The Vatican’s 72-Hour Timeline

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Two weeks ago, Pope Leo XIV met privately with David Axelrod at the Vatican.

If that name doesn’t sound familiar, let me remind you. David Axelrod was Barack Obama’s campaign architect. He is a man who is not Catholic, who has never met a pope before, and whose entire career has been engineering political narratives for the American left.

By John Tillman, April 24, 2026 https://www.realclearwire.com

The Vatican provided no details about what was discussed. Three days later three senior American churchmen appeared together on 60 Minutes. Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago, Cardinal Robert McElroy of Washington, and Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark gave their first-ever joint interview. They criticized President Trump’s Iran policy, condemned his immigration enforcement, and accused the administration of “gamifying” war.

Bad Faith

It was difficult to regard the timing of the broadcast and the Axelrod meeting as coincidental. It smacked of all-too-familiar progressive coordination.

Within hours of the broadcast, President Trump responded on Truth Social calling Pope Leo “weak on crime” and “terrible for foreign policy.” The subsequent headlines wrote themselves: “Unhinged President Attacks Holy Father.” The media, licking their chops, declared that conservative American Catholics would be forced to choose between their political convictions and their faith. 

It is true that President Trump is sometimes jocular to the point of vulgarity. Even his supporters concede he does not always think before he posts on social media. Nonetheless, the focus on Trump’s rhetoric misses the point. The goal wasn’t to drive the president to make an impolitic post on Truth Social. The carefully calculated goal was to put American Catholics under intense pressure.

Some brief backstory: In January, Pentagon official Elbridge Colby summoned Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the Vatican’s ambassador to the United States. According to reports, Colby told Pierre that the US military “has the power to do whatever it wants” and that the Church “better take its side.” Someone in the room reportedly said something about Avignon, a reference to a city in which a series of medieval popes were held as virtual prisoners by the French crown. That sounded like a very unsubtle threat.

The Avingon Threat

There’s real doubt whether Colby or any of his aides made the Avignon reference. As ever, what mattered wasn’t what actually happened, but how the media reported it. The Vatican was apparently alarmed enough to reject the White House’s invitation to host the Pope for America’s 250th birthday in July. Instead, Leo will spend July 4th on Lampedusa, a tiny Mediterranean island where waves of African migrants arrive every day.

As war began with Iran in late February, the Vatican escalated its criticism of American foreign policy. Then came the strange Axelrod meeting, the 60 Minutes episode, and President Trump’s exasperated response on Truth Social. The left are masters of synchronized political pressure. What makes it different this time is that progressives have deployed the Roman Catholic Church as an instrument of that pressure. There is perhaps no human being on earth with more perceived moral authority than the pope. In recent weeks, the left has succeeded in weaponizing that powerful authority for its own political ends.

Christ as Political Instrument

Pope Leo XIV is the first American pope. Born Robert Prevost, the future pontiff grew up just south of the Chicago city limits. As almost everyone knows, he’s a lifelong White Sox fan. And while I do not hold that error in judgment against him, I do know that anyone who grew up in Chicago has an innate understanding of how politics works. Though he has lived abroad for many years, Pope Leo is said to still consume American media voraciously. So, when the first American Pope meets privately with one of the Democratic Party’s shrewdest political operatives — and when that meeting is followed days later by three progressive Cardinals attacking a sitting Republican president on the nation’s premier primetime news program — we are absolutely witnessing coordinated mischief.

The progressive left has spent decades mastering the particular skill of reducing Jesus to a political instrument. They’ve stripped away the inconvenient parts and ignored the passages from the Bible that don’t fit the narrative. They regularly present Jesus as an immensely compassionate liberal, someone who would freely give money to every poor person regardless of work ethic, never enforce immigration laws, never limit the rights of any minority group, and serve as the great defender of every progressive cause.

The left cherry-picks Bible verses to support their politics while ignoring everything that contradicts their predetermined conclusions. They quote “blessed are the peacemakers” while ignoring centuries of Just War theory. They cite “judge not” while ignoring that Jesus called sin exactly what it was. They stand up for the vulnerable, unless those vulnerable include the unborn.

The Church Will Be Fine

This isn’t just something the secular left imposes on a resistant church. Too often, progressive Catholic bishops and Cardinals speak of Jesus as if His primary concern was validating the Democratic Party platform. This is less the Church speaking moral truth to political power than it is about Church allowing itself to be captured by one side of our political divide.

This is what the celebrated scholar George Weigel meant when he wrote about “the utter incoherence of 21st-century liberal Catholicism.” By incoherence, he meant a version of Catholicism that has become so accommodating to progressive politics that it has lost the ability to articulate what makes Catholic teaching distinctly Catholic. It cherry-picks Church doctrine the same way it cherry-picks Scripture—elevating the parts that align with progressive politics while downplaying or ignoring everything else.

The progressive left has long controlled the commanding heights of American culture. To their hegemony over universities, newsrooms, entertainment, and much of corporate America, you can now – perhaps – add the Vatican. The left understands that cultural authority matters far more than legislative victories. Laws can be overturned and elections can be reversed, but if you control the institutions that shape how people think about what’s morally acceptable, you control the culture.

I’m not here to litigate Catholic doctrine, as I am not a Catholic.I defer to theologians (like George Weigel) on spiritual matters. What I am here to do is call out transparent political manipulation when I see it.

David Axelrod, a legendary political operator, didn’t request an audience with Pope Leo to discuss his own religious journey. Axelrod went to see his fellow Chicagoan because each man is immensely skilled at managing public perception and building narratives. (Last week, the Wall Street Journal published a piece correctly calling Leo “a methodical political operator.”) I don’t know what David Axelrod and Pope Leo discussed two Thursdays ago. Neither does anyone else outside that room. But what we do know is that three days later, three Cardinals delivered a nationally televised attack on the President’s policies. Coincidences don’t run on 72-hour timelines.

Catholic voters can make their own decisions about Trump’s Iran policy or immigration enforcement. What they shouldn’t have to navigate is their spiritual leader taking strategy sessions with Democratic operatives. The Church will be fine. It’s survived worse than David Axelrod. But respectfully, Pope Leo needs to reconsider allowing the Vatican to serve as a mouthpiece for progressive talking points.

John Tillman is a political strategist, CEO of the Hall of Giants, and author of “The Political Vise.”

This article was originally published by “The Political Vise.”

This article was originally published by RealClearWire and made available via RealClearWire.