Tag: vatican

“Completely Untrue”: Holy See Rejects Fake News Story of Pentagon Threat to Vatican

In a desperate effort to drive a wedge between Catholics and the Trump administration, the fake news circulated a story implying that the Department of War (DOW) threatened the Vatican.

According to the initial report in The Free Press and amplified by outlets such as The Daily Beast, Catholic blogs, and social media, the incident allegedly occurred during a closed-door meeting on January 22, 2026, at the Pentagon.

The report claims that Under Secretary of War for Policy Elbridge Colby (a Catholic and a Trump administration official) and colleagues supposedly summoned the then-Vatican apostolic nuncio/ambassador to the U.S., Cardinal Christophe Pierre, and delivered a “bitter lecture.”

One official reportedly invoked the Avignon Papacy (a 14th-century historical episode where French kings exerted military/political control over the Pope), which some interpreted as a veiled threat of force or pressure against the Holy See.

The Vatican, however, formally debunked the story.

CruxNow reports:

Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni flatly denied the report in a statement Friday, saying that “As confirmed by His Eminence Christophe Pierre…his meeting with Mr. Elbridge Andrew Colby was part of the papal representative’s regular mission and provided the opportunity for an exchange of views on matters of mutual interest.”

“The narrative offered by some media outlets about this meeting is completely untrue,” Bruni said.

The Vatican nunciature in Washington had previously distributed a statement to the press also denying the portrayal of the meeting, confirming the Jan. 22 meeting at the Pentagon to discuss “current affairs,” but characterizing the interaction as “routine.”

“The Apostolic Nunciature is grateful for the opportunities to meet and dialogue with government officials and others in Washington to discuss areas of mutual concern,” the nunciature said.

“As confirmed by His Excellency Christophe Pierre, former Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, his meeting with Mr. Elbridge Andrew Colby was part of the Pontifical Representative’s regular mission and provided an opportunity for an exchange of views on matters of mutual interest. The narrative presented by certain media outlets regarding this meeting does not correspond to the truth at all.”

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Liberal HuffPost Mocked for Article Claiming Pentagon ‘Excluded Catholics’ from Good Friday Service

Liberal Huffington Post breathlessly wrote about the Pentagon and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth allegedly “excluding Catholics” from Good Friday services.

Jennifer Bendery, a senior politics reporter at the outlet, wrote that the Pentagon “invited more than 3,500 employees to attend a Good Friday service at its in-house chapel.”

“Except it’s only for Protestants, not Catholics,” Bendery claimed.

Was there not a single Catholic Bendery could have queried about religious traditions during the period surrounding Easter and Holy Week?

And, in sharing the actual text from the Pentagon invitation, does she not understand sentence structure?

Bendery shared a memo sent to staff by Air Force leadership that read, “Just a friendly reminder: There will be a Protestant Service (No Catholic Mass) for Good Friday today at the Pentagon Chapel.”

“No Catholic Mass” does not exclude Catholics; it simply notes that a Catholic Mass is not being held. Why? Because Catholics traditionally do not attend Mass on Good Friday.

Catholic Holy Week and Easter form the most sacred period in the liturgical year in the Catholic church, which commemorates the final days of Jesus Christ’s life, his Passion (suffering), death, and Resurrection.

Holy Week begins on Palm Sunday and culminates in the Easter Triduum (the “Three Days”), a single unified celebration from the evening of Holy Thursday through Easter Sunday evening.

Palm Sunday marks the start of Holy Week, recalling Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem, when crowds welcomed him with palm branches. In Catholic churches, a procession with blessed palm branches takes place at the beginning of Mass, and many families take the blessed palms home and display them, often woven into crosses. The palms are later burned to make ashes for the following year’s Ash Wednesday.

Holy Thursday (Maundy Thursday) marks the beginning of the Easter Triduum. It commemorates the Last Supper, where Jesus instituted the Eucharist (the sacrament of his Body and Blood) and the priesthood, and washed the feet of his disciples as an example of humble service.

Good Friday (The Passion of the Lord) is the most solemn day of the year — a day of mourning, fasting, and penance that commemorates Jesus’ crucifixion and death on the cross.

It is a day of strict fasting and abstinence from meat for Catholics aged 14 and older, with some observing additional silence or prayer between noon and 3 p.m.

Popular devotions include the Stations of the Cross (a meditation on 14 scenes from Jesus’ Passion) and processions or reenactments in some cultures. For the first time since Pope John Paul II, Pope Leo Pope personally carried the wooden cross himself through all 14 stations.

But there is no Catholic Mass on Good Friday. The tabernacle is empty, and the altar remains bare.

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Pope Leo XIV Picks a Top Rothschild Executive To Head the Vatican Bank, Sending the Conspiracy Theories Into Overdrive

Rothschilds were raided by French Police in Epstein probe; but, today, a former executive controls Vatican Finances.

Just a few days ago, the top exorcists in the Catholic Church met with Pope Leo XIV to ask of him to reinforce the ranks of priests and bishops trained to deal with the surge in occult and satanic practices.

This is fact, not a rumor or unverified report (check at the bottom of the post).

But today, Leo appointed François Pauly as next president of the Vatican Bank.

Before we can even evaluate whether this is a good choice or not, a thick fog has risen with wild conspiracy claims that an ancient secret society is taking direct control of the Catholic Church’s finances.

Pauly is the new president of the supervisory board for the ‘Institute for the Works of Religion’, managing the church’s money, properties and charitable works.

The problem is where he comes from.

Daily Mail reported:

“Conspiracy theorists immediately seized on Pauly’s ties to the powerful Rothschild group – one of the most famous international banking families in history that has been alleged to be part of the secret society known as the Illuminati.”

While no one needs to believe in the Illuminati, the notion that elite bankers, politicians, Freemasons and powerful families worldwide act to manipulate governments and world events is hardly controversial anymore.

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SPIRITUAL WAR: Top Exorcists Ask Pope Leo To Increase Number and Training of Specialized Priests To Combat Surge in Occultism and Satanic Practices

‘And [Jesus] asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we are many.’ (Mark 5:9)

One need not be a trained exorcist to recognize all around us that today’s world is experiencing a surge in occult and Satanic practices.

But the men who actually are the top exorcists in the Catholic Church have gone up to Pope Leo XIV with a single plea: reinforce their numbers.

Leo received representatives of the International Association of Exorcists (AIE) in a private audience on Friday, March 13 – perhaps not the most auspicious day.

The AIE heads presented the Holy Father with a report on the growing number of cases related to occultism, esotericism, and Satanism.

The report also examines the spiritual consequences this has for many people.

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MAGA billionaire Peter Thiel infuriates Vatican by claiming ANTICHRIST is coming and will impose dystopian ‘one–world’ government

MAGA billionaire Peter Thiel has angered the Vatican by hosting a four–part lecture series in Rome warning that the Antichrist is coming and will subject humanity to a ‘one–world’ government.

Thiel, 58, has raised concerns for months about what he views as an imminent threat, according to The New York Times.

The tycoon, who made his money by setting up PayPal, has warned of the ‘occult forces [that] are ceaselessly at work, intent on destroying what remains of the West,’ the outlet reported.

The Antichrist is described in the Bible as a conniving figure who opposes Jesus Christ and seeks to challenge human allegiance to God.

Thiel, the chairman of big data and artificial intelligence giant Palantir, has argued the Antichrist will manipulate humanity by promising solutions to contemporary existential threats.

He has earmarked topics like AI, environmental crises and bioweapons as pathways to that outcome.

But rather than a single person, Thiel has suggested the Antichrist could take the shape of a centralized global government that gradually strips away individual rights and freedoms.

Thiel’s secretive conference, titled ‘The Biblical Antichrist’, began Sunday and is slated to run until Wednesday.

Thiel’s views were described as ‘a theological–apocalyptic framework as disturbing as it is structured’ by Italian Catholic priest Paolo Benanti, who previously advised Pope Francis on AI.

In an essay titled ‘American heresy: Should we burn Peter Thiel?’, Benanti argued that Thiel’s views about the Antichrist amounted to ‘heresy.’

‘In other words: either a global technocratic regime imposing salvation by falsehood, or total annihilation,’ he wrote about Thiel’s views.

A newspaper owned by the Italian bishops’ conference, Avvenire, called Thiel ‘the heart of darkness of the digital world.’

Another essay in the publication accused Thiel of seeking ‘absolute power managed by technocrats supported by artificial intelligence, without which, he argues, the state will never function.’

About one hundred guests have been spotted at the lecture series, according to Italian newspaper La Repubblica. Most appeared to be Italian businessmen and politicians.

The talks’ audience has largely been made up of younger men, plus some women and a number of American priests and students.

Thiel spoke for about two hours on the first day of the seminar and touched on the future of AI.

‘It’s not the solution to all evils,’ he was quoted as saying by the outlet. ‘But it shouldn’t be demonized.’

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Catholic bishop, 69, accused of visiting mega-brothel 12 times in one month is dramatically arrested as he prepared to board flight to ROME

A disgraced Catholic bishop who was accused of visiting a notorious Mexican mega-brothel 12 times in one month was abruptly arrested on his way out of the country.

Bishop Emanuel Shaleta, 69, was detained at San Diego International Airport on Thursday after church members accused him of pocketing up to a million dollars from the Chaldean Catholic Eparchy of St. Peter the Apostle.

According to the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office, Shaleta was charged with eight counts of embezzlement, eight counts of money laundering and one enhancement of ‘aggravated white collar crime.’

The Pillar previously reported that the bishop was expected to travel to Rome this week.

A church member originally contacted police with accusations against Shaleta in August 2025. 

The Vatican ordered an investigation alongside the Sheriff’s department after allegations of financial fraud and personal misconduct came to light.

Investigators alleged that Shaleta took at least $427,345 from parish accounts, issuing so-called reimbursement checks that he signed himself.

Shaleta was also allegedly seen frequenting a Gentleman’s Club in Tijuana that has been described as a brothel where women and girls have allegedly been trafficked and forced to work.

Shaleta turned in his resignation to the Vatican in January, but has vehemently denied any allegations of fraud. 

‘I have never in my priestly life or episcopal life abused any of the Church money,’ he said at a church service held on February 22, per the San Diego Union-Tribune. 

‘On the contrary, I have done my best to preserve and manage the donations of the Church properly.’ 

According to the investigation, Shaleta’s parish leased its social hall to an outside management firm for roughly $34,000 per month. 

Rent is normally paid by check by an outside company. 

However, records from November 2024 reportedly showed the payment coming from a separate parish bank account used to assist the poor.

When Shaleta was asked about this, he allegedly said he had told the company to give him the full amount so he could distribute it directly to families in need.

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Cardinal found with phone during secret conclave to elect Pope Leo, book says

The secret conclave that elected Pope Leo head of the Catholic Church in May 2025 was interrupted when one of the 133 cardinals involved was found carrying a cellphone, a massive security breach, a book released on March 1 revealed.

As the clerics were preparing to take their first vote inside the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel, which was fitted with jamming equipment to prevent outside communications, security officials picked up the signal of an active mobile connection.

The cardinals stared at each other incredulously, then one of the older clerics discovered he had a phone in his pocket and handed it over, according to The Election of Pope Leo XIV, a new book by two long-time Vatican correspondents.

The book does not name the cardinal or suggest he had any motive for keeping his phone, saying the moment left him “disoriented and distressed”.

Security breach was ‘better than fiction’

The scene was “unimaginable even for a film and never before seen in the history of modern conclaves”, wrote authors Gerard O’Connell and Elisabetta Pique.

One such film, the 2024 hit Conclave, imagined a tangled web of intrigues during the fictional selection of a pontiff. The unprecedented discovery of a phone in 2025 was in its own way more startling than anything portrayed in that movie, O’Connell told Reuters. “Reality (was) better than fiction,” he said.

Clerics taking part in a conclave take a vow not to communicate with the outside world and surrender their phones and all other communication devices for the duration of the proceedings, which can last for days.

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Epstein Obsessed With Vatican, Conspired With Steve Bannon

Newly released documents from the Justice Department have cast fresh light on disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein’s long-running fixation with the Catholic Church and his private exchanges with Steve Bannon, a former adviser to President Donald Trump, about efforts to “take down” Pope Francis.

The tranche of emails and text messages, dating primarily from 2014 to 2019, reveals a pattern of mockery, ideological hostility, and political strategizing centered on the Vatican.

Epstein was convicted in 2008 of child sex offenses and later died in federal custody in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. 

The records showed that in the years between those events he remained engaged with powerful political and media figures — including Bannon — and expressed particular contempt for the Roman Catholic Church and its papacy.

The most politically charged revelations involve text messages exchanged in 2018 and 2019 between Epstein and Bannon, the former White House chief strategist who had become an adviser to Epstein in the years after he was found guilty of sex charges.

In a June 2019 message, Bannon wrote to Epstein: “Will take down [Pope] Francis. The Clintons, [Chinese President] Xi [Jinping], Francis, EU — come on brother.”

The language suggests that Francis was viewed by Bannon as part of a broader set of geopolitical and ideological adversaries.

At the time, Francis was a vocal critic of nationalism, xenophobia, and anti-immigrant policies — positions that placed him at odds with segments of the populist right and traditional Catholics.

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New baby graveyard found at home where 796 infants were buried in septic tank

A second baby graveyard has been found at the site of a maternity home for unwed mothers run by Catholic nuns in Ireland, where the remains of almost 800 infants were already found buried in a septic tank.

Excavations are currently underway at a seemingly inconspicuous patch of grass next to a children’s playground in a small Irish town after a evidence of a mass grave was uncovered.

The land, attached to a home run by nuns between 1925 and 1961 in the town of Tuam, 220km west of Dublin, was left largely untouched after the institution was knocked down in 1972.

But in 2014, amateur historian Catherine Corless, presented evidence that 796 babies, from newborns to a nine-year-old, had died at Tuam’s mother and baby home, leading to an Irish Commission of Investigation into the so-called mother and baby homes.

During its almost 40-year operation, the facility housed a number of women who had become pregnant outside of marriage and were shunned by their families. They were often separated from their children after giving birth.

A planned two-year excavation of the unmarked mass burial site began in July, conducted by the Office of the Director of Authorised Intervention in Tuam (ODAIT), which has since found evidence of a second burial site at the home.

Daniel MacSweeney, who is leading the excavation, told Irish broadcaster RTE a total of 11 sets of infant remains have been discovered in the new location, around 15 metres away from a memorial ground on the site.

All were buried in coffins, and date from the period between 1925 and 1961, when the home operated.

They were found less than a metre below the old surface, which had been covered by gravel more recently.

“We have indications of further potential graves of infant and child size, and over the coming weeks and months we will excavate them and see what we find there,” he said.

“There is also a historic map that shows a larger burial ground in this part of the site. We will also excavate there and see if there are further burials.”

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Vatican Accepts Resignation of Jailed Bishop, Raising Questions About Religious Freedom in China

The Vatican replaced detained underground Bishop Joseph Zhang Weizhu in the Apostolic Prefecture of Xinxiang with Bishop Francis Li Jianlin in a December 5 ceremony, drawing praise from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) but serious concern from China’s underground Catholic community.

Zhang, secretly ordained in 1991 with Vatican approval but never recognized by Beijing, has been detained since May 2021 and his whereabouts remain unknown. He was arrested just after recovering from cancer surgery, along with priests and seminarians, for allegedly violating regulations requiring clergy to register with the state. Chinese authorities barred him from attending his successor’s ordination.

China officially recognizes only five religions: Buddhism, Catholicism, Islam, Protestantism, and Taoism. These groups operate under state-sanctioned patriotic religious associations supervised by the United Front Work Department (UFWD), the CCP’s propaganda and influence arm. In 2018, the State Administration for Religious Affairs was absorbed into the UFWD, bringing all religious affairs under direct Party control.

The constitution protects only “normal religious activities,” without defining what “normal” means, and forbids religion from disrupting public order, impairing citizens’ health, or interfering with education. Clergy must support CCP leadership and adhere to the Sinicization of religion. Religious activity is restricted to approved premises, and the state maintains control over clergy appointments, publications, finances, and seminary enrollment. Minors are forbidden from entering places of worship, and pastors and imams have been instructed to emphasize socialist values in their teachings.

Under the Sinicization campaign, the Three-Self Patriotic Movement and the Chinese Christian Council drafted a five-year plan to retranslate the Old Testament and provide new commentary on the New Testament to align scripture with socialist ideology. A 2020 university textbook even rewrote the Gospel account of the woman caught in adultery, replacing Jesus’ mercy with a fabricated story in which he stones the woman and declares, “I am also a sinner.”

Across Henan province, officials forced Protestant churches to replace the Ten Commandments with Xi Jinping quotes. Authorities have ordered the removal of crosses and replaced images of Christ and the Virgin Mary with portraits of Xi. These campaigns censor religious texts, compel clergy to preach CCP ideology, and mandate the display of political slogans.

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