Rubio to Meet Pope Leo in Rome as Vatican Tensions Rise

Marco Rubio is heading to Rome with a diplomatic message that reaches far beyond a courtesy call. The secretary of state is expected to meet Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican on May 7, part of a May 7-8 trip that also includes talks with top Italian officials and, possibly, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

The visit would mark the first known in-person meeting between Leo and a U.S. cabinet official in nearly a year, and it lands at a fraught moment for Washington’s relationship with both the Holy See and Europe. Rubio is also expected to meet Vatican Secretary of State Pietro Parolin and Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, with Defense Minister Guido Crosetto also under consideration depending on the final schedule.

The political backdrop is unusually sharp. President Donald Trump has publicly attacked Leo, including in a Truth Social post calling him “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy.” Trump also drew criticism after attacking Meloni when she defended the pontiff. The friction has given Rubio’s trip added weight, with Italian media framing it as an effort to thaw relations between Washington, the Vatican and Meloni’s government.

The meeting is likely to turn on three issues where the two sides overlap and diverge: war, migration and human rights. Leo has emerged as a pointed critic of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran. On April 7, 2026, he said threats against the Iranian people were “unacceptable,” urged a return to the negotiating table, and said attacks on civilian infrastructure violate international law. Those comments put the Vatican closer to a familiar diplomatic posture of restraint and negotiation, even as the Trump administration has kept up a harder line.

Migration is another fault line. Leo has used Vatican messaging to stress global solidarity, the toll of wars and violence, and the need for peace. That sits uneasily alongside Trump’s hard-line immigration policies, which the pope has criticized publicly. For Rubio, the challenge will be to show that Washington can engage the Vatican on shared humanitarian concerns without backing away from the administration’s tougher domestic and foreign policy stance.

The timing adds another layer. Leo was elected on May 8, 2025, after the death of Pope Francis, so Rubio’s visit comes almost exactly one year into the pontificate. Rubio already met Leo in May 2025 during the pope’s inaugural Mass in St. Peter’s Square, alongside Vice President JD Vance, making this trip the first known cabinet-level follow-up. It also follows Rubio’s February visit to Milan, recorded in the State Department’s travel log, and comes as the Pentagon plans to withdraw 5,000 U.S. troops from Germany, another sign of pressure across the transatlantic relationship.