'Can Do What We Want, Church Better...': US Official's Alleged Snap At Pope

The Pope's message this Easter Sunday to Urbi et Orbi - Latin for 'to the City (of Rome) and the world' - was "let those who have weapons, lay them down". Urging world leaders to bring peace to the world, he said: "Let those who have the power to unleash wars choose peace... not a peace imposed by force, but through dialogue, not with the desire to dominate..."

A week earlier, on Palm Sunday, the American-born pontiff condemned leaders who use religious rhetoric to justify war; God, he said, rejects the prayers of those whose hands are "full of blood". And this was after sharp responses to US President Donald Trump's shocking threat to 'wipe out the Iranian civilisation' if Iran did not re-open the Strait of Hormuz.

No names were taken but each comments was interpreted as a papal rebuke to the US and Trump over the Iran war, particularly with the President and members of his inner circle, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth frequently invoking the Christian faith. Last week, for example, Hegseth - a born-again Christian sporting tattoos of symbols also used by far-right Christian and neo-Nazi groups - asked the American people to pray for 'victory' in Iran "in the name of Jesus Christ".

The papal response was swift; Christianity, he said, had often been "distorted by a desire for domnination..."

Now these remarks are also being interpreted as the church throwing down the gauntlet to Trump, particularly after new reports this week of an unprecedented and abrasive January meeting between US and Vatican officials.

US President Donald Trump (File)

That meeting likely prompted the Pope to rule out a visit to his homeland this year.

The reports highlight comments by Elbridge Colby, the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, to Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the Vatican's US representative.

"The United States," Colby said, according to The Free Press, "has the military power to do whatever it wants and the Catholic Church had better take its side." And another official reportedly reminded the Cardinal of the 14th century Avignon papacy; a period when the French king ordered attacks on the then-pope, Boniface VIII, to force the church to submit.

This was after the Pope's inaugural State of the World Address in January, in which he called on the world to reject "a diplomacy based on force, either by individuals or groups of allies".

Neither Trump nor the White House has commented so far, but a Defense Department spokesperson said the US official's comment had been "highly exaggerated and distorted". The meeting, he said, was a "respectful and reasonable discussion".

Relations between the Trump administration and the Pope have nosedived, particularly after the war in Iran.

The Pope has repeatedly called for an end to fighting and a diplomatic resolution.

But none of those calls named Trump, except for one instance last month when he was specifically asked for a message to the US President. At his country residence outside Rome, he told reporters: "I'm told that President Trump recently said that he wants to end the war… hopefully, he is looking for a way to decrease the amount of violence, of bombing."

As fighting rages across West Asia and the two-week ceasefire hangs by a thread – under pressure because of Israel's strikes on Lebanon - the Pope's sharp comments set up an intriguing faith vs politics battle befroe the November mid-terms.

READ | Ceasefire Chaos: Israel Hits Lebanon, Iran Fires Back. Trump's Next Move?

How much the papal rebukes will weigh on conservative voters, a majority vote base for Trump and the Republicans, could decide if President loses control of the House and even the Senate.