E (8:20)

Our troops, our American warriors, deserve the credit for this day, but God deserves all the glory. Tens of thousands of sorties, refuelings and strikes carried out under the protection of divine Providence. A massive effort with miraculous protection. Dude, 44 Bravo spoke for all of us. God is good.

C (8:48)

Then you had J.D. vance on the tarmac after trying to prop up Viktor ORBAN, Putin's puppet. J.D. vance was saying that he doesn't even know who Cardinal Christophe Pierre is and has no clue about any of these people. And we don't know about the threats that were taking place by the Defense Department. Threatening, essentially war, threatening to attack and invade the Holy See and go back to the Avignon papacy in the 13th century. This is what J.D. vance. I don't know. I don't know. Here, play this clip.

F (9:20)

X has been abuzz the last couple days of the Free Press story saying that senior Pentagon officials in January, including Rich Colby, brought Cardinal Pierre into the Pentagon.

E (9:31)

Brought who?

F (9:32)

Cardinal Christophe Pierre.

A (9:33)

Okay.

F (9:34)

Into the Pentagon.

E (9:35)

I haven't seen the story, unfortunately.

F (9:36)

And essentially the reporting by the Free Press is that they told him that the American military has a lot of might and they can do whatever they want and the church should get on its side. Does that message sound correct to you? Is that something you would sign off on?

E (9:49)

So one I, I with no disrespect to the cardinal, I don't know who Cardinal Christophe Pierre is.

F (9:54)

He's the ambassador to the Holy see

E (9:56)

in the U.S. oh, okay, okay. I've met him before. Sorry, I just didn't remember the name. I've never seen this reporting. I'd like to actually talk to Cardinal Christophe Pierre and frankly to our people to figure out what actually happened. I think it's always a bad idea to offer an opinion on stories that are unconfirmed and uncorroborated. So I'm not going to do that.

C (10:16)

Well, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to bring in Christopher Hale, and I've cited Christopher Hale stories and reporting before. He's got the substack letters from Leo, the American Pope and US Politics. And, you know, look, I understand as well that our audience spans lots of religions, from Catholic to Christianity to Muslims to Jews to Hindu to no religion. And the main kind of core principle that we talk about here at the Midas Dutch network, though, is empathy. It's love. It's bringing people together. Whatever religion or no religion, it's about bringing people together. And to me, Donald Trump's all about dividing and attacking. And I think regardless of what your religion is, I think we can objectively look at what Pope Leo XIV has demonstrated with his leadership and standing up to Donald Trump and recognizing there's a great deal of power in that. And that's why the Trump regime was so intimidated and threatened him. You have great sourcing inside the Vatican in Washington, D.C. and you seem to know everything that's going on as it relates to the intersection of the church and US Politics and the church generally. You were handling Catholic outreach for Obama. You've written for Time magazine and other periodicals about the church and about. So talk to us about this incident and let's talk more broadly about Pope Leo XIV standing up to Trump. But talk to us about what your sources are telling you about this incident.

D (11:52)

Well, I must say that this report originated with the free press and we were able to confirm it throughout the day. But here's how the story goes. In early January, Cardinal Christophe Pierre, as you mentioned, who was up, up until last month, Pope Leo's personal nuncio, which is Vatican's feat for ambassador to the United States, was strangely called not to the State Department, mind you, he is a diplomat, but actually directly to the Pentagon, which is strange in itself. And then while he was there at the Pentagon, there was a meeting with the under secretary of State. And in this meeting, it suggested that Cardinal Christophe Pierre, that they were upset with Pope Leo XIV's early January address to the Vatican, to the diplomatic corps, the Holy See, where he said that war is back in vogue, there is a zeal for war, and that the rule of law regarding the territory of nations have been violated. Mind you, this speech took place days after Trump's invasion of Venezuela. So the administration was correct to read this as a critique of their policy, obviously global in nature, but yes, of what they had done in Venezuela and what they were threatening at that point to do in Greenland and what they've done now in Iran just months later. So when you came in, it was temps. And one of the diplomats suggested, brought up the Avignon papacy, which you mentioned earlier for your readers. The Avignon Papacy was this 14th century phenomenon where the French regime was upset with the papacy. So not only did they influence the papacy, they kidnapped the pope, Pope Boniface. They kidnapped and, in fact, killed him, murdered him. And so it was a stunning suggestion to be made to bring up in this meeting. And Cardinal Christophe Pierre, from our sourcing, takes this information back to the Holy See, back to the Vatican. And there have been discussions about Pope Leo XIV coming to the United States this year. And that was put on ice. And from what I can understand, it's been put on ice indefinitely. There's some thoughts that he might come here in 2027. I honestly do not think we'll see Popoli in the United States until after Donald Trump leaves the presidency.

C (14:16)

You know, when he's picking to go to Lampedusa on July 4th, that's the island right by Italy, which is known as a hub of migration, which is kind of used there in Italy by politicians and other anti immigrant groups over there as kind of the way certain locations in the southern border here in the United States are, you know, and it's kind of this been used to kind of attack migrants. And I think a message is being sent that on your July 4, 250th anniversary day, when J.D. vance hand delivered that letter during the visit to Rome, I remember the video that you shared with it as well of Pope Leo xiv.

D (15:01)

Like, kind of awkward encounter, wasn't it? He looked at a encounter.

C (15:06)

Yeah. Talk to us about that. And then basically rejecting the visit. I mean, say I'm not, I'm not showing up. Talk to us about that.

D (15:13)

Yeah. So Pope Leo was inaugurated last May, May 18th. And J.D. vance comes to see Pope Leo. Mind you, J.D. vance was the last person ever to see Pope Francis, the last leader to see Pope Francis. So he met two popes within days of each other. And he delivers a letter. There's some contest about exactly what was in the letter, but it was to invite Pope Leo to the United States this year for the 250th anniversary of our country. And Leo takes the letter and it's an awkward encounter. Maybe you could drop in the show notes. But he puts the letter away and says, I'll take a look at that later. But there was talk about the Pope coming for the 250th anniversary. But after this meeting that occurred, that was taken off the table. And you spoke about Lampedusa. And one of the things that you talked about it being a point of entry, this point of entry between North Africa in the Mediterranean Sea and Italy and Europe. But it's also a very poignant point in the history of the Catholic Church. Pope Francis, that was his first trip outside of Rome. He went there in July of 2013 and he said that very famous homily, he said, we are a people who have forgotten how to weep for the sufferings of others. So he's doing two things. He's going, he's making a pointed statement to be there on the 4th of July. And he's also honoring his predecessor, who notably said that Donald Trump isn't Christian. He said that in response to Donald Trump's 2016 campaign, his efforts to build the wall, which of course was what he ran on in 2016. So it's this dual message. But I think maybe what's maybe not unknown to your listeners is that he's actually going to speak to the United States. He's received a Liberty Medal Award from Philadelphia, the city of Philadelphia, on July 3rd. If you go and look through those, the previous recipients of them, they're progressive heroes and icons for the Asians. So he's going to have a message for the United States, albeit it will be mobile, it'll be remote on July 3rd, and then he'll be in Lampedusa on July 4th. I am very excited for the front page of the newspaper. Above the fold, below the fold, because truly, Leo will offer counter messaging to what Donald Trump and J.D. vance and what dribble they might offer those days. He's smart. This man consumes media. He consumes English media. He understands how to play the media in the United States. He understands how it works. And what I find fascinating is that when Leo speaks, when he wants to say something important, he says it in English. And for Catholics, we know we associate the man and the white with being very good at Italian, pretty good at Spanish and not very good at English. This is the history of the papacy, and it's remarkable to hear a pope speak fluent, natural native English. And when he wants to say something important, he says it in English and it gets picked up here, you know.

C (18:25)

And finally, you've been reporting how Pope Leo XIV has been able to successfully organize, whether it's cardinals, bishops, all different ranks of the cloth of people helping migrants here. And that's been a major effort. Even people who at first, based on some of their background, you think may not have been so publicly out there, you know, in support of being on the front lines to help migrants. You know, I think we've seen this effort. I mean, you've covered these massive meetings both in the United States and abroad, you know, of all of these people in the Catholic Church. And, you know, you've made it clear that, yes, but behind all of this is actually Pope Leo xiv. And so before we go, talk to us about just the broader resistance efforts and how strong they've been and the real fact that the Trump regime is truly intimidated by this, and it does have this historical parallel to Hitler being intimidated by not being able to break the church and trying to figure out how to maneuver there, like, you know, whether it's being done because of that playbook or that's just an authoritarian thinking of dealing with the church. There are parallels there as well. So maybe, you know, combine those two concepts before we go, well, I think

D (19:57)

the first thing I know is that I'm from Tennessee, in MAGA country, throughout this nation, the Catholic Church is leading the resistance to Donald Trump. You had nuns who marched in Georgia. You had a bishop in Arkansas. Compare Trump's actions to the Holocaust, to Nazi Germany. You have here in Tennessee, you have the bishops standing up against deportation. So I think in Maga country, you have the church being a bulwark, remarkably a bulwark against the Trump administration. And progressives across the country are seeing the church as something to look up to. I think the final thing I will say is I think that Pope Francis himself was leading on these issues, but he did have resistance among the hierarchy in the United States. And what they often would do is they would reduce Francis to being Argentinian. They would say, oh, the man from Buenos Aires, he doesn't understand life here in the United States. And so I think a lot of the bishops thought, the conservative bishops thought, we'll just wait for the next pope. And then by the grace of God, the next pope is a Chicagoan, an American, a progressive, a man who cares deeply about the poor, the migrants. He cares about victims of war, the oppressed. And you cannot simply say, he doesn't understand us. He is one of us. Pope Leo XIV is one of us. So I've seen a conversion of sorts of the episcopacy of the bishops of the United States. Whether that's not, whether that's because they realize that the man's in charge is one of their own, or is it's a conversion of heart. The end reality of it is, is the Catholic Church in the United States is unifying as a bulwark against MAGA authoritarianism. And Catholic, Christian, religious or not, we can all be thankful for that.

C (21:52)

Christopher Howell, those social media posts do you make to get just so people know, I mean, 4 million views, 5 million views, 3. I mean regularly. And it's when I'm trying to research areas regarding the church and its interactions, you know, it's where I go to get my knowledge. Letters from Leo is the name of Christopher Hale's substack, the American Pope in US Politics. Thanks for joining us, Christopher. We'd love to have you back on.

D (22:21)

Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

C (22:23)

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