Pentagon officials invoked the Avignon Papacy to threaten the pope
Senior U.S. defense officials used a 14th-century reference to papal captivity to pressure the Vatican's ambassador in a closed-door meeting. Vatican officials say the encounter led Pope Leo XIV to cancel his planned U.S. visit. (Shutterstock Creative/Aerial-motion)
Senior U.S. defense officials summoned the Vatican's ambassador to a closed-door meeting at the Pentagon in January and told him that the United States has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world and that the Catholic Church "had better take its side," according to accounts from Vatican and U.S. officials briefed on the meeting, first reported by The Free Press and independently confirmed by Vatican reporter Christopher Hale.
As tensions rose during the meeting, one official invoked the Avignon Papacy — a reference to the 14th-century period when the French Crown used military force to bring the Catholic Church to heel. Multiple Vatican officials interpreted the reference as a threat to use military force against the Holy See, according to Hale.
What is the Avignon Papacy?
The Avignon Papacy refers to the period between 1309 and 1376 when the seat of the Catholic Church was relocated from Rome to Avignon, France under pressure from the French Crown. The era began with an assault on Pope Boniface VIII that led to his death, and ended with seven consecutive popes operating under French political dominance. The papacy did not return to Rome until 1377.
Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby led the U.S. side of the meeting. Cardinal Christophe Pierre, who at the time served as the Holy See's apostolic nuncio (papal ambassador) to the United States, represented the Vatican. There are no public records of any previous meetings between the Vatican and U.S. officials at the Pentagon.
The Vatican was sufficiently alarmed by the encounter that plans for Pope Leo XIV to visit the United States later this year were shelved, Hale reported. "The Pope may well never visit the United States under this administration," one Vatican official told The Free Press.
The January meeting followed Pope Leo XIV's state-of-the-world address, in which he said that "a diplomacy that promotes dialogue and seeks consensus among all parties is being replaced by a diplomacy based on force." According to sources briefed on the meeting, Pentagon officials read the address as a direct challenge to the Trump administration's foreign policy posture and went through the speech line by line during the encounter. Cardinal Pierre did not respond during the meeting, sources said.
Less than two weeks after Trump attended Pop Francis’s funeral in 2025, an AI-generated image of Trump as the head of the Catholic Church was posted and reshared on social media. (Screengrab via X.)
The January meeting was not the first instance of friction between the Trump administration and the Vatican. In May 2025, days before the papal conclave to elect Pope Francis's successor was set to begin, Trump posted an AI-generated image of himself in white papal vestments, seated on an ornate throne, to his Truth Social account. The White House's official X and Instagram accounts reshared the image on May 3, 2025. The image received more than 103 million views on X.
The post came less than two weeks after Trump attended Pope Francis's funeral in Rome on April 26, 2025, while the Vatican was still in an official mourning period. Days before posting the image, Trump had joked to reporters that he would "like to be pope," calling it his "number one choice."
The conclave opened on May 7, 2025. Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, a Chicago-born Augustinian friar who had spent decades in missionary work in Peru, was elected on May 8, 2025, becoming Pope Leo XIV — the first American-born pope in Church history.
Vice President JD Vance extended a personal invitation to Pope Leo XIV in May 2025, two weeks after the pope's election, to visit the United States for the country's 250th anniversary celebrations in July 2026. The Vatican initially considered the invitation, according to The Free Press. It was later postponed indefinitely, with Vatican officials citing foreign policy disagreements, opposition from American bishops to the administration's mass deportation policies, and concern that the visit would be used for partisan purposes ahead of the 2026 midterms. "The administration tried every possible way to have the Pope in the U.S. in 2026," one Vatican official said.
Pope Leo XIV is instead scheduled to travel to Lampedusa, Italy, on July 4, 2026. The island, located between Tunisia and Sicily, is a primary landing point for North African migrants crossing the Mediterranean. The Vatican has not publicly stated the reasons for choosing that date and location.
A Department of Defense spokesperson told Newsweek the Pentagon's meeting with Cardinal Pierre was "a respectful and reasonable discussion," calling The Free Press's characterization "highly exaggerated and distorted." The White House did not respond to requests for comment on the meeting.
Vice President Vance, speaking to reporters in Budapest on April 8, said he had not seen the reporting and wanted to speak with Cardinal Pierre and Pentagon officials before drawing conclusions. "I think it's always a bad idea to offer an opinion on stories that are unconfirmed and uncorroborated," Vance said. Vance initially said he did not know who Pierre was, but was reminded that he had previously met him.
Pope Leo XIV has publicly criticized the Trump administration on multiple occasions since his election, including calling Trump's threats against Iran "truly unacceptable." At Easter, he called for those "who have weapons" to "lay them down." The Vatican celebrated reports of a ceasefire in the Iran conflict. The pope has made no public statement about the Pentagon meeting.
