frm88The Pentagon Threatened Pope Leo XIV's Ambassador with the Avignon Papacy
https://www.thelettersfromleo.com/p/the-pentagon-threatened-pope-leo
Idk which is more impressive that someone referenced the Avignon Papacy in a heat of the moment argument or that the same person who could reference that thought it was a good idea. (Not Catholic...but like...why?)
It doesn't sound like a heat-of-the-moment reference, but a very calculated one based on this line from the article:
> 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.
It sounds like some hothead idiot driven by the big orange hothead idiot prompted Claude about how to threaten the Vatican and then used its talking points on the ambassador.
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.
Not taking these people seriously is how we got here. Please stop making that mistake. These people are insane.
The president can threaten to wipe out a civilization without any meaningful repercussions. I'm calling them idiots, which they are. No doubt if they thought it wouldn't cause excessive embarrassment anxiety in the president they'd try to murder the pope.