A Vatican diplomat met with Pentagon officials in January, and now some people are asking if President Donald Trump threatened Pope Leo. What we know.

It alleged that Pentagon officials met with a top Vatican diplomat to the US and raised the memory of a dark time in the Catholic Church’s history: when French rules exercised power over the church and the pope. There are now competing accounts of what actually happened in that meeting, and denials by the Trump administration and the Vatican.

Pope Leo XIV challenged the Trump administration’s argument that God is on the side of the US in the conflict with Iran, the latest in a series of rebukes even as the Vatican and the White House denied any rift following reports of a contentious meeting in January.

It’s an unprecedented situation, with the first American pope directly assailing the American president over the war in Iran, where a fragile ceasefire took hold this week. The announcement came after Pope Leo XIV declared that Trump’s belligerence was “truly unacceptable.”

One U.S. official present at the meeting brought up the Avignon papacy, a period in the fourteenth century when the French monarchy bent the Catholic Church into submission, ordering an attack on Pope Boniface VIII that led to his downfall and subsequent death, and forcing the papacy to relocate from Rome to Avignon.

Bishops’ conferences in the United States, Mexico, the Philippines, Italy, and Spain have urged their faithful to join Pope Leo XIV on April 11 in praying for peace.

On Monday, Pope Leo XIV go start im longest international tour eva, as im dey visit African kontris like Algeria, Cameroon, Angola and Equatorial Guinea. Di Vatican tok say di ten-day tour go draw global attention to Africa. More dan 20 percent of world ...

Harlem Globetrotters basketball team delighted the Pope with a playful lesson in spinning a basketball on his finger, turning a lighthearted moment into a joyful exchange. A player spun the ball and placed it on Pope's finger making it a joyous moment for Pope Leo.