MILAN, Italy (RNS) – Amid a growing public rift between Pope Leo XIV and President Donald Trump — arguably the two most influential American-born figures in the world — Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited the Vatican on Thursday seeking to highlight common ground between the Holy See and the Trump administration.
Rubio's meeting with Vatican officials lasted roughly two and a half hours and focused on "the strong relationship between the United States and the Holy See and their shared commitment to promoting peace and human dignity," according to a statement from the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See.
Rubio also met with his Vatican counterpart, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, and "reviewed ongoing humanitarian efforts in the Western Hemisphere and efforts to achieve a durable peace in the Middle East," according to the spokesperson for the U.S. Department of State, Tommy Pigott.
But the timing of the visit led some Vatican observers to interpret it as an effort to cool tensions after weeks of increasingly sharp exchanges between Leo and Trump.
In April, Trump accused Leo in a lengthy social media post of being "weak on crime" following the pope's continued appeals for peace and nuclear disarmament. Speaking on "The Hugh Hewitt Show" on May 4, the president accused Leo of being sympathetic to Iran obtaining nuclear weapons.
"I think he's endangering a lot of Catholics and a lot of people," he said.
In response, Leo replied that "the mission of the church is to proclaim the gospel, to preach peace."
"If someone wants to criticize me for proclaiming the gospel, let them do so truthfully. For years, the church has spoken out against all nuclear weapons, so there is no doubt on that point," he added.
The first major rift between Leo and the Trump administration came in October of last year, when the pope criticized "inhumane" treatment of migrants. During the Easter season this year, the pope underlined the importance of peace as the U.S.-Israeli conflict escalated with Iran and he decried Trump's threat to eradicate Iranian civilization as "truly unacceptable."
The visit by Rubio, a son of immigrants and the most prominent Catholic in the Trump cabinet after Vice President JD Vance, could be seen as an effort to "reverse" the negative trajectory, according to the Rev. Antonio Spadaro, undersecretary for the Vatican's Dicastery for Culture and Education.
The meeting is an attempt "to return the confrontation to a quieter, more institutional register," Spadaro wrote in an analysis on Tuesday. "Diplomats have a term for this kind of work: cooling the rhetoric. It is the necessary precondition for any substantive realignment, whenever that might come."
Rubio denied the meeting was meant to smooth over relations in a press conference on Tuesday at the White House. "It's a trip we had planned from before," he said, while acknowledging that "obviously, we had some stuff that happened."
Rubio also defended Trump's criticism of the pontiff, stating that "Iran can't have a nuclear weapon because they would use it against places that have a lot of Catholics, including Christians and others for that matter."
While in the past, Rubio seemed to downplay the political significance of the papacy, his remarks at Tuesday's press conference recognized Leo as "also the head of a nation-state."
There is "a lot to talk about with the Vatican," he said, underlining their shared concerns about religious freedom. "It's an organization that has a presence in over 100-something countries around the world, and we engage with the Vatican quite a bit because they're present in many different places."
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