Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican Thursday during a time of rising tensions between President Donald Trump and the leader of the Catholic Church over the Iran war.
The visit came as Trump has publicly condemned the first American pontiff for decrying the humanitarian impact of the U.S-Israeli war with Iran. Trump has also criticized Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, once a staunch Trump ally, who drew the U.S. president’s fury after coming to Leo’s defense.
Rubio left the Apostolic Palace after more than two hours meeting with Leo and other leaders of the Holy See, the State Department said Thursday morning. The pair discussed “the situation in the Middle East and topics of mutual interest in the Western Hemisphere,” State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said in a statement to MS NOW.
Rubio also met with Secretary of State of the Holy See Cardinal Pietro Parolin to “discuss mutual cooperation and pressing international issues,” Pigott said.
Trump’s top diplomat has denied that his meeting with Leo was a bid to mend Washington’s troubled relationship with the Vatican. But the president’s tirade against the pope has driven a wedge between his administration and its most ardent political supporters abroad. Far-right European leaders like Meloni are at risk of losing key Christian voters if they appear to back Trump’s aggressive rhetoric.
Rubio will meet with Meloni and other government officials, including Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani and Defense Minister Guido Crosetto, to “discuss the situation in the Middle East,” the U.S. State Department said. The meeting will take place on Friday, according to the Italian Embassy.
“I find President Trump’s words towards the Holy Father unacceptable,” Meloni said in a statement last month. “The Pope is the head of the Catholic Church, and it is right and normal that he calls for peace and condemns all forms of war.”
The tensions between the two men flared after Leo spoke out against the Iran war in March. During a Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Square, the pontiff criticized the use of Christian teachings to justify war and condemned “manipulation” of the religion for political or military gain. The statement was widely interpreted to be directed at the Trump administration. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other senior Cabinet members have quoted Bible verses while speaking about U.S. strikes on Iran.
“Brothers and sisters, this is our God: Jesus, King of Peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war,” Leo said during the Mass. “He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them.”

Trump then criticized the pope in a social media post on Easter Sunday, crediting himself for Leo’s historic election to the papacy and accusing him of being “weak on crime,” bad for foreign policy, and “weak on nuclear weapons.”
Leo has said his condemnation of violence and war was not directed at the Trump administration, but he responded directly to the president while speaking to reporters at the start of a trip to Africa last month.
The pontiff said he harbors “no fear, neither of the Trump administration, nor of speaking out loudly about the message of the Gospel,” adding, “that’s what I believe I am called here to do.”
Days later, Trump posted an artificial intelligence-generated image of himself as a Christlike figure that drew outrage from prominent voices within his conservative Catholic base.








