Pope Leo has rejected claims that he supports nuclear weapons, following a tirade by US President Donald Trump accusing him of “endangering a lot of Catholics” with his stance on the Iran war. Speaking to journalists on Tuesday night after leaving the papal retreat in Castel Gandolfo, the first US-born pontiff said: “The mission of the church is to preach the gospel, to preach peace.”
Leo, who is to meet US Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the Vatican on Thursday, made a plea for honesty in political debate. “If anyone wants to criticise me for proclaiming the gospel, let them do so with the truth: the church has spoken out against all nuclear weapons for years, there is no doubt about that,” the pope said.
Earlier, Trump told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt: “The pope would rather talk about the fact that it’s OK for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, and I don’t think that’s very good. I think he’s endangering a lot of Catholics and a lot of people.” In the Vatican, the remarks were met with puzzlement. Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state, said: “For me it seems a bit strange, to say the least.”
The Rubio meeting will be the first known private audience Leo has had with a member of Trump’s cabinet since the secretary of state and Vice-President JD Vance met the pope a day after his inauguration mass in May last year. A “frank” conversation is expected, according to US Ambassador to the Holy See Brian Burch, although Rubio has played down the rift.
Andrea Vreede, a Vatican correspondent for Dutch broadcaster NOS, said: “Things have become really tense because Trump isn’t talking about the church or Vatican, but Leo; he has made it personal. We’re back to the middle ages when holy Roman emperors and popes did this kind of thing, used this kind of language.”
