Relations between the U.S. and the Catholic Church have not been the same since January, when senior U.S. defense officials shared an abrasive message with a Vatican official.

Days after Pope Leo XIV delivered his State of the World speech, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby summoned Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the Vatican's U.S. representative, to a closed-door Pentagon meeting for a bitter lecture.

"The United States," Colby said, according to a blistering new report by The Free Press, "has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world. The Catholic Church had better take its side."

top 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] 96 points 4 months ago (1 child)
  • [–] 42 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    That context though... Thanks for that!

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 28 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    In this day and age, literally anything sounds like it could be true, so I try to take some especially inflammatory things with a healthy grain of salt.

    Also, with a suspiciously generic name like "Free Press", you bet I'm looking at your credentials!

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • load more comments (1 reply)
  • [–] 75 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    There you have it, if you had any doubts that the US has been taken over by a bunch of crazy people. In their words, they can do whatever they want, but they barely accomplish a thing.

  • source
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 20 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    Uh, you think they've been taken over just recently? Trump just exposes what's been going on for decades through his borderline personality disorder.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 9 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (4 children)

    Yeah, the falacy that over a hundred million of people in the US just suddenly woke up and decided that they wanted their country to be controlled by a derranged multi-millionaire extremelly high on the Narcissist spectrum parroting near-Fascist and outright Fascist ideas, doesn't hold up to even the most cursory logical analysis.

    Only tribalist supporters of the "other party", who thus desperatelly want to believe their tribal chiefs are not at all to blame in any way form or shape for America going down the path that led to a double Trump victory, will cherry pick and twist "evidence", and be very selective in the logical explanations they're willing to consider, to create logically-sounding (for the unthinking) theories that exhonerate their own chiefs that are so beyond real Logic that they're akin to using "Magic" as explanation.

    The field from were votes for somebody like Trump were a bountiful harvest has for decades been plowed and fertilized by American politicians and by American billionaires using the Press and Think Tanks their own.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • load more comments (4 replies)
  • [–] 72 points 4 months ago* (2 children)

    Guys fucking delusional 🤣 we’ve seen how well that works over the last 50 years.

  • source
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • load more comments (2 replies)
    [–] 67 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    MAGA has no concept of soft power. They just don't get it, do they?

  • source
  • hideshow 6 child comments
  • [–] 15 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    "Might makes right" authoritarianism has no use for it. Why bother with getting people to like you when you have all the guns? Besides, these troglodytes are a pretty unlikable bunch in the first place - it's simply not how they navigate the world.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 49 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

    https://catholicvote.org/pew-poll-52-of-catholics-including-61-of-white-catholics-back-trump-over-harris/

    Pew poll: 52% of Catholics including 61% of white Catholics back Trump over Harris

    Should be interesting to see how that plays with the electorate.

    EDIT: Also, I don't have my finger on the pulse of the Catholic Church in the US, but the current pope, Leo XIV, was the first born in the US. I know that John Paul II, Polish, was the first Polish pope and was highly-regarded in Poland, and I can imagine that there might be a similar effect in the US among American Catholics.

  • source
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 26 points 4 months ago (6 children)

    Catholics are not the major Christian group, it's 2nd place in the US. 69% of US residents claim to be Christian, 45% of which Christians claim to be Protestant while only 22% of which say Catholic (Gallup 2020). It's regional too, I beleive centered around Italian and Irish immigrant communities, or at least the suburbs around where those city diasporas used to be. Protestants specifically do not give a shit about the pope.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 8 child comments
  • [–] 4 points 4 months ago (7 children)

    Are US protestants the same as UK Anglicans? Like is it the same church? I thought for sure most US Christians were nutjob baptists or other what would similarly fringe sects anywhere else in the world. Wait, are baptists protestants?

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 11 child comments
  • [–] 20 points 4 months ago (5 children)

    Anglicanism is sort of Protestantism. It forked off of the Catholic Church after the start of the Protestant Reformation, but wasn't really part of the movement. The king of England at the time specifically had a problem with the Pope and essentially took over the churches in England, keeping the Catholic traditions and power structure but changing the head of the faith from the Pope to the king. The English monarch is still officially the head of the Anglican Church.

    Americans are very much not Anglican and many of the people who emigrated to the colonies were religious minorities from proper Protestant groups.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 8 child comments
  • load more comments (2 replies)
  • [–] 7 points 4 months ago

    Alright, so I had to check my understanding. Yeah, that's all Protestantism, but they're all different and all disagree with each other. Baptists are the largest single Protestant group in the US, overlapping to classic original southern US states. Honestly, I thought Protestants were a distinct group but I guess the group I'd assume them to be would actually be Lutherans, assuming they're adherent to the original protesting Martin Luther.

  • source
  • parent
  • load more comments (3 replies)
  • load more comments (4 replies)
  • load more comments (1 reply)
    [–] 47 points 4 months ago

    I'm starting to believe JD isn't a true believer of his religion 🤡

  • source
  • [–] 46 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    The pope could do the funniest thing rn and call a crusade on the US

  • source
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 34 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    Why bother? Just excommunicate the usual suspects, and watch the cognitive dissonance of the ultra-catholics.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 45 points 4 months ago

    In what fucking world does it make sense that i ally myself with the pope. I hate this timeline

  • source
  • [–] 36 points 4 months ago* (1 child)

    “The United States,” Colby said, according to a blistering new report by The Free Press, “has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world. The Catholic Church had better take its side.”

    Yes, you have lots of guns and bombs and you're very big and strong. But the Pope was offering a moral criticism. You know, about morality, doing the right thing. Have you or your "Christian" colleagues ever heard of it? Turns out it doesn't often align with who is most eager and equipped to kill anyone who looks at them the wrong way. Even Jesus (heard of him?) had a thing or two to say about that.

  • source
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • load more comments (1 reply)
    [–] 35 points 4 months ago

    Time for the Pope to call a crusade. Deus Vult.

  • source
  • [–] 30 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    "How many divisions does the pope have?"

    • Joseph Stalin Peter Hegseth
  • source
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • load more comments (1 reply)
    [–] 25 points 4 months ago (4 children)

    Six of our nine Supreme Court Justices are Catholics.

  • source
  • hideshow 6 child comments
  • load more comments (2 replies)
    [–] 23 points 4 months ago

    Maga Yanks are total nutters

  • source
  • [–] 22 points 4 months ago

    Time for the Pope to start using the excomunicato hammer again.

  • source
  • [–] 17 points 4 months ago

    Ah, the old Might Makes Right mantra!

    This one predates humanity itself, or even cellular lifeforms. I wonder why the Cardinal did not know this? Oh well, at least now he has been reeducated, so all should be well!

  • source
  • [–] 15 points 4 months ago

    That sounds like something that an envoy of Sauron would say. Does Colby really think he's one of the good guys?

  • source
  • [–] 11 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    LOL

    It's fascinating that the Pope gets threatened for being critical of Donald, and not, you know, facilitating an international child trafficking ring.

  • source
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 10 points 4 months ago

    I remember in the last book of the Bible it always talks about the very Christian one world government.

  • source
  • [–] 9 points 4 months ago

    Idiot sub-adolescents thinking they're smart

  • source
  • [–] 6 points 4 months ago

    It's cool. None of this really matters anyways with the whole separation of church and state.

  • source
  • load more comments
    view more: next ›