this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2026
614 points (99.7% liked)

World News

55388 readers
2151 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Relations between the U.S. and the Catholic Church have not been the same since January, when senior U.S. defense officials shared an abrasive message with a Vatican official.

Days after Pope Leo XIV delivered his State of the World speech, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby summoned Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the Vatican's U.S. representative, to a closed-door Pentagon meeting for a bitter lecture.

"The United States," Colby said, according to a blistering new report by The Free Press, "has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world. The Catholic Church had better take its side."

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Slashme@lemmy.world 12 points 16 hours ago

That sounds like something that an envoy of Sauron would say. Does Colby really think he's one of the good guys?

[–] theacharnian@lemmy.ca 63 points 1 day ago (3 children)

MAGA has no concept of soft power. They just don't get it, do they?

[–] Akasazh@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago

Soft sounds to girly for the insecure bastards in office

[–] dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world 13 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

"Might makes right" authoritarianism has no use for it. Why bother with getting people to like you when you have all the guns? Besides, these troglodytes are a pretty unlikable bunch in the first place - it's simply not how they navigate the world.

[–] theacharnian@lemmy.ca 7 points 21 hours ago

"You can do anything you like with bayonets, except sit on them" Talleyrand, circa 1815

[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 22 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Well, they're clearly aware enough to feel threatened by it, given that that's all the power the Vatican holds

[–] CanadaPlus@futurology.today 12 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

The idea seems to be to use the hard power to make the soft power go away.

It doesn't work like that of course, but fascists are gonna fascist.

[–] tirateimas@lemmy.pt 69 points 1 day ago (2 children)

There you have it, if you had any doubts that the US has been taken over by a bunch of crazy people. In their words, they can do whatever they want, but they barely accomplish a thing.

[–] CatZoomies@lemmy.world 34 points 1 day ago

Barely accomplish a thing?

What are you talking about?! Didn’t you see that the Dow was over 50,000 for a time period? Why are you laughing?

Trump was also gifted a glorious jumbo jet that we are using as Air Force One for the remainder of his term! And afterward, they said (on record by the way) it will be donated to the Trump Library! That’s how much they respect us!

And also, we ended the Iran war that they started! Look what they made us do to them! And we got— uh… what did we get again for winning? Anyway, we won and the straight thingie, the thing that we need to open? Hormel reopened (and they’re great by the way), where we put the oil is now ready to oil for us less price gas for all Americans now hence. We’re winning for days, so the Catholic Church needs to pick a side - and from my point of view, the Jedi are evil!

[–] HugeNerd@lemmy.ca 19 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Uh, you think they've been taken over just recently? Trump just exposes what's been going on for decades through his borderline personality disorder.

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) (1 children)

Yeah, the falacy that over a hundred million of people in the US just suddenly woke up and decided that they wanted their country to be controlled by a derranged multi-millionaire extremelly high on the Narcissist spectrum parroting near-Fascist and outright Fascist ideas, doesn't hold up to even the most cursory logical analysis.

Only tribalist supporters of the "other party", who thus desperatelly want to believe their tribal chiefs are not at all to blame in any way form or shape for America going down the path that led to a double Trump victory, will cherry pick and twist "evidence", and be very selective in the logical explanations they're willing to consider, to create logically-sounding (for the unthinking) theories that exhonerate their own chiefs that are so beyond real Logic that they're akin to using "Magic" as explanation.

The field from were votes for somebody like Trump were a bountiful harvest has for decades been plowed and fertilized by American politicians and by American billionaires using the Press and Think Tanks their own.

[–] HugeNerd@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 hours ago (1 children)
[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

"It couldn't possibly be the fault of Americans, it must be the fault of foreigners."

-- Both American Fascists and American NeoLiberals

[–] Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.ca 35 points 1 day ago

Time for the Pope to call a crusade. Deus Vult.

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 22 points 1 day ago

Time for the Pope to start using the excomunicato hammer again.

[–] Godric@lemmy.world 94 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] Bananskal@nord.pub 40 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That context though... Thanks for that!

[–] Godric@lemmy.world 26 points 1 day ago (2 children)

In this day and age, literally anything sounds like it could be true, so I try to take some especially inflammatory things with a healthy grain of salt.

Also, with a suspiciously generic name like "Free Press", you bet I'm looking at your credentials!

[–] Bananskal@nord.pub 2 points 17 hours ago

You're doing us a solid by posting your findings. You didn't have to do that, but ya did. 🤝

[–] tomiant@piefed.social 6 points 1 day ago

With these fuckers it always seems right though.

[–] Lanske@lemmy.world 23 points 1 day ago

Maga Yanks are total nutters

[–] minorkeys@lemmy.world 4 points 19 hours ago

Smells like weakness to me.

[–] metalsd@eviltoast.org 44 points 1 day ago

I'm starting to believe JD isn't a true believer of his religion 🤡

[–] Scubus@sh.itjust.works 44 points 1 day ago

In what fucking world does it make sense that i ally myself with the pope. I hate this timeline

[–] FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

LOL

It's fascinating that the Pope gets threatened for being critical of Donald, and not, you know, facilitating an international child trafficking ring.

[–] mPony@kbin.earth 10 points 23 hours ago

there can be only one

[–] TwinTitans@lemmy.world 71 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

Guys fucking delusional 🤣 we’ve seen how well that works over the last 50 years.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Walk_blesseD@piefed.blahaj.zone 45 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The pope could do the funniest thing rn and call a crusade on the US

[–] Nikelui@lemmy.world 34 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Why bother? Just excommunicate the usual suspects, and watch the cognitive dissonance of the ultra-catholics.

[–] ms_lane@lemmy.world 28 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Please, I've been wanting this since he killed the last pope 😭😭😭

[–] tal@lemmy.today 47 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

https://catholicvote.org/pew-poll-52-of-catholics-including-61-of-white-catholics-back-trump-over-harris/

Pew poll: 52% of Catholics including 61% of white Catholics back Trump over Harris

Should be interesting to see how that plays with the electorate.

EDIT: Also, I don't have my finger on the pulse of the Catholic Church in the US, but the current pope, Leo XIV, was the first born in the US. I know that John Paul II, Polish, was the first Polish pope and was highly-regarded in Poland, and I can imagine that there might be a similar effect in the US among American Catholics.

[–] XeroxCool@lemmy.world 25 points 1 day ago (19 children)

Catholics are not the major Christian group, it's 2nd place in the US. 69% of US residents claim to be Christian, 45% of which Christians claim to be Protestant while only 22% of which say Catholic (Gallup 2020). It's regional too, I beleive centered around Italian and Irish immigrant communities, or at least the suburbs around where those city diasporas used to be. Protestants specifically do not give a shit about the pope.

[–] arrow74@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) (2 children)

So Catholics are the major Christian group based on that.

Protestants are broken up among several dozen sects and don't often form a single block on issues. Catholics are one group that do often form a voting block.

It's well past time we stop breaking up Christianity into Catholic and Protestant. It's not a useful metric anymore. A Lutheran and a Baptist are just as different as a Quaker and a Catholic. Like come on the reformation was like 4 centuries ago, let's categorize better

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (18 replies)
[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

American catholicism has been on the verge of schism for years. The anti woke side hates Leo, the other side is proud of him, but were also proud of Francis. They (we at the time) were proud to have a pope from our hemisphere and one intent on reform and fighting the far right faction. It's hard for American Catholics of any stripe to be proud for the past few years given the archbishop being excommunicated over schismatism and the fact that that's not even close to resolved.

[–] bluegreenpurplepink@lemmy.world 24 points 1 day ago (4 children)

Six of our nine Supreme Court Justices are Catholics.

[–] a4ng3l@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yeah not the usual breed are they? I’m from a catholics family and the horrors they enable are absolutely alien to the principles I grew up with. They whole of them would be ripe for hell if that was a thing…

They're old catholic breed with fire and brimstone.

[–] Lumisal@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day ago

As catholic as 5 year old croissants left outside in the dirt are

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 35 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

“The United States,” Colby said, according to a blistering new report by The Free Press, “has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world. The Catholic Church had better take its side.”

Yes, you have lots of guns and bombs and you're very big and strong. But the Pope was offering a moral criticism. You know, about morality, doing the right thing. Have you or your "Christian" colleagues ever heard of it? Turns out it doesn't often align with who is most eager and equipped to kill anyone who looks at them the wrong way. Even Jesus (heard of him?) had a thing or two to say about that.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] klu9@piefed.social 32 points 1 day ago (2 children)

"How many divisions does the pope have?"

  • ~~Joseph Stalin~~ Peter Hegseth
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Taleya@aussie.zone 8 points 1 day ago

Idiot sub-adolescents thinking they're smart

[–] OpenStars@piefed.social 17 points 1 day ago

Ah, the old Might Makes Right mantra!

This one predates humanity itself, or even cellular lifeforms. I wonder why the Cardinal did not know this? Oh well, at least now he has been reeducated, so all should be well!

[–] kbobabob@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 1 day ago

It's cool. None of this really matters anyways with the whole separation of church and state.

[–] TwilitSky@lemmy.world 1 points 19 hours ago

I'm kind of waiting for: God has decided to back Trump for now but patience wearing thin or some such similar ridiculousness in this reality.

load more comments
view more: next ›