\n<\/p>\n
WASHINGTON\u2014Secretary of State Marco Rubio will head to Rome this week to smooth things over with the Vatican amidst tensions between the United States and Pope Leo over the Holy Father\u2019s criticisms of Operation Epic Fury.<\/p>\n
Rubio\u2019s visit to Italy will take place from Wednesday, May 6, to Friday, May 8, and is formally intended to \u201cadvance bilateral relations with Italy and the Vatican,\u201d the State Department said on Monday, noting that Rubio will \u201cmeet with Holy See leadership to discuss the situation in the Middle East and mutual interests in the Western Hemisphere.\u201d The Holy See says Rubio will meet privately with Pope Leo, who is the first pope from the United States. He will also meet with Pietro Parolin, the Vatican\u2019s secretary of state.<\/p>\n
The meeting comes amid high tensions between the White House and Pope Leo, who has repeatedly criticized President Donald Trump\u2019s administration. The president has aggressively hit back at the pope, even suggesting that the Vatican chose him as a response to Trump\u2019s presidency \u2014 and that \u201cthey thought that would be the best way to deal with President Donald J. Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I wasn\u2019t in the White House, Leo wouldn\u2019t be in the Vatican,\u201d the president said in a fiery Truth Social post. Trump\u2019s sentiment that Pope Leo was chosen to meet the second Trump administration, though generally considered to have been articulated too aggressively towards the head of the Catholic Church, is also widely held to be true.<\/p>\n
The most recent bump in the road came in the form of Pope Leo\u2019s appointment of a bishop to West Virginia: that bishop, according to the Washington Post<\/a>, was illegally smuggled into the United States in the trunk of a car and has been vocal in his criticisms of the Trump administration\u2019s immigration policies.<\/p>\n Things took a more hopeful turn of events when the pope downplayed reporter suggestions that he was warring with Trump, saying in late April that the \u201cnarrative that has not been accurate in all of its aspects\u201d and that it was \u201cnot in my interest at all\u201d to argue with Trump.<\/p>\n Vice President Vance took another step towards reconciliation with a social media post that praised the pope for his words: \u201cI am grateful to Pope Leo for saying this. While the media narrative constantly gins up conflict \u2014 and yes, real disagreements have happened and will happen \u2014 the reality is often much more complicated.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPope Leo preaches the gospel, as he should, and that will inevitably mean he offers his opinions on the moral issues of the day,\u201d Vance added. \u201cThe President \u2014 and the entire administration \u2014 work to apply those moral principles in a messy world. He will be in our prayers, and I hope that we\u2019ll be in his.\u201d<\/p>\n Last May, both Rubio and Vice President JD Vance attended the pope\u2019s inauguration and spoke privately with him. Vance led the delegation to Rome during that trip, on which they also extended an invitation to Pope Leo from President Donald Trump inviting the pope to the White House. This time around, Vance is staying home and is heading out to Iowa on Tuesday to message for the Trump administration.<\/p>\n Both Vance and Rubio are practicing Catholics and considered top contenders for the 2028 Republican presidential nomination: Vance is currently leading that field by wide margins, though Rubio has notably gained in popularity and name recognition in recent months. Some critics of the vice president are now arguing, in light of the visit, that Vance is being \u201csidelined<\/a>\u201d from the conversations with Pope Leo.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, doesn\u2019t see it that way. Rubio\u2019s meeting with the pope is just one \u201cproductive\u201d step in what will hopefully be the healing of the relationship between the Holy Father and the White House, he suggested.<\/p>\n \u201cI think ultimately it needs to be 3 people, but it\u2019s very good that the Secretary of State is going,\u201d he shared in a phone interview with The Daily Wire. Roberts, also a Catholic, stressed that the most important part of the dynamic is that Pope Leo and President Donald Trump meet and spend time together, \u201cespecially considering they\u2019re both great leaders and great Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIn the meantime, I think the greatest tag team, for the conservative movement internationally, is Vice President Vance and Secretary Rubio,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, no doubt, Rubio will have a great productive congenial visit with the Holy Father, and no doubt, at some point, the vice president will visit the Holy Father again, and no doubt, at some point, the president and Holy Father will visit again.\u201d<\/p>\n Tensions escalated in early April when the Free Press published an \u201cexpos\u00e9\u201d describing<\/a> a reportedly contentious January meeting between a Vatican diplomat and Pentagon officials. The report, citing unnamed sources, claimed that the Pentagon\u2019s Elbridge Colby summoned Cardinal Christophe Pierre, then the Vatican\u2019s Apostolic Nuncio, chastised him and insisted the\u00a0United States \u201chas the military power to do whatever it wants \u2014 and that the Church had better take its side.\u201d<\/p>\n Notably, the story claimed that Colby invoked the Avignon Papacy, a period in the 14th century in which the Holy See moved from Rome to France, where a series of popes were largely bent to the will of the French monarchy. It also cast Colby as belonging to \u201ca cadre of Catholic and ostensibly dovish officials\u201d allied with Vice President JD Vance, who are \u201cstruggling to reconcile their isolationist instincts with the aggressive posture of a president who, within a single year, has bombed eight countries \u2014 with no sign of stopping.\u201d<\/p>\n Allies of the vice president and some conservative commentators<\/a> took the story as a sign that Vance\u2019s critics sought to ostracize Vance from Catholicism, just war, and Pope Leo himself. The Vatican, the Pentagon, and the American Ambassador to the Holy See all denied the Free Press report, saying it was cordial and respectful.<\/p>\n Michael Caputo, a longtime Catholic and advisor to President Donald Trump, reflected that both Vance and Rubio bring a different flavor of Catholicism to the table. Vance, a new convert, brings fresh perspective and evangelical zeal. Rubio was baptized Catholic as a baby, spent a few years in the LDS church in Las Vegas as a child, and returned to the Catholic Church by his early teens.<\/p>\n Caputo stumbled on Rubio\u2019s memoir \u201cAmerican Son\u201d during a particularly dark period when he was being targeted by the Biden DOJ, and he was incredibly impressed by Rubio\u2019s reverence for the Catholic sacraments. That one specific chapter of \u201cAmerican Son\u201d \u201cdrew me into my faith as Russia gate sucked my family in,\u201d he shared.<\/p>\n \u201cMarco and JD are two very different Catholics and Catholicism needs them both,\u201d said Caputo. But he argued that it is \u201cMarco Rubio\u2019s deep and binding understanding of the sacraments and the role they played in connecting people to Christ\u201d that \u201cwill make a difference as he comes to the Vatican.\u201d<\/p>\n Rubio has cautioned respect for the Vatican, encouraging the public to see the office not as political but as spiritual.<\/p>\n