Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, is to meet the Pope during a two-day visit to Italy and the Vatican next week in efforts to ease tensions over the war in Iran.
News of the visit comes weeks after President Trump launched an extraordinary attack on Leo, who had repeatedly called for an end to war in the Middle East. Trump’s outburst drew strong criticism from world leaders and senior Catholic figures in the US.
The visit, Rubio’s third in 12 months, will take place on Thursday and Friday, the Italian daily Corriere della Sera reported.
Rubio will meet the Pope and Pietro Parolin, the Holy See’s secretary of state, who is the Vatican’s top diplomat, according to the newspaper.
A spokesperson for Palazzo Chigi, the office of prime minister Giorgia Meloni, confirmed to The Times that Rubio was expected to visit Italy. It will be the first high-profile diplomatic trip by a US official since Trump’s row with Leo.
Trump said last month: “I’m not a fan of Pope Leo”, accusing him of “toying with a country that wants a nuclear weapon”. He also posted an AI-generated image that appeared to portray himself as Jesus Christ.
Leo responded that he had “no fear” of the Trump administration. Shortly after, during a marathon tour of Africa, he criticised “tyrants” for spending billions on wars, though he later denied the comments were aimed at Trump.
The image posted of President Trump on his Truth Social online platform in April Reuters
Leo has also criticised the president’s aggressive policies towards immigrants. On Friday, he appointed Evelio Menjivar-Ayala, 55, a former undocumented migrant, as bishop of West Virginia. Menjivar-Ayala, from El Salvador, arrived in the US in 1990 hidden in the boot of a car, before being ordained as a priest in 2004.
The president had also criticised Meloni after she publicly defended the Pope in the aftermath of his attack. Rubio is expected to hold talks with senior members of Meloni’s government, including the defence minister Guido Crosetto and foreign minister Antonio Tajani, although there is no talk of a meeting with the prime minister.
A foreign ministry source confirmed unofficially that Rubio would meet Tajani. A defence ministry spokesperson said that a meeting with Crosetto had not yet appeared in official calendars.
Meloni was drawn into Trump and Leo’s spat last month when she rallied behind the Pope after her government refused US bombers access to the Sigonella air base in Sicily. The American president then told reporters: “I thought [Meloni] had courage. I was wrong”.
Analysts at the time said Meloni, a self-styled European “Trump whisperer”, had been forced to distance herself from Trump as his popularity has plummeted in Italy, with 80 per cent of Italians holding an unfavourable view of the US president, according to a YouGov poll last month.
The Palazzo Chigi spokesperson said a meeting with Meloni had not yet been confirmed.
President Trump welcomes Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s prime minister, to the White House in April last year. He has since criticised her as lacking courageWin McNamee/GETTY IMAGES
Lorenzo Castellani, a political scientist at the Luiss university in Rome, said meeting Rubio would offer Meloni an opportunity to improve relations with the US without losing face.
“The Americans are coming to Italy, so it’s not [Meloni] who is seen to be going there to patch things up.”
The Pentagon announced on Friday that the US would remove 5,000 American troops from Germany. Trump also threatened this week to withdraw US forces from bases in Italy and Spain.
The Vatican and US Department of State did not immediately reply to requests for comment.