Trump blasts Pope Leo as Rubio heads to Vatican for talks
Trump’s attack on Pope Leo XIV turned a clash over war and peace into a test of moral authority. Rubio now heads to Rome as the Vatican tries to hold its humanitarian line.
Donald Trump’s attack on Pope Leo XIV has pushed a dispute over the Middle East into a rare public fight over who gets to speak with moral authority. As Marco Rubio heads to Rome and Vatican City for talks, the White House is treating the pope’s appeals for peace as political intervention, while the Vatican is insisting the church’s role is to stand apart from partisan combat.
The rupture widened after Trump lashed out at Leo in April on Truth Social, calling the first U.S.-born pope “weak on crime” and “terrible for foreign policy” after the pontiff criticized the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran and called for peace. The criticism came as Leo, who became pope as the first American to lead the Catholic Church, tried to frame the conflict in humanitarian terms rather than geopolitical ones.
Leo answered on May 5 by saying the church’s mission is “to preach the Gospel, to preach peace.” He added that people were free to criticize him and said he was not trying to enter a political debate. The pope also rejected the suggestion that he supported nuclear weapons, aligning himself with the Catholic Church’s teaching that such arms are immoral.
Rubio, a Catholic, is scheduled to travel to Rome and Vatican City from May 6 through May 8. The State Department said he will meet with Holy See leadership to discuss the situation in the Middle East and mutual interests in the Western Hemisphere, part of an effort to advance bilateral relations with Italy and the Vatican. A U.S. ambassador described the expected meeting as “frank.”
The exchange has underscored how unusual it is for a U.S. president and the head of the Roman Catholic Church to clash so publicly. Visitors and commentators at the Vatican have called Trump’s attacks inappropriate, ridiculous and absurd, while the dispute has also revived earlier tensions tied to Leo’s criticism of Trump’s immigration policies.
For U.S. Catholics, the fight carries more than symbolic weight. It puts a global religious leader at odds with a president who speaks for millions of Catholic voters, while also testing whether the Vatican can still serve as a credible broker in wars that stretch from the Middle East to wider debates about migration, peace and the role of faith in public life.
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