To be loved, a seat at the table, and the elephant in the room
The Friday Pillar Post
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Happy Friday friends,
Before we get on to the news, I would like to pause for a moment and ask you to please offer a prayer for the repose of the soul of John Allen Jr., who died yesterday at the age of 61.
John, for any readers who do not know, and I doubt there can be many, was — for decades — an inescapable presence in the world of Catholic media, and especially in the arena of Vatican reporting.
It is no exaggeration to call him a figure of generational significance in the life of the Church, both in the United States and in Rome, where he spent so many years as a reporter and analyst. Indeed, by any measure of the tributes which have followed the announcement of his death, it’s an understatement.
Yesterday, JD wrote his own reflection on knowing John, whom I never met myself. I knew him only through his work and by reputation, and from that impersonal distance there’s not much of value in tribute to him and his career which I could add to what’s been said already.
What I would offer is this. John died yesterday after suffering for years with cancer. From every account I have heard of the man, not in the last 24 hours but over the last several years as he was known to be unwell, he bore his illness and everything that came with it with exceptional dignity — with good humor, even.
That, I would submit, is the great grace afforded to a man at peace with himself, his life, and his God. And true peace is only found in love.
To be remembered fondly, lionized even, by colleagues for one’s professional achievements and stature is a fine thing, to be sure. But it pales into vanishing insignificance next to being loved, by one’s family and friends, but most of all by our God. To live with and animated by the knowledge of that love is to be truly happy. To meet death certain of that love, the greatest consolation.
I pray for John’s safe repose, and for the consolation of those who knew and loved him so well. I’d ask you to do the same.
Here’s the news.
The News
The Archdiocese of Caracas has denied allegations that it brokered a meeting with regime officials in order to blackmail the daughter of the opposition candidate in the 2024 presidential election
“At no time has any ‘extortion’ or pressure been exerted in the archdiocese on the families of detainees or on anyone else,” said Archbishop Raúl Biord in a Jan. 20 statement.
Mariana González de Tudares, the daughter of opposition presidential candidate Edmundo González, said that she was at a meeting coordinated by the Archdiocese of Caracas in which regime officials asked her to convince her father to give up his political aspirations in exchange for the release of her husband, Rafael Tudares, who last year was sentenced to 30 years in prison for conspiracy.
Biord has been accused repeatedly in the last year and a half of maintaining a close relationship with the Venezuelan regime.
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Also in Venezuela, the interior minister, who is alleged to lead a government-protected drug cartel, accused a local bishop of defending “murderers,” after the prelate called for the release of political prisoners.
Diosdado Cabello, Venezuela’s interior minister, criticized Archbishop Polito Rodríguez last week, saying that the archbishop “preached the same nonsense as usual,” after Rodríguez urged the government to follow through on promises of a mass release of political prisoners.
Cabello said on a local television program that the bishops should not be defending “criminals.”
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A young Polish Carmelite friar remains in detention four months after he was arrested on espionage charges in Belarus.
Br. Grzegorz Gaweł, O.Carm., is classified as a political prisoner by human rights organizations. But Belarusian authorities accuse him of espionage, a charge that carries a prison sentence of up to 15 years.
It is not known when Gaweł will stand trial. Pre-trial detention in espionage cases often lasts for months in Belarus, an Eastern Europe country led since 1994 by the authoritarian Alexander Lukashenko. Trials are often held behind closed doors.
The 27-year-old was arrested by Belarusian KGB agents on Sept. 4, 2025, in Lyepyel, a town in Belarus’ northern Vitebsk region that has an active Catholic community.
Read the full update on the case here.
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Today is the March for Life here in Washington, DC, expected to draw tens of thousands from around the country to mark the anniversary of Roe v. Wade and continue the struggle to end legal abortion in this country.
Pope Leo has sent his prayers, blessing, and encouragement to participants.
Controversially, the keynote address to this year’s march is being given by Vice President JD Vance, despite the Trump administration’s policies on chemical abortion and other life issues.
Yesterday, Pillar columnist and former congressman Dan Lipinski gave his opinion on Vance’s invitation:
“After Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, the movement had no plan for what to do next. Pro-life sentiment waned and states expanded abortion access. The number of abortions increased. Then Trump turned.
So what would be the best response for pro-life leaders now?
Begin with the old adage: ‘When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.’ Unfortunately, honoring Vice President J.D. Vance as the keynote speaker at the March for Life digs the political pit deeper.”
Read the whole thing here, and do not miss the ending.
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Staying with Administration policy, bishops and cardinals have taken to making increasingly robust statements about it across a range of issues.
After several decades in which the U.S. bishops’ conference has been perceived to be broadly aligned with the Republican party, a growing consensus about a shift seems to be underway.
That all comes as the U.S. bishops are, in principle, committed to a revision to their guide for Catholics in the voting booth.
And a growing impatience with the Republican party could lead a very different iteration of their customary guidance on public life.
As JD and I wrote this week, this could go some very interesting places. Read the whole thing here.
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Bishop Georg Bätzing announced this week that he is stepping down as chairman of the German bishops’ conference.
The 64-year-old Bishop of Limburg said he had made the decision “after consultation and careful deliberation.” In a nod to divisions among the bishops that deepened during his tenure, Bätzing thanked those who had “supported me with appreciation and constructive criticism over the past six years.”
So who will be next in line to lead the German bishops, and take point on the attempted implementation of the synodal assembly?
Luke Coppen looks at the runners and riders here.
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Speaking of Germany, the country’s long-serving apostolic nuncio turned 75 this week, reaching the age at which bishops are expected to tender their resignations to the pope.
As Luke Coppen noted in a look across the Vatican diplomatic landscape, Berlin is just one of a slate of top-tier nunciatures with superannuated occupants, and the list is set to grow longer this year.
A Seat at the Table
I have, I think it’s known widely enough to say without causing shock, a few good friends who work in and around the Holy See’s Secretariat of State.
It was with them in mind, then, that I laughed for a good three solid minutes upon reading that President Trump had offered the Holy See a seat on his Board of Peace project. I laughed not because peace is a laughing matter, nor because the times aren’t serious — though so many people are not.
No, I laughed because I understood the cleft stick in which it would put the pope’s diplomatic advisors, and how maddening they would find the alternatives to parse. It struck me as the most perfectly calibrated conundrum to land at the Vatican’s diplomatic office in decades.
For the White House, I am sure the calculus was reasonably straightforward: President Trump’s Board of Peace is clearly something he takes seriously — and wants to be taken seriously in the global diplomatic arena. Having the Holy See on board would be a sign of seriousness.
To the extent that it already has buy-in from Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, and Jordan, its potential to be a “real thing” — at least in the Middle East — seems clear enough. But folding in the Vatican would add a bit of ballast to the non-Muslim majority minority of powers signed up.
And, as I will discuss in more depth later in this newsletter, if there is one thing Donald Trump respects in a world leader it is the size and splendor of the chair, literally and metaphorically. And chairs don’t come much more splendid than the throne of St. Peter.
For the Vatican, I am sure the weighing-up of Trump’s invitation is a little more… nuanced. Though I would argue it shouldn’t be. In fact, I think the answer is a no-brainer.