This news
item should concern all Americans, but especially Roman Catholics, one of the
key electoral swing groups of the Trump era. Polls indicate that an estimated
56% of American Catholics voted for the President in 2024.
Although
it can be problematic to ascribe a single motive to a demographically diverse
group like Catholics, GOP officials have surely been pleased that the church’s
hierarchy emphasized so-called cultural issues like abortion and LBGTQ.
It
encouraged voters to put in the background matters also of relatively secondary
interest to the archbishops, such as the rights of labor, economic justice,
international peace, and humane treatment of immigrants—to say nothing of a
return to power by the lone Presidential candidate since the Civil War to contest
election results and foment a domestic insurrection.
I wish but don’t expect that archbishops and parish priests will use their sermons to address the disquieting report about the Pentagon meeting with the papal nuncio (a permanent diplomatic representative of the Holy See, in effect an ambassador).
Administration officials and voters still in their thrall have predictably
dismissed it as—take your pick—“fake news,” “uncorroborated” or “highly
exaggerated.”
Those
terms cannot be applied to what has happened since Sunday, including:
*Trump’s
remarks to a reporter that he was “not a big fan” of Pope Leo XIV, adding “He
likes crime, I guess”;
*The
President’s lengthy, deranged—and, of course, spectacularly self-centered—Truth
Social post claiming, among other things, that Leo “wasn’t on any list to be
Pope, and was only put there by the Church because he was an American, and they
thought that would be the best way to deal with President Donald J. Trump”;
*A later
Truth Social post—equally demented, but this time blasphemous—depicting Trump
as Jesus ministering to the sick (the image accompanying this post);
* A subsequent
news conference in which the President ludicrously declared that this latter
AI-generated meme didn’t show him as Jesus but as a doctor.
A confession here: I have never voted for Trump, and it would not be hard to find posts of mine that have criticized him.
At the same time, accepting at face value any report that confirms one’s biases—including those that, like this one, cited anonymous sources— damages a writer’s credibility and persuasiveness.
So, when I first heard the Pentagon meeting news in fragmentary
form, I wanted to know how much, if any, of it could be validated.
My
conclusion, after reading this, follow-up accounts, and other reports on the
principals involved, is that, while not all details in the report are
demonstrably true, enough are verifiable that they should prompt soul-searching among past and present Trump-leaning members of the American
hierarchy and the faithful who followed their electoral cues.
Vatican
spokesman Matteo Bruni has issued a formal statement declaring that “the
narrative offered by some media outlets about this meeting is completely
untrue.”
“Completely
untrue”? Not so fast. Possibly, despite what the Free Press article claimed,
Pope Leo XIV had other reasons for not visiting America on July 4 than anger or
fear over the threat. And even if he might now be reluctant to come while Trump
is still President, he could be persuaded otherwise eventually.
In
addition, the provenance of the publication may, in this case if few others,
underscore the report’s credibility. The Free Press cannot be dismissed as a
progressive news outlet like MS-NOW or CNN, given that it remains true to the
editorial philosophy of co-founder Bari Weiss, who now runs CBS News. It has no
motive for publishing a negative story in which the Trump administration
appears as bullying.
Moreover,
the meeting did take place. While not characterizing the encounter’s
tone, the Vatican Embassy, or apostolic nunciature, in Washington told Catholic
news and information service OSV News, that the meeting occurred. Moreover, there’s
a picture of the then-nuncio, Cardinal Christophe Pierre, with Defense
Undersecretary Elbridge Colby, issued by the Religion News Service, a credible
outlet.
The
Financial Times
has an article about what seems to have happened:
An
American present—not Colby—alluded to the Avignon papacy, infamous in European history as
the site of a “Great Schism” between pontiffs who had returned to Rome and
“anti-popes” who remained in France, subject to state pressure and corruption.
Other Americans at the meeting, who had hoped to smooth-talk Cardinal Pierre and the pope into taking a gentler tone toward the “Dunroe Doctrine” towards Latin America, were aghast over the effect of the remark.
That’s why an initial
anonymous Pentagon source, while deriding the report as “just absurd,” did
admit the meeting included “a frank exchange of views”—a diplomatic euphemism
for a tense or even storm encounter.
At this
point the Vatican doesn’t want a nasty fight with Trump; hence, Bruni’s
disclaimer that offers no further details about what did happen.
While the
Vatican Embassy termed meetings with government officials as “standard
practice” for the nuncio, neither it nor the Pentagon explained why the meeting
occurred in the Defense rather than State Department.
Was it an
accommodation to Colby, whose grandfather William, as CIA head and a Catholic, interacted with Rome extensively in the Cold War? Or was the venue an attempt
at intimidation?
If the
latter, it should come as no surprise. Trump has sought to bully the press,
large law firms, universities, and corporations. Why should a major religion
fall outside his reach—particularly since Trump whisperer and trad Catholic
Steve Bannon has transferred his animus towards Pope Francis to Pope Leo, whom
he has derided as a “woke Marxist” for interfering with Trump’s mass
deportation program?
If the
allusion to the Avignon papacy is true, it would conform to a pattern in
authoritarian regimes: the thuggish initiatives taken by a midlevel flunky,
sure that his bosses would approve his move or, if not, cover it up.
Though
MAGA influencers expressed shock about Trump’s vile actions and language on
Easter weekend, there is little sign yet of a re-evaluation among his base.
There should be.
In
particular, when his Catholic supporters consider Pope Leo’s increasingly
sharp, direct criticisms of the President’s trigger-happy tendencies, they
should bear in mind that he is merely conveying the consensus of the 1965
Vatican II document, “The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World”:
“Any act
of war aimed indiscriminately at the destruction of entire cities or extensive
areas along with their population is a crime against God and man himself. It
merits unequivocal and unhesitating condemnation.”
In an Atlantic
Monthly essay published after remarks by Pope Leo last week, Francis X.
Rocca confessed that, like many observers, he had mistakenly thought that, in
comparison with Trump and even Pope Francis, Leo would be a “quiet” pontiff.
But I’m not sure that Leo has stopped being “quiet” even now.
But a ruthless
authoritarian may prompt stances previously unthinkable under ordinary
circumstances, as Thomas More, a government official who loved life, found no
alternative to opposing Henry VIII. Extreme situations lead some to cowardice
but others to courage.
What
unites the Tudor-era saint and the American-born pontiff is an inner strength that
seems confounding in a time of toadies.
More’s
silent refusal to assent to Henry’s marriage to Anne Boleyn contrasted
dramatically with courtiers and counselors who meekly went along, just as Leo’s
steadfast opposition to Trump positions on immigration and national security diverges
from the President’s allies within the American hierarchy (whose complicity with
administration outrages I discussed in this post from last Christmas).
More of
that is needed as the President reaches new lows and breaches new moral
boundaries. Will his followers take the lead or Leo, or follow Trump into
ignominy?
The President’s
actions over the weekend is forcing Catholic allies, within the administration
and the American Church hierarchy, to choose sides.
J.D. Vance
said the pope would stick to “morality” and note involve himself with “politics”—without
explaining why a pontiff denouncing abortion is moral but one calling for peace
is “political.”
On the
other hand, Bishop Robert Barron, such an administration favorite that he’s a
member of the Religious Liberty Commission established by the President, called
the anti-Leo comments “entirely inappropriate and disrespectful”
and urged him to apologize—a move that Trump predictably refused.
Before
long, we may well find that whatever happened at the Pentagon in January is a
mere dust-up compared with the unholy war that Trump now appears set on
mounting against the Vatican.
