
More on the (alleged?) chat, from both sides ....So there's been some Pope stuff happening in the background that has resulted in plans for him to visit the US later in the year to be scrapped.
Including, an alleged threat to use military force against the Holy See.
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The Pentagon Threatened Pope Leo XIV’s Ambassador With the Avignon Papacy
The Free Press has documented a closed-door Pentagon meeting in which a senior Trump official lectured Pope Leo XIV’s ambassador on American military supremacy.www.thelettersfromleo.com
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American-born Pope Leo may not visit US while Trump is president, report says
The Pope will reportedly spend July 4th visiting with African migrants seeking a new life in Europe rather than attending 250th anniversary celebrations in the U.S.www.independent.co.uk
EDIT: JD Vance finding out about it on the tarmac in Hungary.
More on the (alleged?) chat, from both sides ....
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Why the Vatican and the White House Are on the Outs
Inside the collapse of Washington’s relationship with the first American pope.www.thefp.com
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.
The Avignon Papacy(Occitan: Papat d'Avinhon; French: Papauté d'Avignon) was the period from 1309 to 1376 during which seven successive popes resided in Avignon (at the time within the Kingdom of Arles, part of the Holy Roman Empire, now part of France) rather than in Rome.<a href="Avignon Papacy - Wikipedia"><span>[</span>1<span>]</span></a> The situation arose from the conflict between the papacy and the French crown, culminating in the death of Pope Boniface VIIIafter his arrest and maltreatment by agents of Philip IV of France. Following the subsequent death of Pope Benedict XI, Philip pressured a deadlocked conclave to elect the archbishop of Bordeaux as Pope Clement V in 1305. Clement refused to move to Rome, and in 1309 he moved his court to the papal enclave at Avignon, where it remained for the next 67 years. This absence from Rome is sometimes referred to as the "Babylonian captivity" of the papacy<a href="Avignon Papacy - Wikipedia"><span>[</span>2<span>]</span></a><a href="Avignon Papacy - Wikipedia"><span>[</span>3<span>]</span></a>(cf. Italian cattività avignonese, i.e. "Avignonese captivity").
And it's one, two, three what are we fightin' for....
Automatic registration for US military draft-eligible men to begin in December
Automatic registration into the U.S. military draft pool for eligible men is slated to begin in December, following efforts from lawmakers and the selective service agency to streamline the previous self-registration process.
The Selective Service System, the federal agency that maintains a database of registered U.S. males who are considered draft-eligible in the event of a national emergency, submitted a proposed rule to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs on March 30, according to the office’s dashboard.
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Automatic registration for US military draft-eligible men to begin in December
Automatic registration into Selective Service was mandated in December 2025, when President Donald Trump signed into law the fiscal year 2026 NDAA.www.militarytimes.com
Good. As unlikely as a draft is, the possibility of their sons getting called up may cause more Americans to be a bit more critical and reflective about what their country does in the foreign policy space.
Sure, that never changes.Excpet that as with the current President (a 5 time draft dodger), the rich people's kids will dodge it somehow![]()