WASHINGTON (RNS) — On Wednesday (April 8), Vice President JD Vance stood in front of Air Force Two in Budapest and was confronted with the latest chapter in an emerging, global drama: rising tensions between the U.S. military and religious leaders.
Standing on the tarmac in Hungary, where the vice president spoke at an electoral rally for that country’s president, Viktor Orbán, Vance was asked by a reporter about a Free Press article that had been rapidly spreading online. The report, which cites unnamed Vatican officials, alleges military leaders invited then-Apostolic Nuncio to the U.S. Cardinal Christophe Pierre to the Pentagon for a meeting in January. The cleric was, according to The Free Press, reportedly dressed down by officials, who insisted the Catholic Church take the U.S. government’s side in military matters.
In response, Vance initially said he did not know who Pierre was, before reversing course after being reminded of the cleric’s former role as nuncio. The vice president then explained he had not seen the report, and wanted to speak with Pierre — who resigned his nuncio post in March — and administration officials to discern “what actually happened” before commenting further.
Religion News Service has been unable to independently confirm many of the details of the story, including the claim that a military official invoked the Avignon Papacy during the Pentagon meeting — a bleak era of church history when the 14th-century French monarchy exerted significant power over the papacy. But in a statement sent to RNS on Wednesday afternoon, a Department of Defense official confirmed …
