U.S. Intelligence Targets Vatican After Trump Broadside Against Pope Leo XIV

 Report says U.S. intelligence intensified Vatican surveillance after Trump labeled Pope Leo XIV a foreign policy threat in April remarks.

Newsroom (24/04/2026 Gaudium Press) The United States intelligence apparatus has, for years, quietly monitored the Vatican. But a new report suggests that what was once routine surveillance has now been elevated into a focused operational priority—triggered by President Donald Trump’s public denunciation of Pope Leo XIV.

According to independent journalist Ken Klippenstein, whose track record of national security reporting includes multiple verified leaks from within U.S. intelligence agencies, Washington’s posture toward the Holy See has shifted decisively following Trump’s April 12 remarks. In that statement, the president labeled the American-born pope “terrible for foreign policy” and “WEAK on Crime,” citing disagreements over Iran, Venezuela, and broader geopolitical issues.

Klippenstein reports that those comments were not treated as mere rhetoric. Instead, “the U.S. intelligence community took the president’s remarks as a directive to prioritize spying on the Vatican.” What followed, according to sources cited in the report, was an intensification of existing surveillance practices targeting one of the world’s most historically guarded institutions.

The architecture of that surveillance is extensive. The Central Intelligence Agency is described as maintaining human sources within the Holy See’s bureaucracy, while the National Security Agency works to intercept Vatican communications, including emails and text messages. These efforts are sometimes conducted jointly through the Special Collection Service, a covert NSA-CIA program.

Other arms of the U.S. government are also engaged. The State Department circulates a daily digest focused on Vatican affairs, and its Bureau of Intelligence and Research produces classified assessments on papal diplomacy. Even the U.S. military has developed specialized linguistic capabilities for monitoring Vatican activity, designating Ecclesiastical Latin under the code “QLE.”

The report frames this not as a sudden development, but as the escalation of a longstanding relationship that has always blended cooperation with intelligence gathering. FBI documents cited by Klippenstein show that during Trump’s first administration, U.S. agencies worked closely with Vatican and Italian counterparts on cybersecurity, human trafficking, white-collar crime, and art theft. The Bureau also provided threat intelligence to the pope during international travel and assisted in defending Vatican networks from cyber intrusions.

This dual-track relationship—partnership and surveillance—has deep historical roots. In 1944, U.S. intelligence began formal engagement with the Vatican under OSS director William Donovan. By the 1980s, the CIA and Pope John Paul II were aligned in covert efforts supporting Poland’s Solidarność movement, a collaboration widely credited with helping destabilize the Soviet bloc.

What distinguishes the current moment is not the existence of intelligence activity, but its direction. Klippenstein emphasizes that “intelligence collection is rarely a switch that gets flipped; it’s a dial that gets turned.” The machinery was already in place. What changed, he argues, is the target: the pope himself.

Trump’s criticism marked a departure from historical norms. While tensions between the Vatican and Washington are not new, they have typically been expressed indirectly—through policy disagreements or diplomatic signaling. Publicly casting the Bishop of Rome as a threat to U.S. interests, particularly when that pope is an American citizen, represents an unprecedented escalation.

Pope Leo XIV responded to Trump’s remarks with a brief but pointed statement: “I am not afraid.” Yet the broader context suggests that the Vatican had already anticipated such pressures. In a December address to Italy’s intelligence leadership, Leo warned that in “several countries” the Church faces interference from intelligence services acting with “nefarious purposes.”

He cautioned against the misuse of confidential information to “intimidate, manipulate, blackmail or discredit” public figures, including those within religious institutions. He also called for strict legal oversight and transparency in intelligence operations, emphasizing respect for conscience, privacy, and the common good.

Read alongside Klippenstein’s reporting, those remarks take on new significance. They suggest a Vatican acutely aware of the risks posed by modern surveillance—and of its own position within that system.

The geopolitical dimension further complicates the picture. Pope Leo has emerged as a rare global figure willing to directly challenge U.S. policy across multiple fronts, from the Iran conflict to immigration and Venezuela. His influence, rooted in moral authority rather than military or economic power, places him in a unique category—one that Washington increasingly appears to view through a strategic lens.

At the same time, the Vatican is not an inexperienced player. It maintains its own intelligence networks, shaped by centuries of diplomacy and political engagement. As Klippenstein notes, what is unfolding is less a one-sided operation than a confrontation between two deeply entrenched institutions, each skilled in its own form of statecraft.

The catalyst for exposing this shift was modest: a job posting by SOS International seeking an Italian-speaking analyst to monitor “religion” for a U.S. government client. Yet that small detail opened a window into a broader system—one now recalibrated by presidential intent.

Eighty years after the Vatican and U.S. intelligence first established ties, the relationship appears to have turned inward. The alliance that once operated against shared geopolitical adversaries is now, at least in part, directed at itself.

At stake is more than diplomacy. The question raised by this moment is whether the United States sees the moral voice of the papacy as a partner, a critic, or a threat—and what it is willing to do in response.

• Raju Hasmukh with files from Letters from Leo Substack and Kenklippenstein.com

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