Secretary of State Marco Rubio met Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican on Tuesday during a time of rising tensions between President Donald Trump and the leader of the Catholic Church over the Iran war.

The visit comes as Trump has publicly condemned the first American pontiff for decrying the humanitarian impact of the U.S-Israeli war with Iran. Trump has also criticized Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, once a staunch Trump ally, who drew the U.S. president’s fury after coming to Leo’s defense. 

Rubio will meet with Meloni and other government officials, including Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani and Defense Minister Guido Crosetto, to “discuss the situation in the Middle East,” the U.S. State Department said. The meeting will take place on Friday, according to the Italian Embassy. 

Rubio has denied that his meeting with the pope is a bid to mend Washington’s troubled relationship with the Vatican. But Trump’s tirade against the pope has driven a wedge between his administration and its most ardent political supporters abroad. Far-right European leaders such as Meloni are at risk of losing key Christian voters if they appear to back Trump’s aggressive rhetoric. 

“I find President Trump’s words towards the Holy Father unacceptable,” Meloni said in a statement last month. “The Pope is the head of the Catholic Church, and it is right and normal that he calls for peace and condemns all forms of war.”

The tensions between the two men flared after Leo spoke out against the Iran war in March. During a Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Square, the pontiff criticized the use of Christian teachings to justify war and condemned “manipulation” of the religion for political or military gain. The statement was widely interpreted to be directed at the Trump administration. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other senior Cabinet members have quoted Bible verses while speaking about U.S. strikes on Iran. 

“Brothers and sisters, this is our God: Jesus, King of Peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war,” Leo said during the Mass. “He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them.”

Trump then criticized the pope in a social media post on Easter Sunday, crediting himself for Leo’s historic election to the papacy and accusing him of being “weak on crime,” bad for foreign policy, and “weak on nuclear weapons.” 

Leo has said his condemnation of violence and war was not directed at the Trump administration, but he responded directly to the president while speaking to reporters at the start of a trip to Africa last month. 

The pontiff said he harbors “no fear, neither of the Trump administration, nor of speaking out loudly about the message of the Gospel,” adding, “that’s what I believe I am called here to do.”

Days later, Trump posted an artificial intelligence-generated image of himself as a Christlike figure that drew outrage from prominent voices within his conservative Catholic base. 

The president eventually took down the image, but declined to walk back his attacks on the pope. Trump instead defended his rhetoric by claiming without evidence that Leo supports Iran’s nuclear program.

Though Trump and his administration have offered varying justifications for going to war with Iran, they have coalesced around one common message: Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. Experts have questioned Trump’s claims that Iran was close to obtaining nuclear weapons capability before the U.S. and Israel mounted a joint military campaign in the country. 

Any diplomacy Rubio hopes to conduct at the Vatican is likely to be further complicated by comments Trump made in an interview with conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt earlier this week.

“I think he’s endangering a lot of Catholics and a lot of people,” Trump said of Leo. “But I guess, if it’s up to the pope, he thinks it’s just fine for Iran to have a nuclear weapon.”​ The president went on to accuse the pontiff of helping Iran and undermining Trump’s immigration agenda. 

Leo responded to Trump’s accusations on Tuesday, saying that the Catholic Church “for years has spoken out against all nuclear weapons, so there is no doubt there.” He reiterated that his calls for peace and diplomacy in the Middle East are a reflection of biblical teachings, not politics. 

At a White House press briefing on Tuesday, Rubio defended Trump’s comments about the pope, saying they originated from his opposition to Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon “because they would use it against places that have a lot of Catholics and Christians and others.”

Rubio’s visit to the Vatican will be at least his second since joining Trump’s Cabinet. He met with Leo while attending his inaugural Mass last year. 

The pope told Vatican News on Tuesday that he hoped his meeting with Rubio would be “a good dialogue” that would lead them “to understand one another well.”

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

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