Secretary of State Marco Rubio denied that his trip to the Vatican this week is an effort to mend fences between the Trump administration and the Catholic Church after Donald Trump’s series of attacks on Pope Leo XIV.
Rubio, who is now Catholic, is headed to Rome starting Wednesday for the trip amid escalating tensions. But just this week, the president continued to lash out at the pope, accusing him of endangering Catholics with his criticism of the Iran War.
“Well, the pope would rather talk about the fact that it’s OK for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, and I don’t think that’s very good,” Trump told Hugh Hewitt in an interview Monday.
“I think he’s endangering a lot of Catholics, and a lot of people, but I guess if it’s up to the pope, he thinks it’s just fine for Iran to have a nuclear weapon,” Trump added.
Rubio was asked about Trump’s comments while he was taking questions from the White House podium on Tuesday, where he was filling in for Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, who is out on maternity leave.
“The President recently said that the Pope is endangering a lot of Catholics as a result of his rhetoric around the Iran war—“ CNN’s reporter started, but Rubio cut in.
“Well, I don’t think that’s an accurate description of what he said,” the top U.S. diplomat insisted.
“I think what the president basically said is that Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon because they would use it against places that have a lot of Catholics and Christians and others, for that matter,” Rubio argued.
The secretary of state argued that Trump and he both “cannot understand why anyone would think that it’s a good idea for Iran to ever have a nuclear weapon.”
Rubio went on to accuse Iran of “holding the whole world hostage” with their attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
“What do you think they would do if they had a nuclear weapon? They would hold the world hostage with that nuclear weapon. That’s what they would do,” Rubio warned.
Despite Rubio’s argument, the pope has never argued in support of Iran having a nuclear program. The Catholic leader has specifically called for a world “free from the nuclear threat,” but he urged the “path of dialogue and diplomacy” in a message on March 5, right after the U.S. started bombing.
In a stronger rebuke last month, Pope Leo said: “Enough of the display of power! Enough of war!”
Trump fired back in a post on Truth Social the next day, calling out Pope Leo by name as “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy.”
“I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon,” the president also wrote in the April 12 post, in which he took credit for the U.S.-born Catholic leader becoming pope.
“Leo should be thankful because, as everyone knows, he was a shocking surprise,” Trump ranted. “He wasn’t on any list to be Pope, and was only put there by the Church because he was an American, and they thought that would be the best way to deal with President Donald J. Trump. If I wasn’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican.”
Since then, the president has repeatedly gone after the pope with inaccurate claims that the Catholic leader is ok with Iran having a nuclear weapon.
But Rubio insisted the Vatican trip was planned before the tensions between Trump and the pope spiraled.
