The Pentagon Threatened Pope Leo XIV's Ambassador with the Avignon Papacy • Hacker News Board

Re: The Pentagon Threatened Pope Leo XIV's Ambassador with the Avignon Papacy

#91

Post by sqircles » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 5:22 PM UTC

CGMthrowaway wrote: post #38

sqircles wrote: post #20

I have recently deepened my search in Christianity which started with the Catholic Church, one of few points I struggle with when it comes to Catholicism is the papacy, and the Avignon Papacy debacle and the events that followed (a la Western Schism) has quite a bit to do with that. I was a little confused by what they meant here by “threatening with the Avignon Papacy.” If anyone else is curious, I think the phrase…

There's way too much misdirected emphasis on the pope and ecclesiastical hierarchy imo. I wouldn't think too hard about it. You can be catholic and not like the pope just the same as you can be french and not like the king. Or american and not like the president. There is only one divinity on earth today and that's the holy spirit (consubstantial with the father and son), indwelling and guiding humanity on many level…

I appreciate your comment and I understand. My struggles are not about whether or not I like the man who is in the seat.

Re: The Pentagon Threatened Pope Leo XIV's Ambassador with the Avignon Papacy

#92

Post by 8593376393 » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 5:22 PM UTC

croes wrote: post #27

> America, Colby and his colleagues told the cardinal, has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world. I‘m pretty sure the god they often mentioned would see that differently. Not that anybody really believed they are true believers and just hypocrites.

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Re: The Pentagon Threatened Pope Leo XIV's Ambassador with the Avignon Papacy

#93

Post by drumhead » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 5:22 PM UTC

Threatening the holy father is not something I entirely expected, but when you couple that with statements like "We have the military power to do what we want" it becomes rather terrifying.

Re: The Pentagon Threatened Pope Leo XIV's Ambassador with the Avignon Papacy

#94

Post by rhcom2 » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 5:22 PM UTC

uxp100 wrote: post #31

mapotofu wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the same person who could reference that Let’s not give that same person more credit than they deserve. I’m sure they came preprepared with some LLM derived threats for when they didn’t get what they wanted from the Vatican.

Nah, I’m sure Elbridge Colby knew about this. His political views may be unpleasant (I mean, I think there is far worse in the Trump administration, but I’m not a supporter of any of them) but he’s definitely in the well read in history section of maga.

He is also Catholic himself.

Re: The Pentagon Threatened Pope Leo XIV's Ambassador with the Avignon Papacy

#95

Post by lastofthemojito » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 5:23 PM UTC

mullingitover wrote: post #33

Time in minutes after which christian nationalists will form a circular firing squad once they've cemented their grip on the US government: 2 The past which the 'make america great again' people want to take us back to absolutely loathed Catholics, something I don't think modern Catholics realize. The colony of Maryland was originally intended to be a safe place for Catholics, and the first chance the Puritans got, t…

> The past which the 'make america great again' people want to take us back to absolutely loathed Catholics, something I don't think modern Catholics realize.

The past that MAGA refers to is imaginary. It's "the good old days", whatever that evokes in any individual, with however selective that individual's memory is or however incomplete that individual's knowledge of history is.

It's like the Brexit referendum - Britons voted on "the status quo is bad, would you like something better than the status quo?" and a slim majority of them voted yes. They didn't agree on exactly how things should be negotiated to be better, just that they could imagine something better than the current state.

Re: The Pentagon Threatened Pope Leo XIV's Ambassador with the Avignon Papacy

#96

Post by robin_reala » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 5:23 PM UTC

Analemma_ wrote: post #43

mullingitover wrote: post #33

Time in minutes after which christian nationalists will form a circular firing squad once they've cemented their grip on the US government: 2 The past which the 'make america great again' people want to take us back to absolutely loathed Catholics, something I don't think modern Catholics realize. The colony of Maryland was originally intended to be a safe place for Catholics, and the first chance the Puritans got, t…

Yes, the stupidity and shortsightedness of American Catholic integralists like Vermuele is stunning to me. If America does ever become a Christian theocracy, it's going to be a Protestant theocracy. It wouldn't be an altar-and-throne continental monarchy, it would be more like Cromwell's England, where "Papists" were considered enemies of the state. Do these guys not remember that Jack Chick wrote just as many comics…

If?

Re: The Pentagon Threatened Pope Leo XIV's Ambassador with the Avignon Papacy

#97

Post by 8593376393 » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 5:23 PM UTC

I-M-S wrote: post #40

frm88 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt many are Catholic. J.D. Vance would be an option, tho.

Biden was Catholic, yet not even him sponsoring a genocide was enough to warrant an excommunication.

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Re: The Pentagon Threatened Pope Leo XIV's Ambassador with the Avignon Papacy

#98

Post by littlestymaar » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 5:23 PM UTC

hamdingers wrote: post #87

ecshafer wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The average person probably only knows the formulas for olivine and one or two feldspars.

And quartz of course!

Re: The Pentagon Threatened Pope Leo XIV's Ambassador with the Avignon Papacy

#99

Post by littlestymaar » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 5:23 PM UTC

littlestymaar wrote: post #98

hamdingers wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average person probably only knows the formulas for olivine and one or two feldspars.

And quartz of course!

(Reference for those wondering: https://xkcd.com/2501/)

Re: The Pentagon Threatened Pope Leo XIV's Ambassador with the Avignon Papacy

#100

Post by triceratops » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 5:23 PM UTC

ecshafer wrote: post #67

colechristensen wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like some hothead idiot driven by the big orange hothead idiot prompted Claude about how to threaten the Vatican and then used its talking points on the ambassador. So "calculated" maybe, but only because AI could come up with the answer, I have serious doubts that many of these people possess more than basic literacy much less the ability to come up with something like this. Or some CIA analyst who hates t…

[flagged]

Despite being a middle schooler with more than a passing interest in history I only learned about it when I started playing Crusader Kings in my adulthood.