Rubio Meets Pope Leo After Trump's Criticism Over Iran

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio opened a visit to the Vatican on Thursday after recent disagreements between President Donald Trump and Pope Leo XIV over immigration policy and the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran strained relations with the Holy See.

Rubio, a practicing Catholic, was scheduled to have an audience with Leo on Thursday, shortly after Trump renewed criticism of the Chicago-born pope. Leo responded by rejecting Trump’s characterization of his views on Iran and nuclear weapons and said he was preaching the biblical message of peace.

Meetings Friday with Premier Giorgia Meloni

 

and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani 

 

also come amid differences over the Iran war. Both Italian leaders have defended Leo following Trump’s criticisms and have voiced concerns about the legality of the conflict.

Rubio said this week that the visit had been planned for some time but acknowledged that “obviously we had some stuff that happened.”

The tensions escalated last month when Trump criticized Leo on social media over comments about the administration’s immigration policies, deportations and the Iran war. Leo later said God doesn’t listen to the prayers of those who wage war.

Later, Trump posted a social media image that critics said appeared to liken himself to Jesus Christ. The image was later deleted after backlash. Trump has not apologized to Leo and said he believed the image portrayed him as a doctor.

Rubio said Trump’s criticisms of Leo were rooted in concerns about Iran potentially obtaining a nuclear weapon, which he said could threaten millions of Catholics and other Christians.

Trump “doesn’t understand why anybody — leave aside the pope — the president and I, for that matter, I think most people, I cannot understand why anyone would think that it’s a good idea for Iran to ever have a nuclear weapon,” Rubio told reporters Tuesday at the White House.

Leo has not said Iran should obtain nuclear weapons, and the Catholic Church has long opposed nuclear weapons.

“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 said late Tuesday, after Trump again accused him of being “OK” with Iran having a nuclear weapon.

Leo noted that the Catholic Church has always permitted countries to act in self-defense and acknowledged the church's “just war” tradition.

But with the advance of the age of nuclear weapons, “the whole concept of war has to be reevaluated in terms today," he said. “And I always believe that it’s much better to enter into dialogue than to look for arms.”

Rubio has frequently responded to questions about Trump’s rhetoric and foreign policy positions. Trump also has criticized Meloni and other NATO allies over support for the Iran war and recently announced plans to withdraw thousands of troops from Germany in the coming months.

Giampiero Gramaglia, former head of the ANSA news agency and its onetime Washington correspondent, said some Italian observers viewed Rubio’s visit as an effort to improve relations with the Vatican while also navigating broader Republican political dynamics ahead of future elections.

“I doubt Rubio has the role of conciliator for Trump,” he told Italy's Foreign Press Association. “I have the perception that Rubio’s mission is more about himself” and his political ambitions as a prominent Catholic Republican.

The Rev. Antonio Spadaro, undersecretary in the Vatican’s culture office, said Rubio’s mission wasn’t to “convert” the pope to Trump’s side. Rather, Washington “has come to acknowledge — implicitly but legibly — that (Leo’s) voice carries weight in the world that cannot simply be dismissed.”

“The situation created by President Trump’s remarks required a high-level, direct intervention, conducted in the proper language of diplomacy: a semantic corrective to a narrative of frontal conflict with the church,” he wrote in an essay this week.

Journalist Massimo Franco, writing in the Corriere della Sera newspaper, said the Vatican’s decision not to cancel the pope’s audience with Rubio after Trump’s latest criticism reflected its willingness to maintain dialogue.

 

But relations with the Meloni government, which faces significant public opposition in Italy to the Iran war, remain complicated. “Keeping the alliance with the United States firm while criticizing the president is showing itself to be increasingly difficult,” Franco wrote Wednesday.

Farian Sabahi, a professor of contemporary history at the University of Insubria who is of Iranian descent, said Meloni could face pressure to more strongly criticize the war because of Italy’s economic ties with Iran. Italy is the No. 2 European Union trading partner with Iran, after Germany, working within EU sanctions.

“From a purely opportunistic standpoint, it would actually be advisable to condemn the Israeli-U.S. aggression precisely to give Italian companies the opportunity to do business, given that there are many other players on the international stage ready to enter the Iranian market,” she said.

Rubio said topics other than the Iran war were on the agenda for the Vatican visit, including Cuba. The Holy See has expressed concern about Trump administration statements regarding potential military action there following its January ouster of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

Trump has said frequently that Cuba could be “next” and suggested that once the war with Iran is over, naval assets deployed in the Middle East could return to the United States by way of Cuba.

Rubio is the son of Cuban immigrants and a longtime Cuba hawk.

“We gave Cuba $6 million of humanitarian aid, but obviously they won’t let us distribute it," Rubio said. “We distributed it through the church. We’d like to do more.”