Mexican ambassador to the Holy See Alberto Barranco Chavarria holds a FIFA World Cup official ball, as him, U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See Brian Burch and Canadian Ambassador to the Holy See Joyce Napier attend a weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, June 17, 2026. REUTERS/Remo Casilli
President Donald Trump's ambassador to the Holy See personally called a Vatican cardinal to ask for an apology and help identify "who was lying about this meeting" after a leak cast the United States as strong-arming the pope.
Brian Burch, a longtime conservative Catholic activist and former CatholicVote president, disclosed the episode in a lengthy interview with the New York Times published Thursday. It traced back to a rare January meeting at the Pentagon with Cardinal Christophe Pierre, then the Vatican's envoy to Washington. Afterward, reports spread that U.S. officials had threatened the Holy See over Pope Leo XIV's criticism of the war in Iran.
Burch called that account "grossly mischaracterized" and said he suspected the leak came from the Vatican's own side, framing the story as an attack on the United States. He phoned Pierre directly, asking for both an apology and help unmasking the source, according to the report. He later announced that the cardinal had flatly denied the reports, and the Vatican acknowledged the details had been exaggerated. The Pentagon separately denied issuing any threat.
The leak hunt played out as Trump publicly derides the pope as weak on crime and accuses him of catering to the radical left. It also comes as Vice President JD Vance challenges the pontiff's theology on just-war doctrine. The feud has unsettled Catholics nationwide.
Burch, a father of nine who once wrote that Trump was Catholics' best choice, insisted none of it is a problem. He argued the president and the first American-born pope share aligned goals, and disputed that Leo has definitively branded the Iran war unjust. Though the pope has said plainly that the war fails the test for a just conflict, Burch contended that Leo made that judgment only as the sovereign leader of the Vatican City-State, not as the head of the global church.