Pentagon And Vatican Did Joint Damage Control — Did Trump Just Blow It Up?

President Donald Trump attacked Pope Leo XIV on Sunday, days after both the Vatican and the Pentagon worked to conduct damage control over reports claiming the administration pressured the Holy See to align with its foreign policy.

The Vatican finally broke its silence Friday, after a week of reports claiming that a January exchange between U.S. Under Secretary of War for Policy Elbridge Colby and then-Vatican ambassador to the U.S. Cardinal Christophe Pierre went sour, with outlets like The Free Press reporting that the meeting had been contentious. (RELATED: Trump Takes Rare Step Of Deleting Post Depicting Himself As Jesus After Christians Cry Foul)

The Vatican described such narratives about the meeting’s hostility as “completely untrue,” saying that the parties had merely discussed their views on “matters of mutual interest.”

On Thursday, the Department of War’s Rapid Response team also said that the meeting was “a respectful and reasonable discussion” and that reports suggesting otherwise are “highly exaggerated and distorted.”

Although neither side has released further information regarding the meeting since Trump’s Truth Social post attacking the pontiff, there are some crossovers between what the administration was reported to have said behind closed doors in January and what Trump publicly announced Sunday.

“Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy,” Trump began his tirade, in which he tells the Holy Father to focus more on his church and to speak less on what the Trump administration is doing.

This statement echoes what Colby was reported to have said, including that, due to the military might of the U.S., the country could do whatever it wanted, and that it would serve the Vatican to go along with its interests.

Although neither party confirmed nor denied it directly in their statements, reports also alleged that Colby invoked the Avignon Papacy, a period in which several popes operated under the French crown rather than as an independent body.

However, Trump used similar language, directly telling Leo what he would prefer the pope not say or think.

“I don’t want a Pope who …,” Trump said, adding that Leo “thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon… thinks it’s terrible that America attacked Venezuela,” and “criticizes the President of the United States.”

Leo has consistently spoken out against war and in favor of reaching a peaceful resolution to conflicts since Trump began his strikes on Israel, and following Trump’s arrest of Venezuela’s dictator Nicolas Maduro, with such comments believed to have been the catalyst for the Colby-Pierre conversation.

Trump also posted a now-deleted photo of himself as Jesus Christ on Sunday, depicting him healing the sick with signs of U.S. might behind him.

While the pope’s charge is believed to come from apostolic succession, Trump flexed his own mandate, saying that he is doing “exactly what I was elected, IN A LANDSLIDE, to do.”

Continuing, Trump said that Leo was only elected pope because he is an American and because the Church believed that he would be the best way to “deal” with the president.

“If I weren’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican,” Trump said.

Leo responded early Monday, saying that he has “no fear of the Trump administration” and that he will “not enter into debate.”

Leo also clarified that his calls for peace were not meant as attacks, but the promotion of Christ’s teachings to promote peacemaking and an invitation to “avoid war any time that’s possible.”

Although additional statements have not been shared by either the Pentagon or the Vatican to suggest that their responses minimized the hostility of the meeting, Trump’s posts suggest that much of the sentiment of the pope, as laid out in the reports, may be consistent with the perspective of the administration. (RELATED: Conservatives Blast Trump For Christ-Like Image, Losing His Mind Over Pope)

The White House referred the Daily Caller to the Pentagon, which had not, along with the Vatican, responded to the Daily Caller’s request for comment.