Marco Rubio will sit down with Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican on Thursday carrying an agenda that includes Cuba, religious freedom and the unspoken weight of a public feud between the first American pope and the American president who has been attacking him on social media for weeks.
The Secretary of State, speaking to reporters at the White House on Tuesday, described the visit as an opportunity to discuss shared concerns — humanitarian aid distribution in Cuba through the Catholic Church, the persecution of Christian minorities globally, and what he described as the destruction of religious liberty in parts of Africa. “There’s a lot to talk about with the Vatican,” Rubio said. “The pope is obviously the vicar of Christ, is a Roman Catholic, but he’s also the head of a nation state.”
Whether the meeting also functions as damage control for a relationship Trump has been straining publicly is a question Rubio declined to accept at face value. Asked if the trip was Washington’s attempt to smooth things over with the pope, he said the visit had been planned before the rift emerged. “No, I mean it’s a trip we had planned from before, and obviously we had some stuff that happened,” he said.
The “stuff” has been considerable. Trump has disparaged Leo repeatedly in recent weeks, drawing backlash from Christian leaders across the political spectrum. On Monday, the president told radio host Hugh Hewitt that “the Pope would rather talk about the fact that it’s okay for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, and I don’t think that’s very good.” Leo has never said Iran should have nuclear weapons. He has opposed the war that Trump says is aimed at ending Iran’s nuclear program — a distinction Trump has either not grasped or chosen to collapse.
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Leo responded to the accusation directly. “The Church has spoken out for years against all nuclear arms, on that there is no doubt,” he said, rejecting the characterization without engaging in the kind of political brawl Trump’s comments seemed designed to provoke. On the broader question of whether criticism of his peace advocacy was warranted, the pope was measured. “The mission of the Church is to preach the Gospel, to preach peace. If someone wants to criticise me for preaching the Gospel … I hope simply to be listened to because of the value of God’s words.”
Iran, for its part, does not possess nuclear weapons and denies seeking them, maintaining that its nuclear program serves civilian purposes and that its enrichment activities are permitted under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to which it is a signatory.
US Ambassador to the Holy See Brian Burch sought to reframe the meeting’s context ahead of Thursday, describing it as an exercise in dialogue between two sovereign entities with disagreements that can be worked through. “Nations have disagreements, and I think one of the ways that you work through those is through fraternity and authentic dialogue,” Burch said at an event hosted by his embassy at Rome’s Gregorian University. When asked whether Rubio was coming to repair Trump’s relationship with the pope, Burch rejected the premise. “I don’t accept the idea that somehow there’s some deep rift,” he said, describing the visit as an opportunity for the US and the Vatican to “better understand each other, and to work through, if there are differences, certainly to talk through that.”
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Rubio is Catholic, as is Vice President JD Vance. Both men met Leo a year ago after attending his inaugural mass. The secretary of state therefore brings to Thursday’s meeting a personal religious dimension alongside his diplomatic one — a complexity that is not lost on observers watching an American Catholic diplomat navigate a public confrontation between his president and his pope.
Leo, who marks the first anniversary of his papacy on Friday, spent the early months of his tenure maintaining a relatively restrained public profile before emerging in recent weeks as one of the most prominent international voices against the Iran war. He has also criticized the Trump administration’s immigration policies sharply and called for dialogue between Washington and Havana — positions that align him with a progressive reading of Catholic social teaching and place him in direct tension with the administration on multiple fronts simultaneously.
On Friday, Rubio is also scheduled to meet Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who has publicly defended the pope against Trump’s attacks. Her defense minister has said the Iran war puts American global leadership at risk — another uncomfortable conversation for a secretary of state trying to hold transatlantic relationships together while his president antagonizes allies and clergy alike.