Bhardwaj, Atul
God, guns, and the pope: Inside the ideological war between Trump’s Washington and the Vatican - Economic & Political Weekly - 61(22), May 30, 2026: p.10-12
The Trump administration’s embrace of Christian nationalism has produced an unprecedented confrontation with the Vatican. The article traces the triangular relationship between Vice President J D Vance, his patron Peter Thiel, and a papacy that both men have publicly attacked—for different but converging reasons. Where Vance’s quarrel with Leo is political, Thiel’s is eschatological: he regards the church’s resistance to artificial intelligence and technological acceleration as the work of the antichrist. Together, they represent a new kind of power—technologically sovereign, theologically aggressive, and accountable to no one. The real war is not in Iran. It is inside America itself.-Reproduced
https://www.epw.in/journal/2026/22/strategic-affairs/god-guns-and-pope.html
God, guns, and the pope: Inside the ideological war between Trump’s Washington and the Vatican - Economic & Political Weekly - 61(22), May 30, 2026: p.10-12
The Trump administration’s embrace of Christian nationalism has produced an unprecedented confrontation with the Vatican. The article traces the triangular relationship between Vice President J D Vance, his patron Peter Thiel, and a papacy that both men have publicly attacked—for different but converging reasons. Where Vance’s quarrel with Leo is political, Thiel’s is eschatological: he regards the church’s resistance to artificial intelligence and technological acceleration as the work of the antichrist. Together, they represent a new kind of power—technologically sovereign, theologically aggressive, and accountable to no one. The real war is not in Iran. It is inside America itself.-Reproduced
https://www.epw.in/journal/2026/22/strategic-affairs/god-guns-and-pope.html