Responding to my analysis of confrontation between Pentagon officials and Cardinal Pierre, @MarkSimonHK wrote on X that “Lawler is more open than I am about the role of @Pontifex…” (This was before Trump’s personal assault on the Pope on Truth Social.) Actually I didn’t hold the Pope responsible for the leaked stories about that Pentagon meeting, although I agree with Simon that it was “a planned political hit” on Trump.
That is, I don’t hold the Pope responsible except insofar as he sits at the top of the Catholic hierarchy, and the buck stops there. I doubt that the Pontiff ordered or approved the “hit,” nor do I think that he signed off on the neatly timed follow-up, in which three American cardinals teed off on Trump on Sixty Minutes. I’ve commented elsewhere about the Pope’s criticism of the war in Iran. But this particular attack, I am convinced, was planned and executed in Washington.
Still since all signs point to the office of the papal nuncio as the source of the rumors, and the nuncio is the Pope’s representative in the US, the episode did highlight the mounting tensions between the Vatican (and thus the Pope) and the Trump administration. Trump himself deliberately escalated those tensions with his characteristically intemperate rant on Sunday. Pope Leo’s own comments have to date been couched in diplomatic language. The more personal attacks on Trump have been launched from this side of the Atlantic.
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