The increasingly heated feud between Trump and the Pope There hasn't been this much tension since the time of Boniface VIII

If you thought that the clashes between the Papacy and the Empire were something straight out of a medieval history textbook, think again. In recent days, everything has happened between the US administration and the Vatican. An unprecedented meeting at the Pentagon, a veiled threat of “Avignon captivity”, and the deliberate choice of the first American Pope to spend July 4, 2026 (the 250th anniversary of American independence) among the migrants of Lampedusa.

But to understand how we got to this point, it is necessary to retrace the facts in chronological order, starting from one of the most worrying precedents in recent Vatican diplomatic history: the summons to the Pentagon of representatives of the Holy See, revealed this week by an explosive investigation from The Free Press.

What happened?

As reported by The Free Press, it all began after Pope Leo’s annual address to the Diplomatic Corps accredited to the Holy See last January. In that speech, the Pontiff condemned the new trend of «a diplomacy based on force, by either individuals or groups of allies». A phrase that the Americans interpreted as a direct attack on the Trump administration and its increasingly violent and warmongering rhetoric. A few days later, Under Secretary of War for Policy Elbridge Colby reportedly summoned Cardinal Christophe Pierre — then the Pope’s personal envoy to the United States — to the Pentagon.

It was the first meeting ever held between a high-ranking prelate and the Pentagon in history. According to Vatican and American sources cited by Mattia Ferraresi in The Free Press, the meeting was essentially a dressing-down that culminated in a veiled threat that the Catholic Church «would do better to take their side». One of the Americans present even made a reference to the Avignon Papacy in the 1300s, when the King of France forced the Pope to move to France. The implications are more than clear.

The exchange of statements during the Easter period

Things then got worse when American military efforts began to take on the messianic and apocalyptic tones of the most fundamentalist American evangelism. In March, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth publicly called for prayers for “victory in Iran in the name of Jesus Christ”. In other public appearances, Trump’s spiritual advisor, televangelist Paula White, compared the president to Jesus. The Pope’s public response, delivered during Palm Sunday Mass, was one of the harshest and most direct ever heard from a Pontiff and has already become famous: «Jesus does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them».

A few days later, on **Easter Sunday**, in his Urbi et Orbi message the Pope invited the world to «abandon every desire for conflict, domination, and power», on the very same day that Donald Trump posted a vulgar and apocalyptic threat against Iran on Truth Social: “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran… Open the F****** Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell — JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah”. A few days later Trump doubled down on the threat to “wipe out the entire Iranian civilization”. The same man who wanted a **Nobel Peace Prize**.

Speaking to journalists, the Pope called Trump’s threat «truly unacceptable». Hours later, Trump announced a two-week ceasefire that was almost immediately broken due to Israeli attacks in Lebanon. The Pope also said: “I would like to invite everyone to pray, but also to find ways to make our voices heard. Perhaps by contacting parliamentarians and authorities, to say that we do not want war, but peace”. For an American audience, this was an implicit invitation to call their senators and representatives (something that does not happen in Italy) to put pressure on the government. The following day, Leo XIV welcomed the truce with satisfaction, but reiterated that the issue was not only political or a matter of international law, but above all a moral one.

The Pope skips America’s birthday

Today the Vatican officially announced the Pontiff’s summer program: visits to Pompeii, Naples and Acerra in May, Pavia in June, Assisi and Rimini in August. And above all, Lampedusa on July 4, 2026. On the same day the United States celebrates its 250th anniversary of independence, the first American Pope will be on the island that symbolizes one of the most famous and dangerous migration routes on the planet.

The news comes just weeks after the Vatican had already denied any trip to the United States in 2026. Vatican sources cited by The Free Press also stated: “The Pope may well never visit the United States under this administration”. According to the Catholic-focused Substack Letters from Leo, it was the Pentagon meeting that definitively sank the trip: disagreements on foreign policy, opposition to mass deportations, and the refusal to be used politically weighed more than any invitation. The Substack writer commented on this choice with the words: “Robert Francis Prevost is too deliberate a man to have chosen that date by accident”.