The Pope Criticised War, Then Trump’s Pentagon Sent a Medieval Threat

For years, Donald Trump’s defenders insisted the real danger lay in overheated criticism, not in Trump’s politics itself. They said the rhetoric sounded worse than the reality that institutions would hold, and that alarm was the real excess. Yet here we are in 2026 with serious reporting that senior Pentagon officials confronted the Vatican’s top diplomat behind closed doors and reportedly invoked one of the bleakest precedents in Church history: the Avignon Papacy. The Free Press first reported the January meeting, and Christopher Hale later said he independently confirmed that it took place and that Vatican officials were deeply disturbed by its tone. The Pentagon has disputed that characterization, but it has not denied that the meeting happened.

That detail matters because the Avignon Papacy is not a casual historical aside. It refers to the period when the papacy fell under the political domination of the French Crown. So if a U.S. official invoked that history in front of Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the Holy See’s ambassador, the message was plain enough. It suggested that powerful states can pressure the Church and expect results. According to the reporting summarized by Newsweek, officials told the cardinal that America had the military power to do what it wanted in the world and that the Catholic Church had better take its side.

The Pentagon meeting that crossed a line

Follow-up reporting made the picture even uglier. Christopher Hale reported that Vatican officials understood the Avignon Papacy reference as an implied threat and found the meeting alarming enough to rethink plans for a papal visit to the United States. The Pentagon’s response, quoted by Newsweek, was to call The Free Press account “highly exaggerated and distorted” and insist the exchange had been respectful and reasonable. That defense is hard to take seriously when the reported language was this blunt:

“America… has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world. The Catholic Church had better take its side….One U.S. official invoked the Avignon Papacy — the period when a European power effectively bent the papacy to its will.“

The Avignon reference only made it worse. That was not some harmless historical aside. It pointed to a period when secular rulers bent the papacy to their will. In that context, it sounds like a warning.

And that is exactly why this fits so neatly with the culture Pete Hegseth has cultivated at the Pentagon. This administration does not treat criticism as part of democratic life. It treats criticism as defiance. It expects obedience, wraps raw force in ideological language, and then acts offended when anyone notices. The Avignon reference matters because it exposed the mindset underneath all of it. This was not ordinary diplomatic tension. It was the language of intimidation, delivered by officials who seem to think even the Pope should know his place.

The wider pattern looks hard to ignore

The ugliness of the Vatican episode stands out even more because it arrives alongside a separate controversy over religion inside the Pentagon itself. HuffPost reported that the Pentagon Chapel scheduled a Protestant Good Friday service and that a Pentagon spokesperson confirmed no separate Catholic service was scheduled that day. That sparked criticism because Good Friday is one of the most important dates in the Christian calendar and because the arrangement appeared, at minimum, indifferent to Catholic observance. 

For the first time in modern history, the Pentagon offered no Good Friday services for Catholics this year.

While Catholics don't celebrate Mass on Good Friday, they do venerate the cross of Jesus Christ and receive the Eucharist.

Earlier this year, Pete Hegseth invited his…

— Christopher Hale (@ChristopherHale) April 8, 2026

Placed next to the Vatican story, that controversy sharpens the sense that this Pentagon is not simply conservative but sectarian in tone. The reported Avignon comment, combined with the exclusion of a Catholic service from the Pentagon Chapel schedule, suggests an operation comfortable with using religion as an instrument of power rather than treating faith communities with neutrality or care. That conclusion goes beyond the raw facts, but it is a reasonable reading of the pattern now in public view.  

JD Vance responds, but not decisively

Vice President JD Vance was asked about the report while in Hungary, and his response was telling. He did not deny it and he did not defend the Vatican. He also did not express any alarm that senior Pentagon officials may have spoken to the Pope’s ambassador in terms that sounded menacing and coercive. Instead, he reached for the usual evasive script, saying he wanted to speak to Cardinal Pierre and U.S. officials before commenting on a story he described as unconfirmed and uncorroborated. It was the kind of carefully lawyered answer politicians use when they do not want to contradict the facts but also do not want to condemn the conduct.

That matters because the Vatican appears to have treated the episode as serious enough to reshape the Pope’s plans. According to The Free Press, Vatican officials had considered a papal visit to the United States for America’s 250th anniversary celebrations, only to shelve it as tensions with the Trump administration worsened. Reportedly the Pope Leo will spend July 4 in Lampedusa instead, the Italian island that has become a powerful symbol of migration, displacement, and the human cost of the very politics this administration so often treats with contempt.

A very clear message

There was a time when the idea of the United States government pressuring the Vatican in language that evoked medieval political control would have sounded too extreme to take seriously. Now it sits in public view as a matter of contested but significant reporting: described in detail by The Free Press, backed in part by Christopher Hale, disputed by the Pentagon on characterization rather than basic existence, and answered cautiously by the vice president. 

The Avignon reference remains the most revealing detail. It was a loaded allusion to the subordination of the Church to state power. Add that to the recent Pentagon controversy over a Protestant-only Good Friday service schedule, and the broader pattern comes into focus. If Pope Leo no longer feels comfortable visiting the United States under this administration, that is not a Vatican embarrassment. It is an American one.