{"id":6511,"date":"2026-05-07T11:35:36","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T11:35:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2026\/05\/07\/rubio-arrives-at-vatican-to-meet-pope-leo-amid-trump-attacks\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T11:35:36","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T11:35:36","slug":"rubio-arrives-at-vatican-to-meet-pope-leo-amid-trump-attacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2026\/05\/07\/rubio-arrives-at-vatican-to-meet-pope-leo-amid-trump-attacks\/","title":{"rendered":"Rubio arrives at Vatican to meet Pope Leo amid Trump attacks"},"content":{"rendered":"<div aria-live=\"polite\" aria-atomic=\"true\">\n<p>United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio has arrived at the Vatican to meet Pope Leo XIV in what is seen as an attempt to repair relations after President Donald Trump\u2019s repeated barbs against the pontiff.<\/p>\n<p>The closed-door meeting is expected to take about half an hour on Thursday, and then Rubio will meet his counterpart, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin.<\/p>\n<section>\n<h2>Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n<p><span>list of 4 items<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span>list 1 of 4<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/opinions\/2026\/4\/16\/the-pope-has-shown-the-world-how-to-stand-up-to-trump\">The pope has shown the world how to stand up to Trump<\/a><\/li>\n<li><span>list 2 of 4<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2026\/4\/18\/pope-leo-heads-to-angola-in-landmark-africa-visit-amid-trump-clash\">Pope Leo says not seeking \u2018new debate\u2019 with Trump on trip to Angola<\/a><\/li>\n<li><span>list 3 of 4<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2026\/5\/3\/pope-honors-journalists-killed-in-war-zones-on-world-press-freedom-day\">On World Press Freedom Day, Pope honours journalists killed in war zones<\/a><\/li>\n<li><span>list 4 of 4<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2026\/5\/5\/before-vatican-trip-rubio-defends-trump-remarks-on-pope-leo-over-iran\">Rubio defends Trump remarks on Pope Leo amid Iran war<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n<p>This is the first known meeting between the pope and a Trump government official in nearly a year. Parolin said the meeting was requested by the US, and Leo would listen carefully to what Rubio had to say.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI imagine they\u2019ll talk about everything \u2060that has happened in recent days,\u201d he was quoted as saying by the Reuters news agency.<\/p>\n<p>Relations between Trump and Pope Leo have deteriorated sharply, driven by a barrage of public attacks from the US leader after the pontiff became a vocal critic of the US-Israel war on Iran, drawing backlash from Christian leaders across the political spectrum.<\/p>\n<p>The most recent attack from Trump came on Monday, when he <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2026\/5\/5\/before-vatican-trip-rubio-defends-trump-remarks-on-pope-leo-over-iran\">accused the pope of \u201cendangering a lot of Catholics\u201d<\/a> by opposing the war, and falsely suggested the pontiff believed it was acceptable for Iran to obtain nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n<p>Pope Leo denied that he supported nuclear weapons, which the Catholic Church teaches are immoral.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe mission of the Church is to preach the Gospel, to preach peace,\u201d said \u2060the pope. \u201cThe Church has spoken out for years against all nuclear arms \u2013 on that there is no doubt.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"frank-conversations\">\u2018Frank\u2019 conversations<\/h2>\n<p>The US \u2060ambassador to the Holy See, Brian Burch, told journalists on Tuesday \u2060that the conversation between Leo and Rubio was likely to be \u201cfrank\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>On Wednesday, Parolin described Trump\u2019s attacks on Pope Leo as \u201cstrange\u201d, in comments quoted by Reuters. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t want to get into judgements or personal evaluations about this,\u201d the cardinal told journalists outside an event near the Vatican.<\/p>\n<p>Rubio is also set to meet Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who has defended the pope against Trump\u2019s attacks.<\/p>\n<p>Pope Leo has grown increasingly outspoken on the world stage in recent weeks. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2026\/4\/16\/pope-leo-decries-world-ruled-by-tyrants-after-trump-attacks\">During a four-country trip to Africa<\/a>, he declared the world was being \u201cravaged by a handful of tyrants\u201d \u2013 comments he later said were not directed at Trump.<\/p>\n<p>On Friday, Pope Leo, who became the first American pontiff, will mark his first year leading the 1.4-billion-member Church.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio has arrived at the Vatican to meet Pope Leo XIV in what is seen as an attempt to repair relations after President Donald Trump\u2019s repeated barbs against the pontiff. The closed-door meeting is expected to take about half an hour on Thursday, and then Rubio will meet his &#8230; <a title=\"Rubio arrives at Vatican to meet Pope Leo amid Trump attacks\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2026\/05\/07\/rubio-arrives-at-vatican-to-meet-pope-leo-amid-trump-attacks\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Rubio arrives at Vatican to meet Pope Leo amid Trump attacks\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6512,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}