Pope Leo XIV met with a longtime Democratic strategist a day after reports emerged that Pentagon officials had berated a top Vatican diplomat over the pontiff’s criticism of President Donald Trump’s warmongering.
Elbridge Colby, a Catholic who serves as undersecretary of defense for policy, summoned Cardinal Christophe Pierre back in January and told him the U.S. military had the power to do “whatever it wants,” and that the American-born pope “better take its side,” The Free Press reported Wednesday.
At one point during the meeting, a U.S. official invoked the Avignon Papacy, a decades-long period in the 1300s when the French crown leveraged its military might to dominate the papacy.
The day after The Free Press broke the story, Leo, 70, met with former President Barack Obama’s chief strategist David Axelrod, according to the Vatican.
The meeting apparently ran long, leaving Leo 30 minutes late for his next meeting with the Italian Winter Olympic and Paralympic committees, Catholic broadcaster Catholic Sat wrote on X.com.
Axelrod, who is Jewish, is a long-time resident of Chicago, where Leo was born and raised. The first American pontiff remains a devoted Chicago White Sox fan.
“Holy smokes!! An American Pope! From CHICAGO!!!” Axelrod wrote on social media after Leo, who at the time was known as Cardinal Robert Prevost, was chosen in May to succeed the late Pope Francis.
Last month, Axelrod shared some pointed words from the pontiff encouraging journalists to “show the sufferings that war always brings to the people; to show the face of war and to relate it through the eyes of the victims, so as not to transform it into a videogame.”
At the time, Trump’s aides were bragging about their “banger memes” that spliced together real strike footage from Iran with footage from movies and video games.
In addition to meeting Axelrod on Thursday, Leo had a meeting with Archbishop Gabriele Giordano Caccia, who last month replaced Pierre as the Vatican’s apostolic nuncio to the U.S., the equivalent of its ambassador to Washington.
Pierre had resigned after reaching the mandatory retirement age of 80.
The Vatican has not said what was discussed at the pope’s audience with Axelrod and Caccia.
Despite the Pentagon’s demands, Leo has not tempered his criticism of Trump.
After the president threatened this week that “a whole civilization will die tonight” if Iran didn’t reopen the Strait of Hormuz within 12 hours, Leo called the war with Iran “unjust” and said Trump’s statements were “truly unacceptable.”
“People want peace,” Leo said. “I would invite the citizens of all the countries involved to contact the authorities, political leaders, congressmen to ask them tell them to work for peace and to reject war always.”
Trump later backed down after reaching an ambiguous two-week ceasefire agreement with Iran.
The pontiff declined a White House invitation to visit the U.S. for America’s 250th birthday celebration this summer, and might not visit his home country at all under the current administration, The Free Press reported.
The Pentagon has maintained that its meeting with Pierre was “respectful and reasonable.”
A Defense Department spokesperson told the Daily Beast that The Free Press’s characterization of the conversation was “highly exaggerated and distorted.”
