{"id":470195,"date":"2026-05-05T22:07:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T22:07:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/470195\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T22:07:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T22:07:19","slug":"trump-reignites-war-of-words-with-pope-as-rubio-bids-to-repair-relations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/470195\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump reignites war of words with Pope as Rubio bids to repair relations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Donald Trump has launched a fresh broadside at Pope Leo XIV as his top diplomat prepares to head to Rome to try to ease tensions following an earlier spat.<\/p>\n<p>The US president accused the pontiff of \u201cendangering\u201d Catholics and others by claiming he was content with Iran getting a nuclear weapon.<\/p>\n<p>The first US-born pope has not said this, but has been critical of the Middle East conflict and called for peace, while condemning the use of religion to justify war.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" height=\"427\" width=\"640\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/trump-reignites-war-of-words-with-pope-as-rubio-bids-to-repair-relations.jpg\" alt=\"Pope Leo\" data-title=\"Pope Leo\" data-copyright-holder=\"AP\" data-copyright-notice=\"Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved\" data-credit=\"Andrew Medichini\" data-usage-terms=\"This content is intended for editorial use only. For other uses, additional clearances may be required.\"\/>The pontiff has spoken out against the Iran conflict (Andrew Medichini\/AP)<\/p>\n<p>The head of the Catholic Church also previously warned the world is being \u201cravaged by a handful of tyrants\u201d, and branded Mr Trump\u2019s threat to wipe out Iranian civilisation \u201ctruly unacceptable\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>In turn, Mr Trump declared he was \u201cnot a fan of Pope Leo\u201d, accusing him of being \u201cweak\u201d and pandering to the \u201cradical left\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The row was inflamed further after the president posted an image on social media that portrayed him as Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n<p>It was subsequently deleted following a backlash.<\/p>\n<p>In his latest criticism, Mr Trump told conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt: \u201cThe Pope would rather talk about the fact that it\u2019s OK for Iran to have a nuclear weapon.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd I don\u2019t think that\u2019s very good. I think he\u2019s endangering a lot of Catholics and a lot of people.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He added: \u201cBut I guess if it\u2019s up to the Pope, he thinks it\u2019s just fine for Iran to have a nuclear weapon.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>His comments came on the eve of secretary of state Marco Rubio, himself a Catholic, travelling to the Vatican, where he will meet Pope Leo.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" height=\"427\" width=\"640\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1778018839_469_trump-reignites-war-of-words-with-pope-as-rubio-bids-to-repair-relations.jpg\" alt=\"Marco Rubio \" data-title=\"Marco Rubio \" data-copyright-holder=\"AP\" data-copyright-notice=\"Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved\" data-credit=\"Jacquelyn Martin\" data-usage-terms=\"This content is intended for editorial use only. For other uses, additional clearances may be required.\"\/>Marco Rubio is due to meet the Pope this week in Rome (Jacquelyn Martin\/AP)<\/p>\n<p>He is also due to hold talks with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, an erstwhile ally of Mr Trump who took issue with his remarks about the Pope.<\/p>\n<p>It led Mr Trump to round on her as part of his wider criticism of Nato over what he sees as a lack of support for the Iran war.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump has launched a fresh broadside at Pope Leo XIV as his top diplomat prepares to head&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":470196,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-470195","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-featured-news","11":"tag-featurednews","12":"tag-headlines","13":"tag-latest-news","14":"tag-latestnews","15":"tag-main-news","16":"tag-mainnews","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-top-stories","19":"tag-topstories","20":"tag-world","21":"tag-world-news","22":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116524250004566574","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=470195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470195\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/470196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}