> According to his sources, Colby’s team picked apart the pope’s January state-of-the-world address line by line and read it as a hostile message aimed directly at the administration.
So "calculated" maybe, but only because AI could come up with the answer, I have serious doubts that many of these people possess more than basic literacy much less the ability to come up with something like this. Or some CIA analyst who hates their job came up with this to mock their bosses.
We also read Genesis in English classes (from a literary perspective).
Any history major with interest in medieval Europe, yes, any middle schooler? No way.
The Finnish term translates as "Avignon captivity" rather than the more neutral "Avignon Papacy", which could be a clue. It's easy to imagine that a traditional Protestant society would use a debacle like that to illustrate how silly those Catholics and their power struggles are and why the Reformation was necessary.
Do you remember the tariffs list debacle? One line of thought is that AI generated that fiasco.
https://m.economictimes.com/news/international/us/did-donald...
They are also immune to embarrassment.
No, they, especially one of them has EXTREME anxiety about his image, just not in the way that normal people do. He's got the psychology of an anxious child wanting to please a neglectful father. This is why TACO. And why every third word is some ridiculous boast about something nonsensical. This is insecurity driven politics and its WHY HE GOT ELECTED. Fear and insecurity electing what they imagine strength to be.
What would the stupidest, most insecure, adult child think is the pinnacle of strength? ... yup.
And the attention economy is being set up to exploit this demographic because it's the lowest common denominator and it WORKS.
Evolutionarily it's some kind of mechanism to weed out the weaknesses in a population by exaggerating them so it's easier for natural selection to weed them out? Or punishing the rest of us for not doing enough about it before it got so bad... something like that.
Since whatever happens to Trump is always somebody else's fault, why should embarrassment come into the picture? They're the ones who should be embarrassed! And so on.
Trump's followers are also utterly shameless, and they're the ones that matter since they vote in such large numbers. Just like their leader, if they could be embarrassed, they would be, but they're not.
They're blustery cowards. This is how that kind of person acts.
They're not shameless, they're overflowing with shame and acting out because of it. Leaders and supporters.
They can be both stupid and unhinged. The power they wield is worth taking seriously but that doesn't necessitate pretending that these are serious people
A lot of religious people are extremely knowledgeable about historical stuff related to their religions.
They might draw the absolutely worst conclusions from their historical knowledge and have incredibly biased takes but they’ve actually read and discussed these things which is more than you can say for your average person.
It ultimately comes from their personal identify being so intricately tied to the religious organization that they are a part of — on some level they view these historical events as their own personal history as they identify as a ‘evangelical Christian’ or ‘orthodox Jew’ more than they view themselves as a person named Dave who has a family and stuff.
At the end of the day it’s all just more Hatfield and McCoys or tribal warfare over a goat that was killed centuries ago bullshit.
There are subtleties to this particular pissing match that aren't immediately obvious. The Vatican is starting to rein in the Opus Dei cult-within-a-cult. After John Paul II canonized its founder in 2002 on shaky grounds, later Popes have started to think that maybe they went a little too far. Meanwhile, Opus Dei has focused on gaining more secular influence in government (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/26/kevi...).
Elbridge Colby is also Catholic, and some of his religious beliefs factor into his policy preferences. Groton, Harvard BA, Yale Law, hard-to-get service medals.
I’m not saying I like the guy, but his knowledge and background should not be underestimated as some nearby are doing.
Or this guy? https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/18/jared-...
Can you give some examples of this?
> Every lifelong Catholic I've ever met is like "I think we're supposed to give this food to poor people" and every adult convert is like "the Archon of Constantinople's epistle on the Pentacostine rites of the eucharist clearly states women shouldn't have driver's licenses."
The third type of convert, though, joins because they like the structure. They like the gravitas. They like the moral absolutes. They like the patriarchal hierarchy that doesn't let women lead. They sign up and immediately declare that Vatican 2 was a terrible mistake and that all of the popes since then have been illegitimate. JD Vance didn't join because he loved their soup kitchens.
OCA is the second-largest jurisdiction (distantly, behind the greeks) in the US and most of its parishes could be described as "english language russian orthodox" though they are not ultimately under the patriarch of moscow. Which is close enough to what most nonorthodox mean when they say russian orthodox. The jurisdictional situation is a mess but since the churches are all in communion with each other individuals are free to not care about it and most exercise that freedom.
Almost instantaneously we were up to our ears in slick guys with shiny suits making improbable real estate deals with money that just apparated from Lord Knows Where. I have a high tolerance for sketch, but Easter services rose past that threshold rapidly; there is only so much leopard print and fishnet I can take when walking around a tiny church at 2 AM.
Offtopic, but during that period, between 2007 and when gramma passed, I noticed another fascinating phenomenon. The old grannies would talk about some young gangster or other "finding their Jewish granma". I chalked it up to the usual venomous levels of Russian antisemitism[1], but a couple news stories later, and I'll be damned if there wasn't a brace of these jokers claiming Right of Return, supposedly from some Jewish relations they lost track of pre-WW2. Now, I'm not accusing anyone of anything here, but if I was a Russian gangster looking to move money around, and I look at the Right of Return, and then I think to myself about how, uh, lackluster records keeping was on the Ostfront . . I mean, the idea of maybe falsifying some family records might cross my mind. And maybe, if Israel needs some cash, maybe there's a renegade political party that needs some outsiders, they won't check those records super hard, either.
And that's how mischief in history happens right there.
[1] Particularly among the generation that got chased out with the Whites, the "last boat from Kaffa". To their dying day that generation basically considered Communism to be the "fist of the Jew" smashing the old order, and they carried that grudge their entire lives. I know, oof.
I knew a guy in highschool, he was adopted from Russia by a Russian-Jewish family. He was raised Jewish. Somewhere after highschool he got dragged into dark spots of the internet. Him and a close friend of his converted to Eastern Orthodox and began dropping constant Nazi dog whistles. Explicit anti-semitism. Both were in the military, one was an Army Ranger. Their posts were reported to LE but nothing came of it.
I'm confident the Ranger would kill for fun if given the chance, and any evidence of his war crimes would be covered up.
Knew a totally different Orthodox convert. He converted in college, went to school for political science. Sucked on his cross necklace and told my sister she'd be going to hell. She thankfully broke up with him.
The Orthodox church attracts some real cretins in my experience.
By "attracts", I was insinuating people not already in the church, aka converts.
I am deeply skeptical of all converts to Catholicism and I speculate that the alt-right spaces online painted a picture of conversion as going back to the foundation of the Western civilization, or at least its idealized white nationalist picture.
Please, write US-American. These people are not coming from any other place.
Want to make a religious leader/adult mad as a kid? Ask them why we aren't doing more for the poor like Jesus would do. Source: Me as a kid. I didn't ask in a snotty way, genuinely asked and got rebuked for it.
I often feel as if I follow the Bible closer than a number of, ostensibly, "religious" people.
What's the quote? Something like "I like your Christ, I do not like his followers"? I'm probably butchering it.
I was raised in the church, I internalized the teachings and methodologies, however voting for people who try to do those things is met with scorn. Most "religious" people would rather vote for the person talking about how much they love the Bible (or <insert holy book here>) rather than the people actually doing things inline with the Bible.
"Feed the poor... unless it will raise my taxes"
The common phrasing is "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."
Snopes says it is unproven as a quote from Gandhi. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/did-gandhi-say-this-about-...
But false quotes get passed around a lot because people agree with them. I also happen to agree with this particular one.
Let’s not give that same person more credit than they deserve. I’m sure they came preprepared with some LLM derived threats for when they didn’t get what they wanted from the Vatican.
what's the robert frost quote, something like "if you could reason with religious people we wouldn't have religious people"
They obsess over the law, doctrine, and history of the Catholic church. Invoking events from millennia prior, and despite converting to Catholicism by choice, will denounce the Pope for being woke or what have you, insisting it's not the true Catholic church.
It's extremely bizarre and counterintuitive. Why convert to the branch of Christianity with the elected god-king if you don't want to listen to the elected god-king?
Maybe they just want to indulge in eating human flesh and blood? (AFAIK, Catholicism includes the belief that during Communion, the bread and wine literally transform into the flesh and blood of Jesus).
Yeah, well. That aged like raw milk.
Famously the French got rid of theirs, several times. Maybe not the best example.
You can be French and not like cheese.
Wait, no, it doesn't work.
The Church certainly disagrees with you, teaching that the visible Church is the ordinary means of salvation and full communion with Christ. (see the Precepts, CCC ~846–848)
I'm not even sure from what position you are arguing from, but both of those statements (relationship with God supported by a visible church rather than requiring it, and Matthew 18:20) are fundamental arguments for Protestantism.
[0] https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/is-there-re...
I come from a Protestant background, so I view Catholicism as just Protestants with a pope. What does it mean to be catholic but without a pope?
Catholics owe the Pope religious submission of intellect and will to his authentic magisterium (teaching authority) on faith and morals, even when not speaking infallibly (Lumen Gentium 25; CCC 892; Code of Canon Law, can. 752). This is a respectful adherence and presumption in favor of what he teaches officially as Pope. This does not extend to his personal opinions, private theological views, prudential judgments (e.g., on politics, economics, or administrative decisions), or liking him as a person or agreeing with everything he says or does in a non-magisterial capacity.
I don’t think you can? You know how that worked out? It’s the OG ‘No Kings’.
You can be christian and not like the pope.
But to catholics, the pope is the terrestrial embodiment of the holy spirit, and as such considered infaillible. Not recognizing the pope as such is incompatible with catholicism.
Papacy is a core part of catholicism, it's not a "pick and choose buffet".
This is a common misconception. The pope is only considered as speaking infallibly by the Catholic Church when speaking ex cathedra on matter of faith and morals. This is very rare and is considered to only have happened twice in history.
Quick, read the Nicene creed aloud right now...
> America, Colby and his colleagues told the cardinal, has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world. The Catholic Church had better take its side.
> As tempers rose, an unidentified U.S. official reached for a fourteenth-century weapon and invoked the Avignon Papacy, the period when the French Crown used military force to bend the bishop of Rome to its will.
I'm also not 100% sure what they mean with "invoked the Avignon Papacy", a bit like saying "Invoked the Second World War", it was an event/time period as far as I know, not something you "invoke" exactly. But even mentioning it makes it pretty clear what they're hinting at to be honest.
1: to call forth or up: such as
a: to bring to mind or recollection
b: to cite especially with approval or for supportJokes aside, there are only a couple in my area and they are ripe with tribalism and hard to approach. Appreciate your recommendation, though.
Putin already owns one, and King Charles III is one. C'mon, everybody is doing it!
At that period in history, the French kingdom (catholic) was at war with the Spanish kingdom (also catholic) and Italian kingdoms/duchies. A pope had immense political power because of the fervor of the people. If the pope excommunicated a king, he would lose a lot of power in his kingdom and all catholic countries would have a good reason to declare war. Hence, the strategical relocation of "a" pope in the city of Avignon, under French "protection".
I believe the threat is to "protect" a new pope in the US. Whether catholic (maybe other christian denominations) Americans would support it...
[^1] https://biblehub.com/q/Why_were_temple_items_taken_to_Babylo...
[^2] Francesca Stavrakopoulou. "God, an anatomy".
How does this land with them?
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdrg8zkz8d0o
Trump is the real pope obviously.
Can the DOD do this? This seems more like the purview of State.
Any exec branch dept can communicate directly with foreign diplomats, and ambassadors are accredited to the USA as a whole, not exclusively to State
Fair enough, but summoning an ambassador is not a regular form of communication, and well out of the purview of DOD.
> It's ok to ask how to read an article or to help other users by sharing a workaround. But please do this without going on about paywalls. Focus on the content.
I am earnestly curious to read a recounting of what was said by the Trump official.
The pope has cancelled his visit to the U.S. because of this incident and Vance is investigating it.
I‘m pretty sure the god they often mentioned would see that differently.
Not that anybody really believed they are true believers and just hypocrites.
The past which the 'make america great again' people want to take us back to absolutely loathed Catholics, something I don't think modern Catholics realize.
The colony of Maryland was originally intended to be a safe place for Catholics, and the first chance the Puritans got, they revolted, invaded, burned the Catholic churches down and persecuted their worshippers. The US was explicitly not founded on religious tolerance, it was founded on freedom to persecute Catholics.
That’s why anyone that believes in separation of religion and state should tell these folks anytime they push for Christianity in schools, just tell them: ok but it needs to be the true Christianity- Jehovah Witnesses- then they will shut up. They hate Jehovah witnesses, then Mormons, then Catholics, …
I have Mormon family that thinks that they're welcome in the Evangelical tent (they'll even visit the Ark Experience!), but Evangelicals hate Mormons just like they hate gays, liberals, trans people, atheists, etc. It's just that Mormons (for now) vote the way that Evangelicals want.
https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2024/05/07/cbc-...
The past that MAGA refers to is imaginary. It's "the good old days", whatever that evokes in any individual, with however selective that individual's memory is or however incomplete that individual's knowledge of history is.
It's like the Brexit referendum - Britons voted on "the status quo is bad, would you like something better than the status quo?" and a slim majority of them voted yes. They didn't agree on exactly how things should be negotiated to be better, just that they could imagine something better than the current state.
Seems a bit broken to claim that something that happened in 1689 when it was a colony, as you explicitly note, is fundamental to the founding of the nation a century later.
“The deepest bias in the history of the American people,” according to Arthur Schlesinger. “The most luxuriant, tenacious tradition of paranoiac agitation in American history,” said John Higham.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/12/america-histor...
I say this as an American Catholic who went to Catholic schools until college and knows full well about Catholic discrimination in US history. Protestants have discriminated against other protestants, everyone has discriminated against LDS, LDS has discriminated against everyone else, everyone has discriminated against Jews, Catholics have discriminated against <insert your choice of target here>, etc. These facts don't make up founding motives just because they are true.
In fact, they weren't fleeing persecution at all! They were living in the (relatively) religiously tolerant Netherlands. They left the Netherlands because they weren't succeeding in business there. They came to North America essentially as economic migrants.
The current supreme court has 6 catholic justices, with 2 appointed by trump. 2 of them rubber stamp everything trump does (alito and thomas), and most of the others support him more often than not (rogers, coney-barrett, kavanaugh). Only sotomayor opposes him frequently.
If you covertly (or not) want to oppress a religion why stack the highest court in the country with people from said religion?
Pentagon To Host Good Friday Service Just For Protestants, Not Catholics
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/news-live-updates_n_69ca6616e...
I fully agree that only Congress can change the official title of the Department of Defense to Department of War, but the vast majority of Americans are so authority-slavish that they just accept the administration wiping its ass with the Constitution.
probably just a mix-up re: "war" department
I don't like being a part of the reactionary 'orange man bad' crew, but this is really shockingly bizarre. It's not the kind of behaviour you expect from a real leader of a real superpower. And it does make you think - perhaps there's something to be said about the USA not being nearly the power that it once was, and maybe this is what it looks like after you crest the apex of power.
Recent news articles have indicated an increase in church attendance. This makes sense: we have lost our moral compass... Specifically in the USA... And people are searching for a new direction.
As an atheist, I find it grating to hear people talking about only the idealistic side of Christianity and ignoring all the wars, torture and denigration of people that it caused. Of course, other religions are also responsible for a lot of the same sins.
That said, I do have respect for the teachings of Jesus - he seemed to be very much into socialism and very anti-Captialist.
The history of American diplomacy is mostly of an iron fist wearing a thin glove. This administration removes the glove. It is in line with the transparency of the Department of War v. Defense. Consensus is the label they put on the package of sausages to save face.
The good side of US diplomacy was one of the most positive forces in the world. Trump fully dismantled that. Not just the US aid work, but also the Pax Americana that really limited the scale of war in the world.
There were horrible missteps at the same time. The US wasn’t all good. Maybe it wasn’t even net good. But there was a significant good side, and its dismantling isn’t a small thing in the world.
Appeals to “transparency” are just an attempt to distract from worse outcomes.
The fatal flaw of this administration is that they care more about looks than substance. They would rather look tough and lose than look meek and win. It doesn’t even occur to them that it is possible to win while looking meek.
All in the name of “immigrants are root cause problems”
The average person really has one choice “red” or “blue” and there isn’t much reason other than my group votes a certain way so I vote that way.
Trump came to power because he tapped into people’s anger.
I don’t see a world where this gets better. Social media and news propagates fear and hatred like wildfire. Algos massively boost up anything that improves engagement. Engagement improves adclicks.
So we may actually end up destroying the empire for a bunch of adclicks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karaj_B1_bridge_attack
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...
And it turns out they don’t have the power to do what they like. The US is terrifying, but it’s military looks weaker.
And the ease with which Trump is manipulated by those with skills in that area is horrifying. Eg Netanyahu, Putin.
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a socialist ...[0]
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
What this feels is just an escalation. There are some devout catholics who might've voted for Trump and his antics, perhaps feeling for a christian identity.
I definitely feel like there was something similar to that poem where they first came for W,X and Y people and people didn't speak out now its Z people and no one is left to speak.
It's easy within humanity to hate a particular outside group and sometimes that becomes the basis of the inside group. I wish to say that Humanity has multiple problems, we can try to make a better world by co-operation and hope that we learn from this dark chapter in history from the last year or two.
I don't wish to blame anyone because blaming leads to nowhere, Sadly, we haven't learn from the past atrocities thus we are within the present but I just hope that with open-ness we can learn from the past, we can learn from the present and I hope that we can only leave a better future for the next generation to come.
It's hard to give hope right now in reality but I hope to give others what I am lacking right now myself at times. all these things are truly for petty reasons. I expect better from humanity but perhaps this is an weird form of equilibrium but we are humans and we can think for ourselves and change things and build a better future for all of us hopefully.
We can do better, and I hope so that we will. Have a nice day to all.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_They_Came (The poem continues but I am trimming it for context of this message)
It also shows the short-sightedness of the "scholars" in the administration. Sure, the Avignon Papacy did occur, that's historical fact.
It's also a historical fact that the Catholic Church is an actually ancient power broker in the world still and they have been around for much, much longer than the United States. The Church is actually quite good at playing the long game (and I say that as someone raised firmly Protestant).
I saw a headline in NYT today saying this current historical situation is the United States "Suez Crisis" moment. Hard to disagree and hard to see how America recovers from this. I don't feel the pinch will come in the next few years but by 2036 I think the US will wonder what happened.
Also...I don't think a fast-follow conflict in Cuba right after this Iran affair is going to do much good, but that seems like where their appetite is going next.
Putin has been working on this since he came to power, ~30 some years
Israel has been trying to make the US do its dirty work since the first oil crisis in the 70s too / Yom Kippur War.
I was watching a video by Man carrying thing about Iran war, (he makes skit about things which are still good) and he mentioned the Cuba thing.
I am being 100% serious right now, I thought that it was just a joke of the skit. Are we actually being serious right now of America doing a conflict with Cuba?
After the Iran war where now Iran gets to tax the Strait of Hormuz, something it previously didn't do.
As Non-American, where is my say in all of this, heck, where is the say of every american in all of this. Nearly all the americans I know/talk to is disappointed themselves in all of this. You have got to be joking about yet another conflict.
I find it hilarious that one of the conditions of the ceasefire is that the straight opens. It was open prior to the war. Great negotiation. Wow.
The US administration and military look like fools.
I asked someone after the 9/11 attacks about the possibility of the USA invading Iran and even back then I got a "lol no that's nuts the USA would have its arse handed to it" kind of answer. Better phrased, but basically that.
The US administration and the parachuted in TV host head of Crusades that pushed out all the thinky cautious types .. they look like prize idiots, as they always have.
Sadly, I think the answer is yes. Iran might put a brief damper / brake on the timeline but the current US administration seems intent on seizing the moment and pushing out the Castro government once and for all. It's "beef" that goes a long way back, if you look up the history of Cuba, even how Fidel Castro first came to power was under the banner of pushing out that era's US-backed administration. And Cuba had been a point of major US economic interests as well so the USA was not happy to see the rise of the Communists in their backyard.
EDIT: you mentioned you're a non-American and the Americans you talk to are all upset/disappointed. If you're European especially, the Americans you're most likely to interact with are well-educated and liberal. There are parts of the country that are firmly pro-Trump, where it's completely out of the norm to have liberal / European-style values.
This is Mark Rubio*, and only Rubio. This admin is all about letting the people who helped put it together each have their turn at using the US as the vehicle for their personal grievances and profits. No part of this admin cares about the United States of America or its history. It's simply a tool for them, they won't have to deal with the fallout from trading it in for generational wealth that puts them above it.
*The NYT has many pieces on this
I think you don't know your US history.
China behaves quite responsibly outside of their borders (which are a bit fluid with regards to Taiwan and the seas, but still).
Trump says 'Cuba is next' in speech touting US military successes - https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/trump-says-cuba-is-ne...
:shrug:
Just another day.
Reminded me of this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hSEwy8ZORc (Herbert Moon blames the Jewish British Catholic Homosexual elite for the undead plague.)
They keep pushing and pushing until the unthinkable is the new normal.
POTUS F' bombing on Easter? Sure, why not.
From the get go it looked like an engineered "Suez Crisis", on the inside and out. Nobody with real power is that dumb.
> Hard to disagree and hard to see how America recovers from this.
Hard or not, there's no alternative to recovery.
>According to his sources, Colby’s team picked apart the pope’s January state-of-the-world address line by line and read it as a hostile message aimed directly at the administration.
>What enraged them most was Leo’s declaration that “a diplomacy that promotes dialogue and seeks consensus among all parties is being replaced by a diplomacy based on force.”
they then proceed to insinuate use of force.
Other news publications are trying to get the full story: https://x.com/jdflynn/status/2042076430406672829?s=46&t=u6IW...
I wouldn't put anything past the current admin, but I don't know what the US could stand to gain from directly antagonizing the Vatican.
While it sounds like the discussion was "tense" according to Vatican officials, it was blatantly mischaracterized in TFA, and nobody on either side recalls the Avignon papacy being mentioned or referred to.
Have you read the Old Testament? It's full of war.
Now we're fast tracking the Rapture.
Assuming that doesn't work out for them, who are they going to follow when the Chosen One doesn't get a 3rd term?
In any case, perhaps we will soon see the return of Catholic persecution in the U.S. due to "conflicting" loyalties between Pope and country...
If the people ruling the US nowadays ever read the Bible they would likely reject the word of Jesus as woke bullshit. And if they do read the book, they likely only care about the bits related to the end of the world, and are hellbent (hah) in speeding it up.
https://xcancel.com/BrianBurchUSA/status/2042307511504519366
I'm going to put this in the "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof" bin.
That's still a good question, though. Do any of them have anything more substantial than 'anonymous' sources, or even their own anonymous sources not linked to the breaking article's?
I am generally suspicious when anonymous sources quoted these days, but I am rather more suspicious of reports that only come from a single source and get repeated in multiple outlets more or less immediately.
I know there is some amount of synchronicity induced by syndicated news feed outlets like AP, but like many single source/anonymous stories, this reads to me like some 'suggested copy' was sent out to some reporters or outlets ahead of time.
Anonymous sources are important for the integrity of reporting, but it must also be recognized that they are essentially non-authenticatable information.
The author of the secondary source I see most mainstream sources quoting (Mattia Ferraresi) has also come out and said people are stretching and misrepresenting what he wrote: https://xcancel.com/mattiaferraresi/status/20424925662396866...
There is at least one outlet that appears to have asked the both Pentagon and the Church what was up and both parties told them the meeting was overstated as well: https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/nuncios-pentagon-meeting-wa...
Very good piece essentially confirming my reporting for @TheFP, in which — I should emphasize — I did not mention any actual military threat to the Vatican and simply reported a tense meeting that included, in passing, an unsavory mention of the Avignon Papacy.
Setting aside only the military intervention bit, which my original link didn't have in the first place, but confirms the Avignon statement and the 'terse' nature of the dialogue. Together with the cancellation I can infer some high tension going on. Your second link basically repeats what all the official statements published, reframing events in politically appropriate speech.
We will see. The cancellation is official though, the visit to Lampedusa on July 4th instead of the US has been confirmed.
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At this point I don't think anything other than the church retains the ability to present a coherent moral or metaphysical intellectual framework to people who care about that kind of thing.
I would be very surprised if the united states is not majority catholic in ~100 years
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More likely he would just assert that the Pope isn't actually the Pope, and thus any excommunications are void, and his supporters would roll with it. Some of them already believe this. Any words, true or false, which make them feel better to believe. That's religion, right? He is their true religion.
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https://soldiersangels.org/the-diversity-of-our-service-memb...
History is why catholics are at 20%. Which is a significant force and a dangerous game to alienate them.
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