Rubio to visit Vatican, Rome after Trump-Pope Leo tensions

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is set to travel to Rome and the Vatican this week, Italian government sources said Sunday, in a visit seen as an effort to ease tensions following President Donald Trump’s criticism of Pope Leo XIV.

Italian media reported that Rubio would meet the U.S. pontiff himself on Thursday, but there was no immediate confirmation of this.

Newspapers presented the visit by Rubio, a Catholic, as a meeting to “thaw” relations.

The government source told AFP that Rubio would meet Vatican Secretary of State Pietro Parolin and Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani.

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

The source said Rubio had asked for a meeting with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, one of Trump’s closest European allies, whom he turned on after she defended the pope.

Media reports said he was also due to meet Defence Minister Guido Crosetto, amid a deepening rift in transatlantic ties over the Middle East war.

One year in office

Leo, 70, will on Friday mark one year as leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, after being elected by cardinals on May 8, 2025, following the death of Pope Francis.

As the first ever pope from the United States, his words have arguably carried more weight in Washington than previous pontiffs — and he has used them, criticizing notably the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration.

But it was the pontiff’s increasing anti-war rhetoric, particularly following the U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran, that triggered Trump’s ire.

Leo declared Trump’s threat to destroy Iran “unacceptable” and urged Americans to demand that U.S. lawmakers “work for peace”.

The U.S. president slammed the pontiff in a social media post as “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy”.

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

The pontiff responded by saying he had a “moral duty to speak out” against war — and then sparked more headlines with a speech in Cameroon lambasting “tyrants” ransacking the world.

However, he insisted afterwards that the remarks were written long before the row, and said he had not intended to start a new debate with the U.S. president.

Christians across the world expressed their solidarity with the pope, and Meloni condemned Trump’s remarks 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,” the U.S. president said in an interview with Italian daily Corriere della Sera.

He accused Meloni — a far-right leader who has sought to act as a bridge between diverging U.S. and European views, of failing to help the United States with NATO.

Trump has threatened to pull U.S. 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 will withdraw 5,000 U.S. troops from Germany.

As of Dec. 31, 2025, there were 12,662 active-duty U.S. troops in Italy and 3,814 in Spain. In Germany, there were 36,436.

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