Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

thelettersfromleo.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 332 posts

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

#121

Post by jakeydus »

b3ing wrote: post #68
Analemma_ wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It’s going to be Evangelical. Some variety of megachurch prosperity teaching that faults the poor with some kind of republican ideology. That’s why anyone that believes in separation of religion and state should tell these folks anytime they push for Christianity in schools, just tell them: ok but it needs to be the true Christianity- Jehovah Witnesses- then they will shut up. They hate Jehovah witnesses, then Mormon…

It stuns me that Republican Mormons think that Evangelicals like them for anything but their political assistance. As soon as Evangelicals remove the non-Christians, their tent will get smaller, just like you're saying.

I have Mormon family that thinks that they're welcome in the Evangelical tent (they'll even visit the Ark Experience!), but Evangelicals hate Mormons just like they hate gays, liberals, trans people, atheists, etc. It's just that Mormons (for now) vote the way that Evangelicals want.

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

#122

Post by bsimpson »

I know that Hacker News can be for anything "hackers find interesting," but I really hope it doesn't become yet another political doomland. There are so many other places to go to raise your anxiety - I'd rather this remain a space for things that are positively interesting.

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

#123

Post by slater »

yladiz wrote: post #45

Why are they referring to Elbridge Colby as the Under Secretary of War for Policy? That’s not his title.

"Elbridge Andrew Colby (born December 30, 1979) is an American national security policy professional who is the under secretary of defense for policy since April 9, 2025."

probably just a mix-up re: "war" department

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

#124

Post by ncr100 »

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]

No - I had a bunch of history and did not encounter that.

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

#125

Post by whimsicalism »

lxgr wrote: post #52
whimsicalism wrote: post #26

Anyone have non paywalled reporting? Technically I think this post is HN guideline-breaking as there is no easy bypass for substack paywalls.

Then again, it's also against HN guidelines to complain about paywalls...

Is it complaining to ask for a workaround and point out HN guidelines?

> It's ok to ask how to read an article or to help other users by sharing a workaround. But please do this without going on about paywalls. Focus on the content.

I am earnestly curious to read a recounting of what was said by the Trump official.

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

#126

Post by layer8 »

kubb wrote: post #48

What is tiresome is how sincerely these people insist on being able to make everyone act according to their will, while simultaneously displaying weakness, incompetence, and extreme pettiness. Trying to threaten people into respecting them. The lack of class is just so unsightly.

It’s still much preferable to them being strong and competent in subduing everyone to their will.

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

#127

Post by skywhopper »

_2d30 wrote: post #101
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 colony... The US was explicitly not founded on religious tolerance, it was founded on freedom to persecute Catholics" Seems a bit broken to claim that something that happened in 1689 when it was a colony, as you explicitly note, is fundamental to the founding of the nation a century later.

Yeah, there’s also a particularly American version of Catholicism that hates the Church and its teachings, who include among their adherents the Vice President and at least one Supreme Court Justice if not several. While one would hope they would learn the lessons of history, the particular details of the theocracy they envision probably won’t break down along the same lines as past conflicts.

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

#128

Post by bregma »

jgalt212 wrote: post #25

> Under Secretary of War for Policy Elbridge Colby summoned the Holy See’s then-ambassador to the U.S., Cardinal Christophe Pierre, to the Pentagon. Can the DOD do this? This seems more like the purview of State.

That would be following established rules. Such a thing is not the habit of the current administration.

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

#129

Post by ticulatedspline »

I love this:

>According to his sources, Colby’s team picked apart the pope’s January state-of-the-world address line by line and read it as a hostile message aimed directly at the administration.

>What enraged them most was Leo’s declaration that “a diplomacy that promotes dialogue and seeks consensus among all parties is being replaced by a diplomacy based on force.”

they then proceed to insinuate use of force.

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

#130

Post by iguessthislldo »

embedding-shape wrote: post #49
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…

It's not 100% clear by this article what was said, and I don't have access to the source article either. But I think the parts, even if they don't mention verbatim what happened, makes it a pretty clear threat: > America, Colby and his colleagues told the cardinal, has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world. The Catholic Church had better take its side. > As tempers rose, an unidentified U.S. officia…

So they kidnap him like they did with the president of Venezuela? I don't understand how they think this is going to play out well.
Post reply on HN