Overview
- Brian Burch, the U.S. ambassador to the Holy See and a former CatholicVote leader, told reporters he personally called Cardinal Christophe Pierre to ask for an apology and help identifying who leaked an account of a tense January Pentagon meeting.
- News accounts had said U.S. officials threatened the Vatican envoy after Pope Leo XIV criticized the Iran war, a portrayal the Pentagon has formally denied.
- Burch said Cardinal Pierre 'emphatically denied' that the meeting was hostile and that the Vatican acknowledged aspects of the earlier reports were exaggerated.
- The source of the original leak remains unknown and Burch framed the episode as an attack on the United States, which has amplified public tensions between President Trump, allies like Vice President JD Vance, and the pope.
- The dispute highlights how leaks and public framing can affect diplomacy with the Holy See and has unsettled many U.S. Catholics by putting theological disagreements and foreign policy disputes into the open.