Chicago Running The Papacy: Axelrod Secret Visit Fuels Firestorm as Pope Leo Clashes with Trump

Let’s be clear about what just happened.

The Pope held a secret meeting with David Axelrod—Barack Obama’s chief hatchet man and one of the most influential political operatives in Democrat machine. A non-Catholic, with no prior history of engagement with the papacy, whose career has been built on shaping narratives for the American left.

And then, almost immediately, the Pope began publicly criticizing the Trump administration. Within days, several U.S. cardinals appeared in major media echoing similar themes.

We are told to believe this is all coincidental.

Critics object to President Trump responding forcefully. But Trump responds forcefully to everything—that is not new. The more important question is why the Vatican appears to be stepping so directly into contemporary political disputes.

Democrat hatchet man David Axelrod walks Into the Vatican—hours later, Pope Leo is taking aim at Trump.

A private sit-down with a top Democrat thug followed by coordinated criticism of Trump—while the Vatican stays muted on the persecution of Christians and internal doctrinal crackdowns—signals a Church drifting from moral authority into political alignment.

Recent history only sharpens that concern.

The story is this:

Where was this Vatican when churches were padlocked during COVID? Silent.
When Biden pushed abortion policy and still received communion? Silent.
When Bishop Strickland stood up for doctrine? Fired.
When Bishop Fernández defended religious exemptions grounded in the Catechism? Removed.

It is shocking that Leo, while condemning just war, makes no mention of the papacy-led crusades nor the current slaughter of Christians in Syria.Leo is a continuation of Francis.  You will recall that, when Pres Trump visited Francis in Mr Trump’s early first term, he asked Francis what America could do for him.

Francis could have said “Save the Yazidi, who are being slaughtered by ISIS.”  Yazidis share some Christian traditions.

Instead, Pope Francis, fearing the US might withdraw from the Paris Accord, urged President Trump to combat global warming and gifted him his environmental encyclical Laudato si’.

And now—now—we’re told Trump is the great threat to human dignity.

At the same time, Christians are facing sustained and deadly persecution across regions including Nigeria, the Sahel, India, Syria, Bangladesh, and Pakistan—churches attacked, clergy kidnapped, believers killed. The Vatican’s response has largely been generalized appeals for “dialogue,” with little specificity or moral clarity about the perpetrators.

This is tough to ignore.

Pope Francis often spoke in broad, sometimes ambiguous terms about political matters. Pope Leo, by contrast, appears more direct—and more willing to engage in ways that intersect with active political narratives.

The concern is not about disagreement. It is about the perception that the Church is entangling itself in partisan politics.

When that happens, it places millions of faithful Catholics in an untenable position—forced to navigate tensions between their religious identity and their political convictions.

That is not a bad place for the Church to be.

Border Czar Tom Homan just gave the PERFECT response to Pope Leo

“I’m a lifelong Catholic. I wish they’d STAY OUT of immigration, they don’t know what they’re talking about.”

“Because if they wore my shoes for 40 years, and talked to a 9-year-old girl that got r*ped multiple times, or stood in the back of a tractor trailer with 19 dead aliens at my feet, including a 5-year-old boy that baked to death, if they understood the atrocities that happened on the open border, I think their opinion would change!”

“And I welcome discussion with any of them, because they don’t understand illegal immigration is not a victimless crime.”

“Where President Trump had the most secure border in the lifetime of this nation, right now, lives are being saved. He’s saving thousands of lives a year because he has a secure border!”

“Human traffickers are out of business, right? The cartels are going bankrupt because of that secure border. I wish they’d understand that.”

“Because if they did, I think they’d have a different opinion.”

🚨 WOW. Border Czar Tom Homan just gave the PERFECT response to Pope Leo

"I'm a lifelong Catholic. I wish they'd STAY OUT of immigration, they don't know what they're talking about."

"Because if they wore my shoes for 40 years, and talked to a 9-year-old girl that got r*ped… pic.twitter.com/9KBT1Pbiiu

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) April 14, 2026

Chicago Runs the Vatican Now?

Pope Leo’s Secret Meeting with Obama’s Former Advisor and Strategist

By: Ejiro Akpobare, Yahoo, April 14, 2026:

The Vatican is not usually where political plot twists drop, but here we are. Pope Leo XIV, the first American-born pope and a certified Chicago guy, hosted David Axelrod on Thursday, April 9, for a private meeting that has the internet fully in detective mode.

But here is where it gets interesting. This low-key, closed-door sit-down happened less than 24 hours after a report claimed Trump-aligned U.S. officials pressured the Vatican’s ambassador in Washington and basically told him the American pope needs to pick a side. And suddenly, what could have been routine now feels loaded.

And when you zoom out, the backstory only adds fuel to the fire. Pope Leo XIV was born in Chicago and raised in Dolton, Illinois, a proud White Sox fan with unmistakable Midwestern roots. David Axelrod built his entire political career in Chicago before becoming the strategist behind Barack Obama’s presidential runs and wins.

Obama himself recently admitted he wants to meet the new pope, specifically pointing out that Chicago connection. So now you have a pope, a political strategist, and a former president all tied to the same city, suddenly orbiting the same Vatican moment. It feels less like a coincidence and more like Chicago exported its entire power network straight into the heart of the Catholic Church.

The Meeting That Ran Long, Said Nothing, and Somehow Managed to Say Everything Anyway

What do we actually know about the Axelrod meeting? Not much, which is exactly why everyone has something to say about it. The meeting happened, it reportedly ran long enough to make the pope about 30 minutes late to his next appointment with the Italian Winter Olympic and Paralympic committees.

The Vatican described it as part of the pope’s usual audiences with figures from political, academic, and social circles. Axelrod, for his part, has offered one thing and one thing only: a public statement expressing his intention for the meet, in which he says is out of “enormous respect and admiration for the Pope and the tremendous moral leadership he is providing the world.” He also made it clear that the meeting was scheduled months ago, and is “unrelated to any prospective meeting with President Obama.”

That is a gracious sentiment, and also about as revealing as a fortune cookie. And that vagueness is what is now doing a lot of heavy lifting. Because when there is no official narrative, the internet fills the void. Every detail, even the timing and length of the meeting, becomes a clue. People are reading into who met whom, when they met, and what was happening in the news cycle at the exact same time.

What should have been a standard diplomatic interaction has now become a full-blown guessing game, with everyone projecting their own version of events onto a conversation no one actually heard. It will interest you to know that some are already imagining the Pope running for presidency.

When the Pope Called Out War Talk and Accidentally Became the Main Character in Washington

This moment did not start with Axelrod walking into the Vatican. The tension had already been building. Apart from his address to the Vatican Diplomatic Corps on January 9. During his Easter message, Pope Leo XIV called out what he described as an unjust war that continues to escalate without resolution. That alone got attention.

But things escalated further when Donald Trump issued a threat involving Iran that included a dramatic timeline and even more dramatic consequences. Pope Leo responded directly, calling the rhetoric “truly unacceptable” and urging leaders across multiple countries to pursue peace instead of escalation.

It was neither vague nor subtle. Shortly after, Trump hit back in a lengthy Truth Social post, calling the pope “WEAK on Crime” and “terrible” on foreign policy. He then doubled down, telling reporters plainly, that he is not a fan of Pope Leo.” That the timing went unnoticed.

Suddenly, this was not just a religious leader offering general guidance. This was a pope stepping into a global conversation in a way that felt immediate, specific, and impossible to ignore. And once that happened, everything else, including who he meets and when, started carrying more weight.

The Pentagon Meeting Nobody Was Supposed to Know About

Then came the part that made everything feel even more charged. According to a report by The Free Press, Trump-aligned U.S. officials summoned Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the Vatican’s ambassador to the United States, to a meeting in Washington.

The reporting claims the message delivered there was direct. Elbridge Colby, the under-secretary of defense for policy, allegedly told the cardinal that the U.S. military has the power to do whatever it wants and that the American pope should take its side.

At one point, a reference was reportedly made to the Avignon Papacy, a period in medieval history when political forces exerted control over the church. It is not exactly the kind of historical callback you expect in a modern diplomatic setting.

The Pentagon pushed back on these claims, calling them exaggerated. Still, the timing is hard to ignore. The very next day after this story surfaced, Axelrod was sitting across from the pope. Whether connected or not, it added another layer to a situation that already felt anything but ordinary.

Continued…..

David Axelrod trying to tamp down speculation after meeting the pope

Despite the denial, an Obama administration alum says there are ‘early talks’ about a potential one-on-one

By Fox News Published April 15, 2026:

David Axelrod, a senior advisor to former president Barack Obama, put out a statement on X quelling rumors that a Thursday meeting between himself and Pope Leo XIV was a precursor to a potential Leo-Obama summit.

“To be clear, I was gratified and honored that Pope Leo XIV granted my request for an audience and thrilled to spend a some time with him last week,” Axelrod wrote.

“It was scheduled months ago and unrelated to any prospective meeting with President Obama,” his Tuesday post concluded.

Despite the statement, Obama has been open about his desire to meet with Pope Leo. Obama-Biden White House alum Christopher Hale posted on X that there are “early talks” about a potential one-on-one.

Axelrod, now a CNN analyst, was responding to a video from his own network in which conservative commentator Hal Lambert accused Pope Leo’s recent criticisms of President Donald Trump and the war in Iran of being politically motivated.

“David Axelrod goes and visits Pope Leo last week. They’re talking about Obama going to visit. Pope Leo is from Chicago. All of a sudden, now Pope Leo is out attacking Trump and the policies of the United States and Israel,” Lambert said during a CNN panel show.

“Axelrod is the chief strategist for Obama. The pope was saying he’s not political. Why is he meeting with the chief strategist for both Obama’s campaign and in the White House?” Lambert asked.

In addition to being a senior advisor to Obama in the White House, Axelrod was also the chief strategist for both Obama’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns and was widely seen as the brains behind his successful runs.

The veteran politico met with Pope Leo on April 9. The pope’s criticism’s of Trump’s military actions predate the meeting. He’s been critical of both military actions in Venezuela and in Iran, telling a Palm Sunday Mass in March that God “does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war.”

But one day after his meeting with Axelrod, Pope Leo wrote what appeared to be a direct rebuke to the administration.

“God does not bless any conflict. Anyone who is a disciple of Christ, the Prince of Peace, is never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs,” Pope Leo wrote in an April 10 post on X.

“Military action will not create space for freedom or times of Peace, which comes only from the patient promotion of coexistence and dialogue among peoples,” he concluded.

The post, which has been followed with at least 10 direct or indirect references to war and peace in the five days since, came days after Secretary of War Pete Hegseth spoke of the rescue mission to save a downed airman in Iran.

“Shot down on a Friday — Good Friday — hidden in a cave — a crevice — all of Saturday and rescued on Sunday,” Hegseth said. “Flown out of Iran as the sun was rising on Easter Sunday, a pilot reborn. All home and accounted for. A nation rejoicing. God is good,” Hegseth said in an April 6 press conference.

Trump responded to comments from Pope Leo, calling him “weak on crime and “terrible for foreign policy,” in a post on Truth Social.

“Leo should get his act together as Pope, use Common Sense, stop catering to the Radical Left, and focus on being a Great Pope, not a Politician. It’s hurting him very badly and, more importantly, it’s hurting the Catholic Church,” Trump also wrote.

The heightened rhetoric has contributed to an atmosphere that many are increasingly viewing as political.

“It’s not about when it was scheduled. It’s about why? David Axelrod is a powerful Democrat political strategist. That’s his job for the past 30 years. Millions of people would like a private audience with the pope, but he is meeting with a powerful strategist for the opposition party to President Trump,” Lambert told Fox News Digital.

“This is all about the midterms and trying to turn Catholics against President Trump and Republicans,” Lambert concluded.

Besides incurring the pope’s ire, Trump has also irked Christians across the board after posting an AI-generated image of himself on Truth Social that many viewed as depicting himself as Jesus Christ.

Trump deleted the photo and denied the charge, claiming he thought the photo was depicting him as a doctor.

“I did post it, and I thought it was me as a doctor and had to do with Red Cross… which we support, and only the fake news could come up with that one,” Trump told reporters.

“As a Chicagoan, I’ve been eager to meet Pope Leo from the moment he stepped out on the balcony,” Axelrod told Fox News Digital.

“My admiration for him as a great moral leader has only grown since. The audience, which I requested, was scheduled months ago. No one sent me and the only mission I was on was to visit with him and pay my respects,” he concluded.

Fox News Digital reached out to the Vatican and an Obama representative for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

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