Pope Leo and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio held extended talks at the Vatican on Thursday. They pledged to strengthen relations between Washington and the church. The meeting came amid an escalating public feud between the pontiff and President Donald Trump.
Pope Leo and Marco Rubio meet at Vatican
The encounter, which stretched to two and a half hours inside the Vatican, produced a joint public commitment to repairing bilateral relations. A Vatican statement said the two men “renewed the shared commitment to fostering good bilateral relations” and “exchanged views on the world situation,” underscoring “the need to work tirelessly in favour of peace.”
It was the first meeting between a Donald Trump cabinet official and the pontiff in nearly a year. The State Department described the session as evidence of a “strong” relationship between the two powers. Rubio, a practising Catholic, went with a focused brief, telling reporters earlier in the week that he intended to press concerns over global religious freedom and discuss the situation in Cuba. U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See Brian Burch had predicted the conversation would be “frank.”
The closed-door talks ran beyond the allotted time, delaying the pope’s next appointment by 40 minutes. When Leo finally appeared before Vatican staffers, he thanked them for their patience. The meeting’s tone appeared warm in brief footage released by the Vatican.
Leo shook hands with Rubio and addressed him as “Mr. Secretary.” Rubio replied, “Great to see you,” before presenting a small crystal football. He joked that he knew the pope, a Chicago native, was more of a baseball fan. Leo gave Rubio a pen crafted from olive wood, describing it as “the plant of peace.”
On the other hand, Trump has launched an extraordinary string of public attacks on the pontiff in recent weeks, prompting criticism from Christian leaders across denominations. The president falsely claimed Leo believed Iran should be permitted to acquire nuclear weapons and accused the pope of “endangering a lot of Catholics” by opposing the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran (via Reuters).
Originally reported by Devanshi Basu on Mandatory.
