Pope Leo rejects claim he supports nuclear weapons after Trump tirade | Pope Leo XIV
In response to Donald Trump’s latest tirade accusing him of “endangering many Catholics” with his stance on the Iran war, Pope Leo said he has never supported nuclear weapons and that his critics should tell the truth.
The first US-born pontiff to speak to reporters after leaving the papal sanctuary at Castel Gandolfo near Rome on Tuesday night said: “The mission of the church is to preach the gospel, to preach peace.”
Leo, who will meet US secretary of state Marco Rubio at the Vatican on Thursday in a bid to ease tensions caused by Trump’s previous broadsides, called for honesty in political debates.
“If anyone wants to criticize me for preaching the gospel, let him do so with facts: the Church has been raising its voice against all nuclear weapons for years, there is no doubt about that,” the Pope said. “I hope to be listened to because of the value of God’s word.”
Earlier in the day, Trump told prominent conservative radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt: “The Pope prefers to talk about the fact that it’s okay for Iran to have nuclear weapons, and I don’t think that’s very good.
“I think it puts a lot of Catholics and people in danger. But if it comes down to the Pope, he thinks it’s okay for Iran to have nuclear weapons.”
In April, the US president issued a harsh response to Leo in response to the Pope’s criticism of the war against Iran; He called Leo “weak on crime” and “terrible on foreign policy” and said he was elected pope only because Trump himself was in the White House. Trump shared an AI-generated image of himself depicted as a Christ-like figure before later deleting it.
Leo, who celebrates his first year as pope on Friday, travels frequently to Castel Gandolfo at the beginning of the week, leaving there on Tuesday nights and stopping on some occasions to chat with journalists. But Trump wasn’t planning to speak this week until his latest tirade against him.
“We were told yesterday that there would be no papal conversation,” said Andrea Vreede, Vatican correspondent for Dutch public radio and TV network NOS. “But it was there because he thought it was necessary and it was necessary.”
Vreede added: “Things got really tense because Trump was talking about Leo, not the church or the Vatican; he made it personal. We’re back in the middle ages, when Holy Roman emperors and popes did this kind of thing.” [thing]He used this kind of language.
The Rubio meeting will be Leo’s first known private meeting with a member of Trump’s cabinet since secretary of state and US vice president JD Vance met with the pope a day after the papal inauguration in May last year.
U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican Brian Burch said an “open” meeting was expected, but Rubio downplayed the disagreement between the Trump administration and the Vatican, saying “obviously some things happened” but “there was a lot to talk about with the Vatican.”
On Friday, Rubio will also meet with Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni, whom Trump rebuked after criticizing Trump’s remarks to Leo in April. The president scolded Meloni’s government for not supporting attacks on Iran and threatened to withdraw U.S. troops from Italy as a result.
However, Vreede said that Rubio, who the US Secretary of State has been looking for for weeks, may have an ulterior motive for meeting with the pope.
“It’s important for Leo to take a photo with Rubio and then make a short statement saying that they are continuing the dialogue and everyone wants world peace,” he said. “It won’t be a nice conversation in private, it can’t be a nice conversation… but Rubio needs to keep diplomatic channels open with the Vatican while he considers himself [ahead of the US presidential elections] In 2028.”
Vreede added that Trump’s rivalry with Rubio likely triggered his latest outburst: “He believes in competition, in winning… maybe he’s trying to interfere with Rubio because Rubio is being a little too diplomatic.”
