Secretary of State Marco Rubio kicked off a two-day visit to Vatican City and Italy Thursday by meeting Pope Leo XIV, days after President Trump claimed the first American-born pontiff was “endangering a lot of Catholics and a lot of people.”
Leo has repeatedly criticized the Trump administration over its hardline immigration policies and, more recently, over the war in Iran. The president has responded aggressively, attacking the Bishop of Rome last month as “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy.”
“The pope would rather talk about the fact that it’s OK for Iran to have a nuclear weapon,” Trump told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt in an interview broadcast Monday. “And I don’t think that’s very good. I think he’s endangering a lot of Catholics and a lot of people.”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is greeted by a Vatican official upon arrival at the St. Damasus courtyard to meet with Pope Leo XIV and Vatican Secretary of State Pietro Parolin, on May 7, 2026. AP The pope and his allies have insisted he is merely conveying Biblical teachings with no ulterior political motive.
“The mission of the church is to preach the Gospel, to preach peace. If someone wants to criticize me for announcing the Gospel, let him do it with the truth,” Leo told reporters Tuesday, adding that the Catholic Church “for years has spoken out against all nuclear weapons, so there is no doubt there.”
The dispute between Trump and the pope has driven a wedge between the American president and Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni, who called his “weak” criticism of the religious leader “unacceptable” and argued it is “right and normal for [the pope] to call for peace and to condemn every form of war.”
Trump fired back at Meloni, telling an Italian newspaper of the conservative PM: “She’s the one who’s unacceptable.”
Rubio and his wife, Jeanette Rubio, arrive for a two-day visit to Italy and the Vatican at Ciampino Airport in Ciampino, near Rome, Italy, on May 7, 2026. via REUTERS Rubio, himself a practicing Catholic, is due to meet with Meloni on Friday.
