Pope Leo has said he has never supported nuclear weapons and that those who criticise him need to speak the truth, in response to Donald Trump\u2019s latest tirade accusing him of \u201cendangering a lot of Catholics\u201d with his stance on the Iran war.<\/p>\n
Speaking to journalists<\/a> on Tuesday night after leaving the papal retreat in Castel Gandolfo, near Rome, the first US-born pontiff said: \u201cThe mission of the church is to preach the gospel, to preach peace.\u201d<\/p>\n Leo, who is to meet the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio<\/a>, in the Vatican on Thursday in an effort to ease tensions sparked by previous Trump broadsides, made a plea for honesty in political debate.<\/p>\n \u201cIf anyone wants to criticise me for proclaiming the gospel, let them do so with the truth: the church has spoken out against all nuclear weapons for years, there is no doubt about that,\u201d the pope said. \u201cI simply hope to be listened to because of the value of God\u2019s word.\u201d<\/p>\n Earlier in the day, Trump told Hugh Hewitt, a prominent conservative radio talkshow host: \u201cThe pope would rather talk about the fact that it\u2019s OK for Iran<\/a> to have a nuclear weapon, and I don\u2019t think that\u2019s very good.<\/p>\n \u201cI think he\u2019s endangering a lot of Catholics and a lot of people. But 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 Donald Trump has repeatedly clashed with Leo since the start of the US-Israel war on Iran. Photograph: Kent Nishimura\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n In April, the US president lashed out at Leo in response to the pope\u2019s criticisms of the war on Iran, calling Leo \u201cweak on crime\u201d and \u201cterrible on foreign policy\u201d and saying he had only been elected pontiff because Trump himself was in the White House. Trump then shared an AI-generated image of himself depicted as a Christ-like figure before deleting it.<\/p>\n Leo, who marks his first year as pope on Friday, often goes to Castel Gandolfo at the start of the week, leaving on a Tuesday night and on some occasions stopping to chat to journalists. But until Trump\u2019s latest tirade against him, he had not been planning to speak this week.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were told yesterday that there would be no papal chat,\u201d said Andrea Vreede, a Vatican<\/a> correspondent for the Dutch public radio and TV network NOS. \u201cBut there was, because he thought it was necessary and it was necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n Vreede added: \u201cThings have become really tense because Trump isn\u2019t talking about the church or Vatican, but Leo; he has made it personal. We\u2019re back to the middle ages when holy Roman emperors and popes did this kind of [thing], used this kind of language.\u201d<\/p>\n Marco Rubio and the pope are expected to have a \u2018frank\u2019 conversation when the pair meet on Thursday. Photograph: Kent Nishimura\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n The Rubio meeting will be the first known private audience Leo has had with a member of Trump\u2019s cabinet since the secretary of state and the US vice-president, JD Vance, met the pope a day after his papal inauguration mass in May last year.<\/p>\n A \u201cfrank\u201d conversation is expected, the US ambassador to the Holy See, Brian Burch, said, although Rubio has played down the rift between Trump administration<\/a> and the Vatican, saying \u201cobviously we had some stuff that happened\u201d but there was \u201ca lot to talk about with the Vatican\u201d.<\/p>\n