Secretary of State Marco Rubio is set to meet with Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican and with Italian officials in Rome later this week, amid strained relations between President Trump, the Catholic Church, and the Italian government.
Rubio’s trip is scheduled from Wednesday through Friday. According to the State Department, his meeting with Holy See leadership will focus on the situation in the Middle East as well as areas of “mutual interest” in the Western Hemisphere.
He will also meet with Italian counterparts to discuss “shared security interests and strategic alignment.”
Rubio, a Catholic, is expected to meet the American-born pontiff following a bitter public clash between Trump and Pope Leo.
In early April, Pope Leo issued rare, pointed criticism of the president after Trump threatened in a social media post to destroy Iran’s civilization. The pope called such threats “unacceptable” and urged people to contact their “political leaders, congressmen” to advocate for peace and reject war.
Those remarks, along with a CBS News “60 Minutes” segment highlighting the pope’s earlier criticism of the Trump administration’s mass deportation policy, sparked outrage from the president. Trump responded on Truth Social with a lengthy post calling the pope “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy.”
The controversy escalated further when Trump shared an AI-generated image widely interpreted as depicting him as Jesus healing a sick man. He later removed the post following backlash and accusations of blasphemy.
The public dispute continued for more than a week.
Meloni labeled Trump’s remarks about Pope Leo “unacceptable,” prompting Trump to respond that he was “shocked” by her comments, adding, “I thought she was brave, but I was wrong.”
The Italian prime minister—generally seen as a European ally of Trump—had already begun to distance herself from the president over opposition to the U.S. and Israeli war against Iran.
