Avignon-gate: did the Trump administration threaten the Pope?

During a meeting with Pentagon officials, the former Vatican ambassador to the USA was warned that the United States has unlimited military power and that the Pope should take this into account. And the word “Avignon” gave the case the appearance of a scandal.

Most North American Catholics probably didn’t expect to spend the first week of Easter trying to figure out whether their government was threaten to overthrow the first pope born in the United States.

Still, a handful of news stories published this week raised precisely that possibility, strange as it may seem. They emerged at a time when both the Catholic Church and Christian influencers on the right were intensifying the criticism of the administration Trump because of the war with Iran.

The already designated Avignon-gate scandal is based on news according to which, in January, the previous Vatican ambassador to the USA was called for an unusual meeting with Defense Department officials at the Pentagon, where, according to , he was harshly reprimanded.

According to this information, Pentagon officials complained about a speech given by Pope Leo XIVin Rome, who appeared to criticize American foreign policy.

During the meeting, one of those responsible left what some members of the Church interpreted as a veiled threat to the Vatican: a warning that the United States have unlimited military power and that the pope should take this into account.

If it’s truethis episode represents one of the lowest moments in modern political relations between the Vatican and the United States — in addition to constituting a major religious scandal for North American Catholics.

A Trump administration denies these versions; the Vatican remains, to a large extent, silent. However, the reporters and authors who brought these allegations to the public keep what you wrote.

Whatever truth emerges, this scandal reveals some lines of fracture important in North American religious life and helps to understand how the war with Iran is splitting the religious right.

What exactly is the scandal Avignon?

The story began with a report from , published on Wednesday, in which the Italian journalist Mattia Ferraresi reported on a previously unknown meeting between the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Elbridge Colbythe Vatican’s then top diplomat in the US, Cardinal Christophe Pierreand a small group of Pentagon officials.

The meeting, which has now been confirmed, it was unusualpointed out Ferraresi and other news, by the place and time in which it occurred: at the Pentagon, rather than with State Department diplomats, and after Leão made a speech in which he denounced the collapse of the international order post-war era and the increasing use of force and violence abroad by several countries, including the United States, to achieve their objectives.

“War is back in vogue and warmongering fervor is spreading”, stated Leão in his speech to diplomats.

The fact that the meeting took place is not in question; but no one seems to agree on what was actually said there. The Free Press reported that the meeting was intended to serve as a warning to the Vaticana reminder that, in military terms, “the United States can do whatever it wants… and that the Vatican, and Leo, would do well to stay on its side.”

The meeting thus degenerated into a “bitter reprimand,” says Vox.

However, the Pentagon said on Thursday that the group had “a meeting substantial, respectful and professional” and that “recent news about the meeting is highly exaggerated and distorted.” The United States ambassador to the Holy See, the Vatican’s political government, echoed this position and classified the news reported by the media as exaggerations and fabrications.

But other media outlets they also began to realize the repercussions. , from the pope’s hometown, cited a Vatican source who described the meeting as “very unpleasant and confrontational”.

According to , the meeting should serve to convey to the pope a “friendly message” and ask the Vatican to be more supportive of Trump’s policies, but derailed when Pierre stated that the pope would follow Catholic values in conducting the Vatican’s foreign policy.

This is where a specific term appearswhich made this whole episode suddenly assume the proportions of a scandal.

Someone present in the room, according to the Free Press, the Financial Times and independent journalist Christopher Hale, evoked the name “Avignon” — which Vatican officials understood as a military threat directed at the Vatican.

O term is particularly sensitive to Catholicshistorians and history lovers: it refers to the French city that served as headquarters for the popes in the 14th century, after thehey of France Philip IV sent an army to Italywhere the troops attacked the pope then in office, Boniface VIIIafter years of conflict over who held the primacy of political power.

Philip IV would end up imposing the election of a new pope French, which would later come to transfer the papacy to Avignon.

For 70 years, the popes set up their court and governed Christianity from the city’s papal palace — and when the last pope of Avignon tried to move the headquarters back to Rome, it triggered a crisis in the Church and the emergence of rival “antipopes” in Avignonwho claimed to be the true popes for almost another 40 years.

“Avignon” is a term loaded with meaning. And, combined with the nature of the meeting — at the Pentagon, because of Pope Leo’s comments about the use of force by the United States — it is clear how this episode can be interpreted as a veiled warning to the Church so that it does not exceed its limits when it criticizes the main military power in the world.