A low-key Vatican statement following Marco Rubio’s meeting with Pope Leo suggests strained ties and signals that major work remains.
Mr Rubio’s meeting on Thursday with Leo, the first US pope, garnered wide public attention as President Donald Trump has repeatedly attacked the Pontiff over the Iran war.. The Vatican statement after the 45-minute encounter, the first between the Pope and a Trump cabinet official in nearly a year, said two leaders had “renewed the shared commitment to fostering good bilateral relations”.. “(The) statement makes it clear that, at present, there is work to do,”
Peter Martin, a former diplomat at the US Embassy to the Holy See told Reuters.. Austen Ivereigh, a Vatican specialist who co-wrote a book with the late Pope Francis, said the statement’s focus on the need to build bilateral relations suggests “that they are at the moment not good”.. The US embassy to the Holy See said on X after the meeting that Leo and Mr Rubio had discussed “topics of mutual interest in the
western hemisphere”.. “The United States and Holy See partnership in advancing religious freedom is strong,” Mr Rubio said on X, referencing his later meetings at the Vatican on Thursday with senior Vatican officials.. The Vatican statement covered both the Leo-Rubio encounter and the secretary’s subsequent Vatican meetings, but mentioned neither the western hemisphere, nor religious freedom.. It said there had been an “exchange of views” on the world situation, but gave no areas of common
agreement other than toward building better bilateral relations.. It is unusual for the Vatican to suggest it does not have good relations with a foreign nation.. “In the world of diplomacy – especially Vatican diplomacy – every word matters,” said Mr Martin.. Leo drew Mr Trump’s ire after he became a critic of the US-Israeli war on Iran and the Trump administration’s hardline anti-immigration policies.. Mr Trump has kept up an unprecedented series of public
attacks on the Pope in recent weeks, drawing a backlash from Christian leaders across the political spectrum.. It was also unusual for the Vatican’s statement on Thursday to reveal content of the discussions during the Pope’s meeting with Mr Rubio.. Such releases are usually carefully written to only reveal topics discussed in a visiting official’s meetings with senior Vatican diplomats and not during his or her papal encounter.