Rubio arrives at Vatican to meet Pope Leo amid Trump attacks

United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio has arrived at the Vatican to meet Pope Leo XIV in what is seen as an attempt to repair relations after President Donald Trump’s repeated barbs against the pontiff.

The closed-door meeting is expected to take about half an hour on Thursday, and then Rubio will meet his counterpart, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin.

This is the first known meeting between the pope and a Trump government official in nearly a year. Parolin said the meeting was requested by the US, and Leo would listen carefully to what Rubio had to say.

“I imagine they’ll talk about everything ⁠that has happened in recent days,” he was quoted as saying by the Reuters news agency.

Relations between Trump and Pope Leo have deteriorated sharply, driven by a barrage of public attacks from the US leader after the pontiff became a vocal critic of the US-Israel war on Iran, drawing backlash from Christian leaders across the political spectrum.

The most recent attack from Trump came on Monday, when he accused the pope of “endangering a lot of Catholics” by opposing the war, and falsely suggested the pontiff believed it was acceptable for Iran to obtain nuclear weapons.

Pope Leo denied that he supported nuclear weapons, which the Catholic Church teaches are immoral.

“The mission of the Church is to preach the Gospel, to preach peace,” said ⁠the pope. “The Church has spoken out for years against all nuclear arms – on that there is no doubt.”

‘Frank’ conversations

The US ⁠ambassador to the Holy See, Brian Burch, told journalists on Tuesday ⁠that the conversation between Leo and Rubio was likely to be “frank”.

On Wednesday, Parolin described Trump’s attacks on Pope Leo as “strange”, in comments quoted by Reuters. “I wouldn’t want to get into judgements or personal evaluations about this,” the cardinal told journalists outside an event near the Vatican.

Rubio is also set to meet Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who has defended the pope against Trump’s attacks.

Pope Leo has grown increasingly outspoken on the world stage in recent weeks. During a four-country trip to Africa, he declared the world was being “ravaged by a handful of tyrants” – comments he later said were not directed at Trump.

On Friday, Pope Leo, who became the first American pontiff, will mark his first year leading the 1.4-billion-member Church.