Vatican Official’s get a Sit Down at the Pentagon?

What is less clear is how adversarial the meeting was.

One senior Vatican official familiar with internal assessments of the meeting called it “unusual” and not “a walk in the park.” It was “a frank and direct dialogue on issues where the distance between the Vatican and the United States is evident and clear,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal assessments.

The Vatican and government statements portray the encounter as far more mild than some news coverage and social media chatter since news of the meeting was first reported this week by the Free Press. That story framed the meeting as Pierre having been “summoned” by Elbridge Colby, a Catholic serving as Defense Department undersecretary for war policy.

Since then, the narrative of a hostile dressing-down of church officials by U.S. military leaders has dominated some corners of liberal social media platforms. The criticism has prompted harsh pushback from conservative Catholics….

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On Wednesday, when Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic who is close with Colby, was asked by The Washington Post for his opinion, he said he had not seen the reporting about the meeting…

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The effort by U.S. officials to quell the controversy suggested the extent to which an administration that has often seemed to disregard outside views appears concerned about perceptions that it is at odds with a new and popular U.S.-born pope….

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A church official with knowledge of the meeting, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private discussion, told The Washington Post the candid conversation did not involve U.S. officials threatening the Vatican and also disputed the claim that the Avignon papacy was invoked to hint at military action against the church. The official suggested that the meeting was merely the Vatican doing what it is called to do — using available channels of diplomacy and dialogue to express its views…..

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