Donald Trump said on Sunday that he is “not a big fan” of Pope Leo XIV after the head of the Catholic Church called for peace amid the conflict in the Middle East.
The 70-year-old American pontiff had on Saturday urged leaders to end the violence, telling worshippers at St. Peter’s Basilica: “Enough of the worship of self and wealth. Enough of power displays. Enough of war.”
“I’m not a big fan of Pope Leo. He’s a very liberal person, and he’s a man that doesn’t believe in stopping crime,” Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland.
He accused the pontiff of “toying with a country that wants a nuclear weapon.”
Trump later doubled down on his comments to reporters with a post on Truth Social, saying: “I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon.”
“Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy,” he said.
The president added that Leo had only been elected “because he was an American, and they thought that would be the best way to deal with President Donald J. Trump.”
“If I wasn’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican.”
Trump later posted an AI-generated image seemingly depicting himself as Jesus Christ.
In the image, the president appears dressed in red and white robes as he cures a man with his healing hand. The American flag is shown over his shoulder.
Trump and the White House have previously shared AI-generated images, including one that showed the president dressed as the pope.
– Denying tensions –
Both Washington and the Vatican have dismissed reports suggesting a fallout.
On Friday, a Vatican official refuted claims that a senior Pentagon figure delivered a “bitter lecture” to the church’s envoy to the United States over Pope Leo XIV’s criticism of Donald Trump’s administration.
The report by the Free Press — already dismissed by the Pentagon as “distorted” — claimed that Cardinal Christophe Pierre was called to the Pentagon in January, where he was reportedly reprimanded by US Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Elbridge Colby.
According to the account, the official told the cardinal that the United States “has the military strength to act as it chooses — and that the Church should align with it.”
Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said in a statement “the account presented by certain media outlets regarding this meeting does not correspond to the truth in any way.”
While both parties insist the meeting was cordial, the Holy See and the White House have openly been at odds over the Trump administration’s hardline mass deportation campaign — which the pope called “inhuman” — and the use of military force in the Middle East and Venezuela.
When Trump made genocidal threats against Iran Tuesday — saying “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again” — the pontiff slammed the “truly unacceptable” statement and urged parties to “come back to the table” for negotiations.
Earlier this month, Pope Leo hailed the news of a ceasefire between the United States and Iran as a “sign of real hope.”
But peace talks between the United States and Iran, held in the Pakistani capital Islamabad, ended abruptly and without a resolution on Saturday, with US Vice President JD Vance telling reporters after a marathon-session of talks that Washington has delivered its “final and best offer.”
