Pope Leo drew President Donald Trump's ire after becoming a firm critic of the US-Israeli war on Iran and his administration's hardline anti-immigration policies.

VATICAN CITY, May 7 - U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio will meet Pope Leo at the Vatican on Thursday, in a potentially fraught encounter as President Donald Trump has continued a series of disparaging attacks on the Catholic leader over the Iran war. Read more at straitstimes.com. Read more at straitstimes.com.

Rubio led a White House briefing with pointed remarks on Iran before traveling to Italy for meetings with Pope Leo and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

Before his departure for Rome, Rubio remarked that ‘there’s a lot to talk about with the Vatican’.

With Giorgia Meloni, Washington has leverage. With the Vatican, it has little more than diplomacy.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio opened a fence-mending visit to the Vatican on Thursday after President Donald Trump’s broadsides against Pope Leo XIV

Rubio led a White House briefing with pointed remarks on Iran before traveling to Italy for meetings with Pope Leo and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.