Shame on the pentagon.
Shame shame shame.

i'm remembering the crowd when john paul ii came to new orleans. leo would be like a rock star.

yea. the pope should come.

i don't think michaelangelo's masterpiece would stop him.

but no, the usa is full of rando lunatics on a mission from q anon.

ok, the pope will not meet trump because it bestows the sort of legitimacy that papal blessing conferred to charlemange or any number of despots from the dark ages.

might just do him in. I believe that. There are also crazy fundamentalist Christians who have always believed that the Pope -- whichever Pope -- is the Anti Christ, or a minister of the Devil. And now, apparently, the Defense Department has threatened him, and the Papacy.

I would stay the hell away, if I was him.

not enough about the christian nationalists.

military leaders are getting all apocalyptic in their messages to the troops. the religious aspects, playing up to the left behind raptured evangelicals.............

living in the time you referenced.

a visit now, after his statement, would look like.

tRump will up the annie to say altering or removing the Catholic Churches tax free status....it's always about the money....

That is my guess....

Should immediately make a public statement via Zoom or YouTube, during Sunday masses at all Catholic Churches in the US.
That this has not happened yet is already complicity.

That's how the Pope is, whether he's born in the US or anywhere else.

I don't blame Pope Leo for not wanting to feed into Chump's huge need for popular approval. Chump will say anything - ANYTHING! - to get media headlines and approval from the MAGAs.

The Pope can't win so why should he play along?

not??? And, even reading the rest of that sentence, with the blatant threat of the Avignon Papacy, did not quell my dread. Simply because these people are so insane, so bloated on their sense of superiority that I could see one of them actually threatening someone with a weapon.

I think we need to hear more about how this unfolded. Surely the Ambassador to the Holy See wasn't summoned to the Pentagon as a matter of state, as that would have to be handled by the State Department. What I would suspect is the case is that the Ambassador was brought in under false pretenses, probably having to do with pastoral matters on chaplainship.

If that's the case, the Undersecretary and everybody else involved needs to be fired yesterday, and Li'l Marco should be absolutely reaming Whiskey Pete Hegseth until it happens. There's no legitimate scenario in which the Department of Defense "summons" a standing ambassador to discuss ambassadorial matters. Period.

More here: https://democraticunderground.com/100221159304

Seeing this sort of thing on this scale in "modern" times is startling and troubling.

it bestows the sort of legitimacy that papal blessing conferred to charlemange or any number of despots from the dark ages.

The right wing nut faction has nothing in common with the past two popes. The Vatican is continuing to move forward on giving women more positions of power, softening on glbt issues, and crafting a good environmental, anti-war and economic justice message. There doesn’t seem to be much in common between the two sides anymore.

They are an extremely conservative, secretive, and dangerous group. Opus Dei needs to be excised from the Catholic Church and shut down permanently. I hope Pope Leo is paying attention.

I come from a mixed background, my dad’s side of the family Irish Catholic and my mother’s side Protestant. It did cause a bit of friction back in the day, I am not a member of any specific religion, but, I am around Catholicism a lot.

My spouse is Costa Rican from a Catholic family and we attend many events at our nieces Catholic school. She’s very involved in music and sports. The priest is very friendly and never discusses right wing issues at masses.

Our niece is a lesbian and many kids at her school are gay, bi or lesbian. The teachers who are mostly nuns know this and they have never said anything negative or unsupportive to the students.

I have no issue helping out with their charity events and such. I’ve found most lay Catholics to be pretty easy going and even liberal. It’s this vocal crowd of right wing nuts that really does them no good whatsoever.

The rightwing loons versus everyone else. Pope Francis started replacing RW Cardinals with more center/left ones and Leo has started doing the same (the latest being replacing the retiring NY RW prelate - Cardinal Timothy Dolan, with Bishop Ronald Hicks from IL - https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143584528