The CIA Director’s Grandson Summoned the Pope’s Envoy - and Many at the Vatican Heard a Threat

By Rachel Hurley April 9th, 2026 Updated September 28th, 2026

The Pentagon invoked a medieval hostage crisis to silence the pope

So, the Pentagon summoned the Vatican’s ambassador to a meeting in January and it went about as well as you’d expect.

Elbridge Colby - he’s the Under Secretary of War for Policy, which, yes, they actually call it the Department of War now - sat across from Cardinal Christophe Pierre and, according to The Free Press, basically told him that America has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world and that the Catholic Church had better get on board. And according to the reports, one US official in the room brought up the Avignon Papacy.

If you don’t remember that from history class, I didn’t either. The Avignon Papacy was a 67-year stretch, starting in 1309, when the popes lived in Avignon instead of Rome, under the thumb of the French crown - and it came after the French king’s men arrested and roughed up a pope who’d clashed with him. It’s what happens when a world power decides the pope is a political problem that needs solving.

That’s what a Pentagon official referenced. In a meeting with a cardinal. In 2026.

The Vatican was so rattled by this, according to Letters from Leo writer Christopher Hale, that Pope Leo XIV - who is the first American pope, by the way - canceled his planned visit to the United States. JD Vance had personally delivered Trump’s invitation, and the White House wanted him here for the 250th anniversary of American independence on July 4. Instead, the pope is going to Lampedusa. That’s the tiny Italian island where migrants wash up from North Africa. It’s basically the global symbol of the refugee crisis.

So the first American-born pope is spending America’s birthday with migrants instead of Americans, cause - as Hale tells it - America’s Pentagon told his ambassador to shut up about war.

And look, that would be wild enough on its own. But I looked up Colby after I read about this meeting and it got so much weirder.

Elbridge Colby is the grandson of William Colby. William Colby was the Director of the CIA from 1973 to 1976. Before that, he spent much of the 1950s running covert political operations out of Rome. He also helped build Operation Gladio’s stay-behind networks in Scandinavia.

The grandson of the guy who ran the CIA’s covert political operations in Rome just hauled the pope’s ambassador into a meeting that a lot of people at the Vatican took as a threat.

I mean - right?

And it’s not like the Pentagon is some neutral ground here. Pete Hegseth has been running monthly Christian prayer services broadcast on the Pentagon’s internal TV network since last May. The invitations have a cross on them. He brought in a pastor named Doug Wilson from Idaho who wants to repeal women’s right to vote, thinks homosexuality should be a crime, and openly advocates for a Christian theocracy. This guy led the Pentagon prayer service. On government television. In a government building.

In just the first three days of the Iran war, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation got over 110 complaints from more than 40 units across at least 30 military installations. Troops say their commanders are telling them that the war is God’s plan for Armageddon and that Trump was “anointed by Jesus” to start it. One NCO says a combat-unit commander said it at a readiness briefing. For troops who could be deployed at any moment.

So the Pentagon is running evangelical worship services, and troops say their commanders are telling them the war is biblical prophecy. And the same Pentagon is threatening the head of the Catholic Church for criticizing the war. They don’t want Christianity. They want their specific version of it. Evangelical, nationalist, end-times. And the pope - the actual leader of the world’s biggest Christian denomination - just got told to fall in line or remember what happened seven hundred years ago.

The Pentagon said the reports were “highly exaggerated and distorted.” The Vatican hasn’t said anything publicly. But the pope’s travel schedule says everything. He’s not coming to America on the Fourth of July. He’s going to be with migrants on a rock in the Mediterranean.

That’s his answer. And honestly, it’s a pretty good one.

Sources

Correction, September 27th, 2026: This essay first said the CIA under William Colby planted microphones in the papal apartments, and called Elbridge Colby the grandson of “the guy who literally bugged the Vatican” - that’s not something the record shows, and those lines are gone. It also said the elder Colby’s Gladio networks used the Vatican as a key node - his Gladio work was in Scandinavia; that he spent the entire 1950s in Rome - it was much of the 1950s; that the cardinal pushed back before the Avignon remark - the reports don’t say that; that France used military force to move the pope out of Rome in 1309 - the French king’s men had seized an earlier pope, and the next one chose to settle in Avignon; and that the Pentagon told the pope to shut up about the war - the meeting was with his ambassador in January, weeks before the Iran war began.

Update, September 27th, 2026: The title and a few lines now say who says so - The Free Press on what was said in the meeting, Christopher Hale on why the pope isn’t coming and the troops’ own complaints on what their commanders said - and the White House invitation and the first-three-days complaint count now match the record.