this explicit phrase set off alarm bells? To reply that, we’ve to return 700 years.
Did a Trump official actually threaten the Vatican?
Although these accounts don’t agree on who invoked Avignon, the time period is a set off for Catholics, historians, and historical past buffs: It references the French metropolis that served as the house base for popes within the 14th century after a French king, Philip IV, despatched a military to Italy the place they attacked the sitting pope, Boniface VIII, after years of feuding over who was the preeminent political energy.
Phiip IV went on to pressure the election of a brand new French pope, who moved the papacy to Avignon. For 70 years, popes held court docket and ruled Christendom from town’s papal palace — and when the final Avignon pope tried to maneuver the workplace again to Rome, it spawned a disaster for the church and the rise of rival “antipopes” in Avignon claiming to be the true pope for practically 40 years after.
As you may now perceive, “Avignon” is a loaded time period. And mixed with the character of the assembly — on the Pentagon, having to do with feedback Pope Leo had made about America’s use of pressure — you possibly can see how this episode could possibly be interpreted as being a veiled warning in regards to the church staying in its lane on the subject of criticizing the dominant army energy.
Why are the US and the pope so at odds?
No matter who invoked Avignon or how confrontational the assembly was behind the scenes, it matches right into a sample of rising public battle between the Church and the Trump presidency.
This is applicable to each model and substance: Pope Leo, and the American bishops, have turn out to be loud critics of Trump’s immigration and mass deportation coverage, his international interventions overseas and use of pressure in opposition to different nations, and the breakdown of the US-European alliance. For all intents and functions, MAGA has compelled the Catholic Church to seem like the chief resistance.
However it’s the joint US-Israeli struggle on Iran that has brought about probably the most seen pressure and direct condemnation of Trump and the American authorities by the Roman pontiff. After spending weeks calling for peace talks and ceasefires, and preaching the Church’s anti-war message throughout Holy Week commemorations, Leo used Trump’s title for the first time final week, expressing hope that he was “searching for an off-ramp” from the struggle.
And after Trump warned that Iranian civilization may “die” on Tuesday, Leo condemned the statements as “actually unacceptable” and urged “the residents of all of the international locations concerned to contact the authorities, political leaders, congressmen, to ask them, inform them to work for peace and to reject struggle.”
Has Pope Leo weighed in on Avignon-gate?
The pope hasn’t stated something on this newest improvement, however the Vatican has weighed in — a major transfer given their conventional reluctance to deal with these sorts of political disputes.
After the Vatican Press Workplace initially declined to remark earlier within the week, Vatican press secretary Matteo Bruni launched an announcement on Friday confirming Cardinal Pierre met with Colby “for an change of views on issues of mutual curiosity,” and that “the narrative provided by sure media shops relating to this assembly doesn’t correspond in any respect with the reality” — with out clarifying which narrative that was, or the place present reporting received issues flawed.
In the meantime, the Vatican diplomat concerned within the assembly, Cardinal Pierre, informed one impartial journalist he would “choose not communicate.”
However the Free Press report advised that this dustup is main the Vatican to maintain the US authorities at arm’s size whereas Trump is president. The primary American pope has declined invites to return to the US throughout its 250th celebrations, and can as an alternative spend that point at an island in Italy the place migrants fleeing hazard in Africa regularly cease off whereas making an attempt to achieve Europe. The Trump administration has overtly supported anti-immigrant political events and leaders in Europe, whereas additionally making an attempt to dam asylum seekers and refugees from getting into America.
The place does JD Vance come into all this?
Vance, a Catholic convert who has a guide popping out later this yr on his religion journey, was requested in regards to the Pentagon episode on Wednesday whereas touring in Hungary. He denied understanding the Vatican diplomat in query, and stated he’d slightly not touch upon an unconfirmed report.
Vance is the best rating of a major variety of Catholics serving within the Trump administration (together with Secretary of State Marco Rubio), was one of many final public leaders to fulfill with the late Pope Francis earlier than his dying, and was famously rebuked by two popes (Francis and Leo, albeit earlier than the latter turned pope) for invoking his new religion to defend the Trump administration’s immigration coverage.
Past being a spectacle, Avignon-gate can also be a useful key to understanding what is going on on the non secular proper in 2026.
As Vance’s prior papal feuds point out, the Free Press story additionally runs into some intra-Catholic tensions. Colby, the Pentagon official embroiled within the mess and a reported ally of Vance, can also be Catholic. A number of the main mental figures on the fitting in MAGA circles are traditionalist Catholics who’ve been crucial of the present and former popes for what they see as concessions to fashionable liberal political values.
Inside US politics, Vance additionally represents a wing of the GOP that’s being break up aside by the Iran struggle, partly over non secular strains — and in ways in which might threaten his potential aspirations for the presidency in 2028. This story might make that divide much more tough to navigate.
How does this newest story match into MAGA’s present civil struggle?
Past being a spectacle, Avignon-gate can also be a useful key to understanding what is going on on the non secular proper in 2026, and the way the Iran struggle is affecting each the MAGA coalition and the American Catholic Church.
The report landed simply as arguments over Israel and Iran have been driving a wedge between the GOP’s pro-Trump evangelical base, who are usually Christian Zionists sympathetic to Israel, and a bunch of outstanding Catholic and non-evangelical commentators who’re more and more hostile to Trump’s international coverage agenda and important of Israel.
Among the many latter group, which incorporates Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Carrie Prejean Boller, and Nick Fuentes, Avignon-gate shortly turned a sizzling subject, with many desperate to embrace probably the most explosive interpretation of occasions.
“On the pope factor, that’s how you recognize this administration is the antichrist…these folks hate Catholics,” the self-described Catholic and white supremacist Nick Fuentes stated on his present Thursday. Boller took goal at Colby on X, saying, “you received’t bully or threaten the Catholic Church into your unjust struggle.”
Many of those extra isolationist and antiwar figures have additionally been condemned inside the fitting for both tolerating or overtly espousing antisemitism. As they rally to the Church’s facet now over the struggle, and justify their opposition to Trump in more and more theological phrases, this episode places extra stress on Leo to deal with the church’s relationship with them as effectively. Ferraresi, the creator of the Free Press article that kicked off this affair, challenged Pope Leo in the identical piece to sentence “the rising choir of Catholic pundits injecting bigotry into the MAGA infosphere,” and never simply focus the church’s fireplace on the pro-war proper.
Briefly, it’s a multitude. Avignon-gate is sort of completely calibrated to lift temperatures not solely between the White Home and the Vatican, however inside the US Catholic neighborhood, and inside the MAGA motion. And the problems it raises are nowhere close to being resolved.
