{"id":6529,"date":"2026-05-08T11:35:34","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T11:35:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2026\/05\/08\/rubio-meets-pope-leo-can-they-heal-white-house-vatican-rift\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T11:35:34","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T11:35:34","slug":"rubio-meets-pope-leo-can-they-heal-white-house-vatican-rift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2026\/05\/08\/rubio-meets-pope-leo-can-they-heal-white-house-vatican-rift\/","title":{"rendered":"Rubio meets Pope Leo: Can they heal White House-Vatican rift?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div aria-live=\"polite\" aria-atomic=\"true\">\n<p>Pope Leo XIV and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2026\/5\/7\/rubio-arrives-at-vatican-to-meet-pope-leo-amid-trump-attacks\">met on Thursday<\/a> during the latter\u2019s trip to Rome, with hopes of improving relations between the Vatican and Washington at a time when United States President Donald Trump has repeatedly attacked the pontiff.<\/p>\n<p>On Friday, Leo marks his first year leading the 1.4 billion-member Catholic Church.<\/p>\n<section>\n<h2>Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n<p><span>list of 3 items<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span>list 1 of 3<\/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<li><span>list 2 of 3<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2026\/5\/6\/shoot-palestinians-not-settlers-israeli-general-exposes-double-standard\">Shoot Palestinians, not settlers: Israeli general exposes double standard<\/a><\/li>\n<li><span>list 3 of 3<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2026\/5\/7\/rubio-arrives-at-vatican-to-meet-pope-leo-amid-trump-attacks\">US says Pope-Rubio talks underscore \u2018strong relationship\u2019 with Vatican<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n<p>Here is what happened during the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/amp\/news\/2026\/5\/7\/rubio-arrives-at-vatican-to-meet-pope-leo-amid-trump-attacks\">meeting<\/a>, and whether it signals a thaw between the Vatican and Washington.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"what-happened-at-the-meeting-and-afterwards\">What happened at the meeting \u2013 and afterwards?<\/h2>\n<p>Pope Leo and Rubio \u201crenewed the shared commitment to fostering good bilateral relations\u201d, the Vatican said in a statement following the first meeting between the pope and a Trump cabinet official in nearly a year amid an atmosphere of tension with Washington.<\/p>\n<p>The meeting appeared to have run longer than planned. The\u00a0pope\u00a0arrived 40 minutes late for a subsequent meeting with Vatican staffers and thanked them for being patient.<\/p>\n<p>Rubio also met with senior Vatican officials, including top diplomat Italian Cardinal Pietro Parolin.<\/p>\n<p>The US embassy to the Holy See wrote in an X post that Leo and Rubio had discussed \u201ctopics of mutual interest in the Western Hemisphere\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The Vatican statement added that the two had \u201cexchanged views\u201d on the world situation and spoke about \u201cthe need to work tirelessly in favour of peace\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Vatican video from the beginning of the closed-door meeting with Rubio showed Leo shaking hands with his guest and addressing him formally as \u201cMr Secretary\u201d, to which Rubio, a Catholic, responded: \u201cGreat to see you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Rubio was also seen giving the pope a small crystal football. He joked that he knew that Leo, originally from Chicago and known as a fan of the White Sox, was more of a \u201cbaseball guy\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Leo gave\u00a0Rubio\u00a0a small pen made from wood from an olive tree, which he called \u201cthe plant of peace\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Rubio had told a White House briefing on Tuesday he expected to discuss Cuba and concerns over religious freedom around the world with Leo. The US ambassador to the Holy See, Brian Burch, said, also on Tuesday that the conversation between the pope and Rubio was likely to be \u201cfrank\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>On Friday, the pope asked God to inspire leaders to calm tensions during an address in the city of Pompei to mark his first anniversary as head of the Catholic Church.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe cannot resign ourselves to the images of death that the news shows us every day,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"why-is-there-a-rift-with-washington\">Why is there a rift with Washington?<\/h2>\n<p>Leo, the first American pope, has drawn Trump\u2019s ire with criticism of the US-Israeli war on Iran and the Trump administration\u2019s hardline anti-immigration policies.<\/p>\n<p>Trump has kept up an unprecedented series of public attacks on the\u00a0pope\u00a0in recent weeks, drawing a backlash from Christian leaders across the political spectrum.<\/p>\n<p>On Monday, Trump wrongly suggested that Leo believed it was acceptable for Iran to obtain nuclear weapons and claimed that he was \u201cendangering a lot of Catholics\u201d by opposing the war.<\/p>\n<p>Leo told journalists after those remarks that he is concerned with spreading the Christian message of peace. The pope firmly rejected the idea that he \u201csupported nuclear weapons\u201d, which the Catholic Church teaches are immoral.<\/p>\n<p>Ahead of his meeting with Leo, Rubio <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2026\/5\/5\/before-vatican-trip-rubio-defends-trump-remarks-on-pope-leo-over-iran\">pushed back<\/a> after Trump accused Leo of \u201cendangering Catholics\u201d over his stance on the Iran war, saying the US president\u2019s remarks had been mischaracterised.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWell, I don\u2019t think that\u2019s an accurate description of what he said,\u201d Rubio told reporters on Tuesday when asked about Trump\u2019s comments.<\/p>\n<p>For his part, Leo has been outspoken about events on the world stage in recent weeks.<\/p>\n<p>During a four-nation African tour last month, he decried the direction of global leadership and said the world was \u201cbeing ravaged by a handful of tyrants\u201d, in comments he later claimed were not aimed directly at Trump.<\/p>\n<p>Rubio also on Friday is due to meet Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who has strongly defended the pope from Trump and whose once-close relationship with Trump has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2026\/4\/8\/melonis-trump-trouble-why-italian-pm-is-distancing-herself-from-us-leader\">deteriorated<\/a> over the Iran war in recent weeks. Meloni\u2019s defence minister has said the war in Iran puts US leadership at risk.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"has-the-rubio-pope-meeting-patched-things-up\">Has the Rubio-Pope meeting patched things up?<\/h2>\n<p>Rubio\u2019s meeting with Leo is a sign of a \u201cstrong\u201d relationship between the Vatican and the US, State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott claimed. Rubio and Vice President JD Vance, who is also a Catholic, met Leo a year ago after attending the pope\u2019s inaugural mass. Trump has not met the pontiff.<\/p>\n<p>But Kenneth Hackett, leader of the US Catholic Church\u2019s foreign relief agency for 18 years before serving as ambassador to the Holy See under former President Barack Obama, told Reuters the Vatican statement afterwards indicated that \u201cthere were no substantive agreements\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>While the Vatican statement covered both the Leo-Rubio encounter and Rubio\u2019s later Vatican meetings, it said merely that there had been an \u201cexchange of views\u201d on the world situation, giving no indication of common agreement other than \u201cbuilding better bilateral relations\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Peter Martin, a former diplomat at the US embassy to the Holy See, who served during both Democratic and Republican administrations, told Reuters that the Vatican\u2019s statement after the meeting \u201cmakes it clear that, at present, there is work to do\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Austen Ivereigh, a Vatican specialist who co-wrote a book with the late Pope Francis, said the statement\u2019s focus on the need to build bilateral relations suggested \u201cthat they are at the moment not good\u201d, Reuters reported.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pope Leo XIV and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met on Thursday during the latter\u2019s trip to Rome, with hopes of improving relations between the Vatican and Washington at a time when United States President Donald Trump has repeatedly attacked the pontiff. On Friday, Leo marks his first year leading the 1.4 billion-member Catholic &#8230; <a title=\"Rubio meets Pope Leo: Can they heal White House-Vatican rift?\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2026\/05\/08\/rubio-meets-pope-leo-can-they-heal-white-house-vatican-rift\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Rubio meets Pope Leo: Can they heal White House-Vatican rift?\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6530,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6529","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\/6529","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=6529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6529\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}