Cardinalii pretind ca papa să fie tratat deasupra celorlalți lideri ai lumii. Avem oare un papă al Americii?

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Bishop Strickland Raises Concerns Over US View of Papacy

By James Morley III    |   Saturday, 11 April 2026 11:35 AM EDT

The Vatican’s calls for peace amid escalating tensions between the United States and Iran have taken on added urgency following reports of a tense exchange between U.S. officials and senior Catholic representatives, Newsweek reported on Saturday.

A closed-door January meeting between Pentagon officials and Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the Vatican’s ambassador to Washington, reportedly included pressure for the Holy See to align more closely with U.S. foreign policy, an account the Pentagon has denied.

Bishop Joseph Strickland spoke exclusively with the outlet and said the reported tone of the meeting raised serious concerns about how the papacy is being viewed by U.S. officials.

“The position, the chair of Peter, the papacy, is bigger than one individual,” Strickland told Newsweek.

“What was most troublesome, to me, was it seemed to be treating the papacy as just one more world leader.”

Strickland emphasized that, for Catholics, the Pope’s authority is not comparable to that of political leaders.

“We certainly understand that for people who don’t believe in the papacy,” he said, “but for us as Catholics, it’s more than just one more world leader. We believe it’s a divinely established office. So, it needs to be treated in a different perspective.”

Reports that a U.S. official invoked the Avignon Papacy, a period when secular powers exerted control over the Church, further alarmed the former bishop.

“Bringing that up just indicates a kind of a threatening attitude toward the papacy,” Strickland said.

“That is like, ‘Well, the Pope can be displaced if we, the powers of the world, decide that needs to happen.'”

The fallout from the meeting is believed to have contributed to the Vatican declining an invitation for the Pope to attend upcoming U.S. semiquincentennial celebrations, underscoring the strain in relations.

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