Donald Trump-led US government threatened Pope Leo XIV’s Ambassador with the Avignon Papacy, according to Letters from Leo report. Pope Leo XIV’s then-ambassador to the United States, Cardinal Christophe Pierre was summoned by US Under Secretary of War for Policy Elbridge Colby in January. This development came in the backdrop of foreign policy disagreements and first American-born pope’s opposition to the Trump-Vance mass deportation regime.
Alarmed by the , Vatican officials dropped plans for Pope Leo XIV’s visit to the United States later this year. According to The Free Press and The Letters from Leo report, Colby and other officials tried to influence and intimidate the Catholic Church to make them side with the US.
What happened during the Pentagon meeting?
Journalist Mattia Ferraresi revealed that Colby’s team discussed the pope’s “State of the World” January address and criticized it as a hostile message aimed directly at the administration.
In that speech, Pope Leo addressed the escalating violence around the world and said “a diplomacy that promotes dialogue and seeks consensus among all parties is being replaced by a diplomacy based on force.” He even condemned “imperialist occupation” and the pursuit of global dominance.
Considering it as a frontal challenge to the so-called “Donroe Doctrine”, Trump official lectured Pope Leo XIV’s ambassador on American military supremacy. However, officials in the Vatican saw the US official’s reference to an Avignon papacy as a threat to use military force against the Holy See and hence declined the White House’s invitation to host Pope Leo XIV for America’s 250th anniversary in 2026.
After the senior US official threatened the on Earth with the prospect of an American Babylonian Captivity, the pope did not retreat into Vatican diplomacy, the report said.
Initially, the Holy See initially considered the invite but events that followed forced it to reconsider the request and postpone Pope Leo XIV’s visit indefinitely, according to a senior Vatican official.
“The administration tried every possible way to have the Pope in the U.S. in 2026,” The Free Press quoted one Vatican official as saying.
In the aftermath of the contentious meeting, it is most likely that Pope Leo XIV will not return to the US while Donald Trump remains in office. A critic of Donald Trump, the Pope, has been vocal over the US-Israel war with Iran and has in the past condemned Trump administration’s treatment of immigrants as “extremely disrespectful.”
