WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Marco Rubio will travel to Rome and Vatican City this week in a bid to ease rising tensions between President Donald Trump and Pope Leo XIV over U.S. policies, particularly the Iran war.
The State Department said Monday that Rubio, a Catholic who has visited Rome and the Vatican at least three times since becoming the Republican president’s top diplomat, would be in Italy on Thursday and Friday.
“Secretary Rubio will meet with Holy See leadership to discuss the situation in the Middle East and mutual interests in the Western Hemisphere,” the department said. “Meetings with Italian counterparts will be focused on shared security interests and strategic alignment.”
The trip comes as Trump has criticized Leo, the first American pontiff, for his stances on the Middle East and elsewhere and as the president has drawn pushback for posting a social media image likening himself to Jesus Christ. Trump has refused to apologize to Leo and has sought to explain away the now-deleted social media post by saying he thought the image was of him as a doctor.
Rubio has often been called on to tone down or explain Trump’s harsh rhetoric as it relates to Europe, NATO and the Middle East, but the dispute with the pope has domestic political implications in the U.S. with midterm congressional elections approaching.
Leo, the first U.S.-born pope, has said he was not making a direct attack against Trump or anyone else with his general appeal for peace and criticisms of the Iran war and other conflicts around the world.
