Greenland 🇬🇱, Canada 🇨🇦, Cuba 🇨🇺, And…Vatican City?

UPDATE: Letters from Leo can now independently confirm that the meeting took place — and that the Vatican was so alarmed by the Pentagon’s tactics that Pope Leo XIV shelved plans to visit the United States later this year.

Many in the Vatican saw the Pentagon’s reference to an…

— Christopher Hale (@ChristopherHale) April 8, 2026

UPDATE: Letters from Leo can now independently confirm that the meeting took place — and that the Vatican was so alarmed by the Pentagon’s tactics that Pope Leo XIV shelved plans to visit the United States later this year.

Many in the Vatican saw the Pentagon’s reference to an Avignon papacy as a threat to use military force against the Holy See.

Or, you know, just kidnap the Pope. How many divisions does the Pope have?

The Marines could totally take the Swiss Guard.

Back to the story, that would be this meeting and threat:

In January, behind closed doors at the Pentagon, Under Secretary of War for Policy Elbridge Colby summoned Cardinal Christophe Pierre — Pope Leo XIV’s then-ambassador to the United States — and delivered a lecture.

“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, one U.S. official reached for a fourteenth-century weapon and invoked the Avignon Papacy, the period when the French Crown used military force to bend the bishop of Rome to its will.

God is on our side, not the Pope’s side. So if you wanna get right with God, you better get on our side. 

I was just kidding about the German language belt buckles. At least, I thought I was.