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Did the Pentagon Try to Silence Pope Leo with Threats?

Did the Pentagon Try to Silence Pope Leo with Threats?

Last updated on: April 11, 2026 at 3:19 pm by Rebecca Hamilton

Did the Pentagon Try to Silence Pope Leo with Threats? 2026-04-11T15:19:20-06:00 Rebecca Hamilton

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Pope Leo. Source: Wikimedia Commons, share and share alike.

Hegseth: The war in Iran is protected by God.

Pope Leo XIV: Do not involve the name of God in choices of death. God cannot be enlisted in darkness.

Did the Under Secretary of Defense, Elbridge Colby, threaten to use America’s military against the Vatican if Pope Leo didn’t bend over and kiss Trump’s ring?

If any other American president was sitting in the Oval Office, that would be a ridiculous question. But with Trump, it’s credible.

I’ve read many news stories and quite a few histrionic denials from the Pentagon. But it’s difficult to get to the truth when you’re dealing with a bunch of moral degenerates like the Trump regime.

Trump and everyone around him lies every time they open their mouths. Not a day goes by that they aren’t threatening to destroy someone or actively trying to use the power of the United States government to persecute someone.

I don’t believe anything they say and I’m not alone. It’s reached the point that leaders of other nations openly mock Trump in public for lying.

We’re coming off a week when the President of the United States celebrated Easter Sunday by threatening to murder 90 million people. And the psychopaths in his regime and his Republican puppets in Congress backed him.

So, yeah. It’s believable that this bunch of satanic thugs would threaten the pope.

The Pentagon has put out denial/confirmations that admit that they did in fact call this meeting with Cardinal Pierre, the Papal Nuncio. That in itself is a corroboration. They claimed that this kind of meeting is a regular thing they do all the time. That’s a lie.

The pentagon doesn’t ring up the Papal Nuncio and demand a meeting to discuss war plans as part of the normal course of events. Holding meetings with the Papal Nuncio to discuss policy is not part of the Under Secretary of Defense’ purview. Or the Nuncio’s.

The pentagon also says the meeting was “cordial” and how much they “respect” the pope. So far as I’m concerned, that means nothing, coming from them. I expect the Trump Regime to deny. And I expect them to lie.

The salient point is that they admitted that they called this meeting with the Papal Nuncio and — get ready for it, here it comes — that it was a “frank” discussion.

When a politician says they had a “frank” discussion with somebody, that means it got ugly. It means that, at the very least, there was a lot of yelling and verbal pushing and shoving. Knowing what we know about the character (or lack thereof) of the people on Trump’s team, I would actually be surprised if the yelling and shoving didn’t include threats.

I think it’s pretty clear from the Pentagon’s own denial/confirmation that they called this unusual meeting with the Papal Nuncio and then tried to use it to strong arm the Vatican. But I doubt that they threatened an “Avignon” type thing where the United States military would bomb Rome, use our troops to invade Italy and take the pope prisoner. That would be a totally idiotic threat to make.

Don’t get me wrong. Making idiotic threats is a Trump speciality. I think Trump and the people in his regime enjoy abusing their power to terrify and dominate people. I think they get off on it.

I also think that people who will start a war for money and seriously threaten to murder 90 million people are perfectly capable of killing the pope. But I don’t think they threatened the Nuncio by saying they would bomb the Vatican and take the pope prisoner.

The reason I don’t think so is that I read an article in America magazine in which Cardinal Pierre said that the Pentagon didn’t threaten to bomb the Vatican. I think America magazine is an honest publication, and I believe Cardinal Pierre.

But that doesn’t get us to the truth of what threats they did make. It would be 100% out of character for Trump goons to have a “frank” discussion with someone and not threaten them. These guys threaten somebody every time they get in front of a mike.

We can’t believe anything the Trump regime says. And the Vatican has never been guilty of over-sharing.

While the Trump regime constantly vomits out lies and threats, the Vatican is much more circumspect. The Vatican weighs every word like it was a golden nugget. The Vatican also speaks in a highly nuanced kind of code.

I speak fluent politics, but I need a decoder ring to understand Vaticanspeak. According to the press, someone “close” to the pope whispered in a reporter’s ear that the meeting was “unpleasant and confrontational.” What I got from that was yes, the meeting was a brutal, ugly, push and shove, and it didn’t go over well with the pope.

I think Trump’s bully boys from the Pentagon called this meeting to strong arm the pope into backing Trump’s evil. The Pentagon evidently didn’t threaten to invade Italy and take the pope prisoner. But I think they probably did threaten to use the power of government against the Catholic Church here in America.

There have been other things that indicate an anti-catholic attitude within the Pentagon and also the far right itself. Trump’s Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, cancelled this year’s annual Pentagon Catholic Good Friday service. This service has been held at the Pentagon since 1981. When Hegseth was criticized for this, the right wing press tried to cover for him by saying that Catholics don’t hold mass on Friday.

For the non Catholics who read this blog, let me explain. Catholics have a powerful Good Friday service in which we join ourselves to the suffering of Christ and venerate the Cross. We do have communion, but it is with hosts that were consecrated the day before on Holy Thursday. Priests do not consecrate the Eucharist on Good Friday. A “mass” is when the priest consecrates the Eucharist. So we don’t call it a mass. We call it a service.

To a Protestant, this is a question of semantics. And that’s the game the right wing media was playing to try to excuse Hegseth for his anti-Catholic action. They were trying to use what is a technical fact to tell a lie.

There have been other things, but it would take too much verbiage to describe them here. The bottom line is that there have been broad hints of an ugly anti-catholic trend in both the Pentagon and the political right wing.

My personal explanation is that it’s to be expected that a satanic regime would attack the Church. In fact, if a satanic regime doesn’t attack the Church, then the Church isn’t doing it’s job.

The interesting thing is that — no matter what the full story actually is — millions of people all around the world find it believable that the Secretary of Defense and the Mad King would threaten to use America’s military to invade Italy, start a war with Europe and kill the pope.

I want to close this post by making three points.

1. If Trump’s Pentagon threatened the Pope, it didn’t work. Our Papa went right on doing his job.

2. People find the story believable because Trump and his minions threaten and attack people every single day.

3. Nobody believes Trump Regime denials because Trump and his mini Trumps lie every time they open their mouths.

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