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The Pentagon fears the Vatican’s authority in a battle over Christianity’s power
The Vatican has not been a major player on the geopolitical stage in, well, at least a few centuries. The Catholic state is tiny, and has not had a real army or ruled land since, give or take a century, the days of Machiavelli.
Nevertheless, in January the Pentagon summoned Cardinal Christophe Pierre, then the Vatican’s ambassador to the U.S., to a meeting, according to reporting from The Free Press. There, Elbridge Colby, the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, sparred with the Catholic diplomat in light of Pope Leo XIV’s outspoken opposition to the war in Iran, and to wars in general.
According to the report, which cited anonymous sources, the Pentagon told the cardinal, has the military might to do “whatever it wants” and that the pope “better take its side.” NBC reported its own Vatican sources calling the meeting “most unpleasant and confrontational,” and Catholic outlet The Pillar reported a senior Vatican official describing the meeting as “tense” and “aggressive” though not overtly threatening.
Then, one of the Pentagon reps reportedly referenced the Avignon papacy, a niche bit of church history that the official transformed into a cudgel. During this period, from 1309 until 1376, the papacy moved to France, where seven different popes lived in the territory of Avignon, under the influence of the control and influence of the French crown.
Since the reporting broke, both Pierre and Pentagon representatives have rejected the framing of the meeting as a threatening one. Vatican representative Mateo Bruni said that the meeting “provided the opportunity for an exchange of views on matters of mutual interest.”
The Department of War’s X account posted that the meeting was a “substantive, respectful, and professional” one in which the participants discussed “morality in foreign policy, the logic of the U.S. National Security Strategy, Europe, Africa, Latin America, and other topics.” The department denied any mention of the Avignon papacy.
Still, the fact that the Pentagon met with the Vatican ambassador at all is a first, and notable for demonstrating the impact of the pope’s moral leadership and the importance of Christianity in driving and justifying U.S. military actions — in particular, the war with Iran. And the public’s engagement in the debate over the specifics of the meeting proves that the U.S. government is right to care what the church says about its wars; people take it seriously. Military might is not the only force for influence.
Pivotal to understanding what the meeting meant is the disputed reference to the Avignon papacy, a historical moment in which a country’s secular government clashed with the church over symbolic and moral authority. The fact that there is even uproar and debate over whether an esoteric piece of history was mentioned in the meeting is proof enough of the stakes of the meeting.
To understand why Avignon is so pivotal — and why a Jewish publication would even be covering a piece of Catholic ancient history — it’s important to understand that, during that time period, in the 1300s, Europe was Catholic. Martin Luther wouldn’t nail his 95 Theses to the door of the church for two more centuries, and Protestantism didn’t exist. That gave the Vatican massive influence as the leader of Christendom, which encompassed all of Europe, and arguably much more. Kings were seen as vassals of the Vatican, carrying out its orders.
When the French king, Philip IV, asked for the church to fund his war against Britain, the pope refused. In 1302, Pope Boniface VII drove the point home with a papal bull stating that submitting to the pope was required for eternal salvation, placing the Vatican’s authority over all royal power. And he threatened to excommunicate Philip.
In response, the king had Boniface VII beaten to a pulp, and he died shortly thereafter. His successor, not incidentally, forgave the king and restored his religious authority. France used its power at the time to stack the church with French-allied clerics, and the move to Avignon followed shortly thereafter, with the next seven popes all of French background.
Fundamentally, the Avignon papacy was a conflict over symbolic authority. Philip IV wanted his wars to be blessed, and righteous. The Pentagon, clearly, wants the same for the war on Iran, with historically freighted roles. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has declared the war a Christian mission for the U.S., fighting alongside Israel as the world’s Jewish state — together targeting the Islamic Republic.
The idea that the Pentagon might have summoned the ghosts of the Avignon papacy shows that the U.S. still cares about the moral authority of the peace-preaching Vatican as a rival to military might. And the debate over whether anyone referenced what sounds like a nerdy piece of history is really a debate over the influence of the U.S. as a world leader, and its bona fides as what the current government purports to be a Christian nation.
Catholicism is becoming increasingly high profile in the historically Protestant U.S. Six out of nine Supreme Court justices are Catholic. Vice President JD Vance is a Catholic convert. Unsubstantiated rumors are flying online that the pope is considering excommunicating Vance. There is clearly still power in the church, at least culturally.
And Leo XIV has leaned into that cultural authority. In numerous speeches, including his Easter address, the pope has appeared to directly respond to American government officials and decisions, expressing sympathy for migrants as Trump’s deportation efforts accelerated, and critiquing “imperialist” military might as he entered into war with Iran. Despite being the first American pope, he has refused multiple invitations to the White House, including one for July 4 this year to celebrate the country’s 250th birthday; instead, he is pointedly visiting migrants on the same day.
“The Pope may well never visit the United States under this administration,” a Vatican official told The Free Press.
The particular clash between the White House and the pope also centers in large part around Hegseth, who is a member of an extremist Reformed Christian church, not a Catholic. (Though he does have a tattoo reading “Deus Volt,” a rallying cry during the Crusades — which were certainly Catholic.) After Hegseth gave a speech declaring that God had blessed the war with Iran and asking troops to pray for military victory, the pope said that God “does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them.” Despite their different Christian movements, summoning a Vatican representative to the Pentagon, whatever was said, shows that Hegseth wants the pope on his side, and recognizes his speeches as a major factor in geopolitics.
The battle for Christian moral authority between the government and the pope also comes alongside a more internal Catholic clash in the U.S. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is fighting high-profile Catholic influencers such as Candace Owens and Nick Fuentes, who regularly justify their open antisemitism with Catholicism. Though the pope himself has yet to weigh in, it’s another face of an ongoing struggle to define what Christianity means.
In today’s world, it’s hard to imagine a speech from the pope or the threat of excommunication carrying real weight, among so many churches with many theologies about war, antisemitism and the Middle East. The Vatican is no longer the singular authority over the West, and the pope’s power is largely symbolic. Whether or not anyone in the Pentagon meeting said that the U.S. has the military force to do anything it wants, it’s true.
Yet the fact that the government is engaging so seriously with the Vatican is a sign of the increasing centrality of Christianity, both Catholic and otherwise, in the U.S. government, and in American society. As Christian nationalists in the Trump administration seek to go back to the imagined glory days of Western culture, when Christendom rules, it becomes increasingly difficult to ignore the oldest, largest and most public face of the religion, or to deny its moral authority.
In a world in which the Vatican has only soft power, the pope’s decrees carry only as much power as they are given. But however soft the pope’s power may be, that surreal Vatican visit to the Pentagon suggests that even the best-armed military in the world is afraid of it.
The post The Pentagon fears the Vatican’s authority in a battle over Christianity’s power appeared first on The Forward.
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This Israeli filmmaker harshly criticizes his country. Pro-Palestinian activists boycotted him anyway
(JTA) — Earlier this year Nadav Lapid, the award-winning Israeli dissident filmmaker, traveled with his son to Marseille for a screening of his latest film. He fell in love.
“This city reminded me of Tel Aviv, in a way, with the beach and everything,” he recounted Wednesday to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency — referring to the city he no longer lives in, having built a career with movies that take sharp aim at what he calls the “moral abyss” of Israeli society. When a Marseille film festival then invited him to serve on its jury for its upcoming installment in July, he readily accepted.
Then the boycotts started. Last month around a dozen pro-Palestinian filmmakers threatened to pull out of the upcoming Marseille International Film Festival over Lapid’s planned participation because, they said, he had accepted funding from the Israeli government to support his work. (Lapid’s movies, including his latest, have received funding from Israel’s film fund.) Following this, according to the accounts of both Lapid and the festival’s director, the festival had second thoughts about him serving on the jury.
While the festival offered him the opportunity to participate in a public master class instead, Lapid said, the protesters hadn’t relented: “It’s not enough for these people.”
Frustrated, the director earlier this week decided to pull out of the festival altogether. He’s not happy about it.
“To make people like myself the enemy when the actual state of things is so terrible, it’s insanity. It’s stupidity,” he told JTA. “For them, the highest triumph of the Palestinian cause is if they will cancel my master class in Marseille? I think it’s pathetic.”
Lapid has received a groundswell of support this week: Natalie Portman and hundreds of other film-industry figures have signed open letters criticizing the boycotts against him. While he’s uncomfortable with being in the spotlight for reasons unrelated to his films, Lapid said he’s pleased with this outcome.
“You could have composed an unbelievable cinematic program from only the filmmakers that texted me during the last hour,” he said.
Even so, the filmmaker says, he’s now unsure if he is still welcome in France as a dissident Israeli.
“I asked myself whether they would like me to stop doing movies, or to leave France,” he told JTA. Elsewhere, he’s described himself as “homeless.”
It’s the latest unspooling of painful dynamics around artistic boycotts of artists and institutions seen by the left as normalizing Israel. Last month another French cultural figure, the Jewish comics artist Joann Sfar (“The Rabbi’s Cat”), faced calls to boycott his presence at a literary festival, also in Marseille. In its justification, a pro-Palestinian artist collective, pushing an Instagram post reading “Zionists out of our city,” cited Sfar’s signing of an open letter last year that argued a Palestinian state should not be recognized unless Hamas could be disarmed and Gaza’s Israeli hostages freed.
In recent months, in addition to broader boycotts of the Israeli film and TV industry, several leading cultural critics of Israel — both Jewish and not — have been targeted as well. Those include bestselling author Sally Rooney for publishing a Hebrew-language translation of her novel with a left-wing Israeli publisher (some prominent activists accused her of exploiting a “loophole” in the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement against Israel); Jewish Currents editor Peter Beinart for speaking at Tel Aviv University; and Jewish author Joshua Leifer for associating with a “Zionist” rabbi at a book event.
In Lapid’s case, the group organizing against him, La Palestine Sauvera Le Cinéma, argued that “Nadav Lapid is not being targeted because of his Israeli nationality.”
Instead, the collective asserted, their objection was due to Lapid having accepted funding from Israel to complete his latest film, “Yes!”; the fact that the film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival as an Israeli co-production and competed for Israel’s highest film awards; and Lapid’s past participation in an Israeli film festival in Paris.
“The cultural boycott does not target artists because of their nationality or personal opinions,” the filmmakers wrote, in French, in a blog post. “What is at issue here is the reality of their integration into the institutional and political structures of the Israeli state.”
For Lapid, whose new movie follows Israeli musicians hired to write an openly genocidal post-Oct. 7 anthem for their nation, this argument doesn’t hold water. Lapid has long been critical of cultural boycotts, including BDS. Such measures, he told JTA, are a form of “dogmatic Stalinism” and don’t “move one piece of sand” in Israel.
“I became a test case of purity,” he mused.
Others agree. More than 350 entertainment industry figures signed the first of two open letters in the French newspaper Le Monde backing him, which was published Sunday.
“Inviting an artist to a festival does not make them a cultural ambassador,” the letter reads, in French, decrying a “campaign of intimidation” against Lapid while also noting what the signatories said was the “genocidal logic” of Israel’s campaign in Gaza.
Among this letter’s signatories were Justine Triet and Arthur Harari, the Oscar-winning team behind “Anatomy of a Fall”; Harari is Jewish and a critic of Israel himself. Arnaud Desplechin, a French filmmaker who often features Jewish characters in his work, also signed. Other signers include acclaimed directors Claire Denis, Mati Diop, and Kleber Mendonça Filho; Romanian director Radu Jude, whose films have explored his country’s complicity in the Holocaust; and Palestinian historian Elias Sanbar.
A second open letter, published on Monday, calls the campaign against Lapid an “intellectual failure” and states, “No matter what crimes a state may commit, no one should be reduced to a passport.” It was signed by a smaller cohort of 10 names, including Portman; French-Jewish director Rebecca Zlotowski; and Oscar-winning filmmakers Jacques Audiard and Michel Hazanavicius.
Like Lapid, Portman — an Israeli-American actress who is one of the most prominent Jews in Hollywood — is a longtime critic of the Israeli government and opponent of the BDS movement.
Creative Community For Peace, a pro-Israel entertainment group, said Wednesday its members also oppose the boycott of Lapid, adding that Israel “funds, screens, and honors films that challenge its leaders, criticize its society, and engage openly with its most difficult debates.”
Unusually, the Marseille festival’s own director, Tsveta Dobreva, also signed one of the open letters in support of Lapid after she appeared to acquiesce to the earlier demands to pull him from the jury.
In an email, Dobreva told JTA her festival “fully supports Nadav Lapid,” saying that she had removed him from the jury out of concern he would be targeted at the event. She did not believe she had “agreed to the boycotters’ demands,” she said.
“Few festivals or cultural institutions in our days have the courage to extend invitations that may provoke controversy, and we stand with Nadav in believing that this form of self-censorship must be resisted, as it only contributes to the problem,” Dobreva wrote.
Lapid intends his next movie to be a follow-up to “Synonyms,” his 2019 film about an Israeli expat in Paris that won the top prize at the Berlin Film Festival. The Marseille festival is scheduled for July, but he says now he has no intention of going: “I’ll find other beaches.”
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Trump is imagining an Israel after Netanyahu. So are many Israelis. Netanyahu isn’t biting.
(JTA) — The party of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected speculation that he might not run in Israel’s election this fall, following an offhand comment by U.S. President Donald Trump.
On Tuesday, ABC correspondent Jonathan Karl tweeted that Trump had told him he was unsure if Netanyahu wanted to press forward in the elections.
“He’s had an amazing career,” Trump said, according to Karl. “Does he want to continue? Because, you know, he’s a wartime prime minister. We will very shortly win the war one way or the other, and you know he’s a wartime prime minister.”
Netanyahu has been prime minister for more than 15 of the last 17 years, losing power only briefly in 2021 and 2022. Israel’s current wars began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel, triggering regional conflict that has grown to include a joint U.S.-Israeli war with Iran.
Trump’s reported comments left some wondering whether he knew something they did not, amid polling suggesting that Netanyahu will struggle to secure enough votes to put together a governing coalition after elections this fall. Could Trump know that Netanyahu is considering suspending his already-active campaign? Or could Trump, who this week told the BBC that Netanyahu does anything the U.S. president tells him to, be planning to order his Israeli counterpart to stand down amid growing anti-Israel sentiment in the United States?
Netanyahu’s Likud party soon demolished the idea. “Prime Minister Netanyahu will run in the upcoming elections — and with God’s help, he will win,” the party posted Wednesday on X.
Only a minority of Israelis were primed to appreciate the declaration, according to a poll released this week by the Israel Democracy Institute. It found that 61% of Israelis, including 27% of Likud members, do not want to see Netanyahu run again this fall. The same proportion said they want to see Israel adopt a two-term limit for prime ministers in the future.
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Spain reports 86% rise in antisemitic incidents, as interior minister takes aim at ‘xenophobia’
(JTA) — Antisemitic offenses in Spain rose 86% last year amid the country’s highest total hate incidents on record, according to a report from the Spanish government.
Jews were targeted in 69 hate crimes and incidents in 2025, up from 37 in 2024, according to a report released last week by Spain’s Interior Ministry. Islamophobic attacks also increased from 15 to 35 incidents.
Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said in a video posted on Facebook that his office documented 2,417 total hate incidents last year, the highest figure since it began recording in 2014. Spain is home to about 70,000 Jews, according to the Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain.
The ministry defined antisemitism as any act of hatred, violence or discrimination directed against Jews or “nationals of the State of Israel.”
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has become one of Europe’s sharpest critics of Israel and its military action in Gaza, which he says constitutes genocide. Spain imposed a total arms embargo on Israel in 2025 and permanently withdrew its ambassador in March, following Israel’s withdrawal of its ambassador to Spain in 2024.
The Interior Ministry said hate crimes motivated by racism and xenophobia accounted for the largest number of offenses at 934. Grande-Marlaska called out “public officials” for rhetoric and policies that he said inflamed xenophobic sentiment.
Grande-Marlaska released his report as Spain’s far-right, anti-immigration Vox party advocates for a “national priority” policy that favors Spaniards over others in access to public aid and benefits, such as subsidized housing and healthcare. Vox recently struck deals with the conservative People’s Party to insert the “national priority” clause into coalition agreements in the regions of Extremadura, Aragón and Castile and León.
“The national priority is xenophobia,” Grande-Marlaska said. “It is institutionalized xenophobia, protected and promoted by public officials who legitimize and amplify hate speech that, in the past, would have been condemned when it entered the public sphere.”
Vox is strongly supportive of Israel, whose government has allied with the party despite a history of neo-Nazis in its ranks. Vox leader Santiago Abascal visited Israel in 2024 to show his support for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after Sánchez recognized a Palestinian state.
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