VATICAN CITY / ROME: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is expected to travel to Italy this week, this week to meet with Pope Leo, a Vatican source said on Sunday, weeks after President Donald Trump’s stinging criticism of the Catholic pontiff.
The meeting, the first known in-person encounter between Leo and a US cabinet official in nearly a year, is expected to take place on Thursday, said a senior source familiar with the pope’s plans, who asked not to be named as they were not authorised to speak on the matter.
Rubio, who is a Catholic, last met Leo, the first US pope, in May 2025, alongside Vice President J.D. Vance.
An Italian government source said Rubio would meet Vatican Secretary of State Pietro Parolin and Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani.
US official also expected to meet Vatican secretary of state, Italian foreign minister
The source added that Rubio had asked for a meeting with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, one of Trump’s closest European allies, whom he turned on after she defended the pope.
The pope, who has taken on a forceful new speaking style, emerged in recent weeks as an outspoken critic of the US-Israeli led war with Iran, after previously criticising the Trump administration’s hardline anti-immigration policies.
Leo declared Trump’s threat to destroy Iran “unacceptable” and urged Americans to demand that US lawmakers “work for peace”.
Trump sharply criticised Leo on social media several times in April, even posting that the pontiff was “weak on crime, and terrible for foreign policy”.
These social media attacks, which occurred while Leo was on a four-nation tour of Africa, drew widespread attention.
Trump also said he was “not a big fan of Pope Leo” and that he does not “want a pope who thinks it’s ok for Iran to have a nuclear weapon”.
The pontiff responded by saying he had a “moral duty to speak out” against war — and then sparked more headlines with a speech in Cameroon lambasting “tyrants” ransacking the world.
However, he insisted afterwards that the remarks were written long before the row, and said he had not intended to start a new debate with the US president.
Italian media on Sunday presented Rubio’s visit as a meeting to “thaw” relations.
Leo, 70, will on Friday mark one year as leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, after being elected by cardinals on May 8, 2025, following the death of Pope Francis.
Published in Dawn, May 4th, 2026
