Rubio to visit Vatican, Rome after Trump row with Pope Leo

ROME – US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will visit Rome and the Vatican this week, an Italian government source said on May 3, just weeks after a clash between US President Donald Trump and Pope Leo.

Mr Rubio, who is a Catholic, is expected to meet Vatican Secretary of State Pietro Parolin and Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, the source told AFP.

Italian media reported that he would also meet Defence Minister Guido Crosetto during the visit from May 7 to 8.

The meetings come several weeks after Mr Trump’s extraordinary criticism of Pope Leo XIV over the Catholic leader’s anti-war rhetoric.

Mr Trump also dismissed Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni – one of his closest European allies – as lacking courage after she defended the US pontiff.

Italian media on May 3 presented Mr Rubio’s visit as a meeting to “thaw” relations.

Since taking over as leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics on May 8, 2025, following the death of Pope Francis, Pope Leo has criticised the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration.

But it was his increasing anti-war rhetoric, particularly following the US-Israeli attack on Iran, that triggered Mr Trump’s ire.

Pope Leo on April 7 declared Mr Trump’s threat to destroy Iran “unacceptable” and urged Americans to demand that US lawmakers “work for peace”.

The US President subsequently slammed the pontiff in a social media post as “weak on crime, and terrible for foreign policy”.

Mr Trump also said he was “not a big fan of Pope Leo” and that he does not “want a pope who thinks it’s okay for Iran to have a nuclear weapon”.

Ms Meloni condemned Mr Trump’s criticism as “unacceptable” – prompting the President to turn his fire on her.

“I’m shocked at her. I thought she had courage, but I was wrong,” Mr Trump said in an interview with Italian daily Corriere della Sera.

He also accused Ms Meloni – a far-right leader who has sought to act as a bridge between diverging US and European views – of failing to help the US with NATO.

Mr Trump has threatened to pull US troops from Italy, saying Rome “has not been of any help to us” in the Iran war.

He has made a similar threat towards Spain, while the Pentagon has announced it is withdrawing 5,000 US troops from Germany. AFP