Secretary of State Marco Rubio will meet with Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican this week. According to a statement from State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott, Rubio will travel to Rome May 6-8 to “advance bilateral relations with Italy and the Vatican.”
“Secretary Rubio will meet with Holy See leadership to discuss the situation in the Middle East and mutual interests in the Western Hemisphere,” the statement says. “Meetings with Italian counterparts will be focused on shared security interests and strategic alignment.”
The meetings come amid tensions between President Trump and the Pope. Last month, Pope Leo XIV warned against governments falling into “majoritarian tyranny.” Discussing the power of democracies, the Pope explained, “Far from being a mere procedure, democracy recognizes the dignity of every person and calls each citizen to participate responsibly in the pursuit of the common good.” He added that democracies can only remain “healthy” when “rooted in the moral law and a true vision of the human person.”
“Lacking this foundation, it risks becoming either a majoritarian tyranny or a mask for the dominance of economic and technological elites,” he stated.
The statements came as President Trump declared the Pope to be “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy.” Trump wrote on Truth Social that while Pope Leo talks about “fear” of his administration, he “doesn’t mention the FEAR that the Catholic Church, and all other Christian Organizations, had during COVID when they were arresting priests, ministers, and everybody else, for holding Church Services, even when going outside, and being ten and even twenty feet apart.”
