[embedding-shape]

It's not 100% clear by this article what was said, and I don't have access to the source article either. But I think the parts, even if they don't mention verbatim what happened, makes it a pretty clear threat:

> America, Colby and his colleagues told the cardinal, has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world. The Catholic Church had better take its side.

> As tempers rose, an unidentified U.S. official reached for a fourteenth-century weapon and invoked the Avignon Papacy, the period when the French Crown used military force to bend the bishop of Rome to its will.

I'm also not 100% sure what they mean with "invoked the Avignon Papacy", a bit like saying "Invoked the Second World War", it was an event/time period as far as I know, not something you "invoke" exactly. But even mentioning it makes it pretty clear what they're hinting at to be honest.

[nicwolff]

I think they meant "evoked", for which Merriam Webster has

    1: to call forth or up: such as
      a: to bring to mind or recollection
      b: to cite especially with approval or for support

[iguessthislldo]

So they kidnap him like they did with the president of Venezuela? I don't understand how they think this is going to play out well.

[fhdkweig]

I had a science teacher in high school 30 years ago who was convinced that the current pope was the anti-christ spoken of in Revelation. US Christianity is very anti-Catholic. That's why Trump can talk about setting up telephone hotlines to report anti-christian sentiment, yet his administration does stuff like this. If/when Trump dies in office, VD Vance won't be able to control MAGA because Vance is Catholic, and MAGA hates him for it.