On the eve of his one-year anniversary as head of the Catholic Church, Pope Leo XIV received U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the Vatican. The meeting was not the result of an invitation extended by the pope, but a request made by the United States. In an exchange of gifts after the meeting, Rubio, a Catholic, presented the first American-born pope with a glass football etched with the logo of the secretary of state. Leo reciprocated by giving Rubio a pen of cedarwood, a symbol of peace.
Leo’s response to what amounted to a glass football paperweight from Rubio? “Wow. OK.”
A glass football isn’t the most thoughtful gift for a native Chicagoan who is a fan of baseball’s White Sox.
I’m sure Rubio got the hint. A glass football isn’t the most thoughtful gift for a native Chicagoan who is such a fan of baseball’s White Sox that he even wore the team’s black cap with white lettering at the Vatican. But Rubio’s gift is emblematic of the fragile, fumbling relationship President Donald Trump and his administration have with Leo and the Holy See.
The Vatican put out a brief communique about the meeting, stating that “cordial talks renewed the shared commitment to fostering sound bilateral relations between the Holy See and the United States of America.”
According to Christopher Hale, publisher of the newsletter Letters From Leo, this is the Vatican’s polite way of saying we agree to disagree.
Rubio’s visit came on the heels of derogatory remarks about the pope from Trump, who continues to tell the lie that Leo wants Iran to have nuclear weapons. In an interview with Hugh Hewitt, Trump said Leo is “endangering Catholics and a lot of people.” Trump made that remark after he had already made several wildly inaccurate and defamatory statements about the pope.
The president criticizing the pope before the secretary of state met with him illustrates how desperate Trump is to show his shrinking base that he’s still a fighter. He is using Leo as a foil to bolster his specious claim that he started the war in Iran war to keep the country from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who serves as the Vatican’s secretary of state, said before the meeting between Rubio and the pope that Trump’s decision to repeatedly attack the pontiff “seems a bit strange to me.”
It is strange. Not only has Trump been responsible for a volley of insults and invectives at Leo, his decision to share an artificial intelligence-generated image of himself as Jesus may also have something to do with his approval rating reaching an all-time low. A Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll shows that 87% of U.S. adults polled were very critical of Trump sharing that social media post. (Trump said, preposterously, that he thought the image depicted him as a doctor.)
According to that same poll, two-thirds of U.S. adults had a positive reaction to Leo saying that Americans should ask their congressional leaders to reject war and work toward peace, and 57% reacted negatively to Trump’s post saying “I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon.”
As chaotic and as mercurial as Trump is, Leo has been consistent and steadfast in his opposition to war. As the pope has explained, the Catholic Church has long opposed the mere existence of nuclear weapons and “the mission of the church is to preach the Gospel, to preach peace. If someone wants to criticize me for announcing the Gospel, let him do it with the truth.”
In another sign that Trump’s attempts to bully the pope aren’t having the desired effect, days before Rubio arrived in Rome, the pope made Evelio Menjivar-Ayala a bishop in West Virginia. The new bishop was born in El Salvador and was brought to the U.S. as an undocumented immigrant. He has been vocal in speaking out against the administration’s anti-immigrant policies.
As chaotic and as mercurial as Trump is, Leo has been consistent and steadfast in his opposition to war.
Leo has appointed 26 bishops to positions in America, and 11 of them were born outside the United States. According to the Catholic news site Aleteia, 16 of them are under age 60, and the youngest is 45. The fact that so many of Leo’s appointees are young, and so many of them are foreign-born, is a strong indicator of the direction he’s taking the church. He sends the message that the church should welcome people of all ethnic backgrounds, as well as immigration statuses.
Rubio’s hasty visit — the third of Leo’s pontificate — is a sign that the Trump White House is flailing in the face of the implacability of the pope’s message of peace. Leo already said it in response to the gift Rubio brought him, but we can say it in response to Trump’s ongoing obsession with antagonizing the leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics: “Wow. OK.”
Anthea Butler is a professor of religious studies and Africana studies at the University of Pennsylvania.