United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrived at the Vatican on Thursday for a closed-door meeting with Pope Leo XIV, widely seen as an attempt to mend relations after President Donald Trump’s repeated verbal attacks on the pontiff.

The meeting lasted about half an hour, followed by talks with Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin. This marks the first known encounter between the pope and a Trump administration official in nearly a year.

Parolin stated that the meeting was requested by the US and that Pope Leo would listen carefully to Rubio. “I imagine they’ll talk about everything that has happened in recent days,” he told Reuters.

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.

Trump’s most recent attack came on Monday, when he accused the pope of “endangering a lot of Catholics” by opposing the war and falsely suggested the pontiff believed it was acceptable for Iran to obtain nuclear weapons. Pope Leo denied supporting nuclear arms, which the Catholic Church teaches are immoral.

US Ambassador to the Holy See Brian Burch said the conversation would likely be “frank.” Parolin described Trump’s attacks as “strange.” Rubio is also set to meet Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who has defended the pope against Trump’s criticisms.

Pope Leo, the first American pontiff, will mark his first year leading the 1.4-billion-member Church on Friday.

Source: www.aljazeera.com