JAKARTA - US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is scheduled to visit Rome, Italy and the Vatican this week, an Italian government source said on Sunday, weeks after a dispute between Donald Trump and Pope Leo XIV.
Italian media on Sunday described Rubio's visit as a meeting to "thaw" relations.
Foreign Minister Rubio, who is Catholic, is expected to meet with Vatican Foreign Minister Pietro Parolin and Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, the source told AFP, quoted by Al Arabiya (4/5).
Italian media reported that Foreign Minister Rubio will also meet with Defense Minister Guido Crosetto during his visit from Thursday to Friday.
These meetings come weeks after US President Trump's extraordinary criticism of Pope Leo XIV's anti-war stance of the world's Catholic Church leader.
President Trump also criticized Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni - one of his closest European allies - as being less courageous after he defended Pope Leo.
Since officially leading the world's 1.4 billion Catholics on May 8, 2025, replacing the late Pope Francis who died, Pope Leo has criticized the Trump administration's harsh actions against immigration.
However, anti-war criticism is growing, especially after the US-Israeli attack on Iran, which triggered Trump's anger.
On April 7, Pope Leo XIV declared Trump's threat to destroy Iran "unacceptable" and urged Americans to demand that US lawmakers "seek peace."
Trump later slammed Pope Leo XIV in a social media post as "WEAK on Crime, and bad for Foreign Policy."
Trump also said that he was "not a big fan of Pope Leo XIV" and did not "want a Pope who thinks it's okay for Iran to have nuclear weapons."
Meanwhile, PM Meloni condemned Trump's criticism as "unacceptable", prompting the US President to direct his attacks at him.
"I was surprised by his actions. I thought he was brave, but I was wrong," the US President said in an interview with the Italian daily Corriere della Sera.
He also accused PM Meloni - a right-wing leader who has sought to act as a bridge between different US and European views - of failing to help the United States on NATO issues.
Trump threatened to withdraw US troops from Italy, saying Rome "didn't give us any help" in the war against Iran.
He also made similar threats against Spain, while the Pentagon announced it would withdraw 5,000 US troops from Germany.
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