Vatican Visitors Defend Pope Leo XIV Against Trump’s Criticism

Inappropriate. Ridiculous. Absurd. These were the words visitors to the Vatican used Tuesday to describe U.S. President Donald Trump’s harsh criticism of Pope Leo XIV, who recently called for de-escalation of wartime rhetoric.

The diplomatic clash between the American-born pontiff and the U.S. president has captivated global attention after Trump labeled the pope as “weak” and captive to the “radical left” on social media. The president’s comments came in response to Leo’s characterization of Trump’s threats toward Iran as “truly unacceptable.”

While the pope continues his 10-day pastoral visit to Africa, tourists and pilgrims at the Vatican expressed strong support for the Holy Father’s peace-focused messaging.

“It’s just ridiculous, because if the pope is not speaking about peace, and is not taking care about every people in the world, he’s not the pope,” said Joerg Soler, a Swiss visitor at the Vatican.

French tourist Mariella Acciaioli was equally pointed in her assessment: “It’s completely inappropriate. Things are getting too much. We need to mobilize everyone, especially our leaders, to deal with this behavior that is going beyond every limit.”

The unprecedented nature of a U.S. president publicly criticizing the leader of the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics struck many as particularly troubling. Paul Sarauskas, an American tourist, expressed disbelief at Trump’s broadside.

“I think he needs to keep his nose out of religion. He’s telling the pope what to do. He’s telling the pope how to do his job,” Sarauskas remarked. “Where the pope just wants to do good things, right? He wants to talk about peace, about helping other people, whereas the current administration is doing something completely opposite. They’re just tearing people apart. They’re talking about division and war and hate.”

The controversy has dominated headlines across Italy, with major newspapers using words such as “outrage,” “shock attack,” “insult,” and “Trump’s schism” in their coverage. The diplomatic tension appears to highlight fundamental differences in worldview between the Vatican’s traditional role as a voice for peace and the more confrontational foreign policy rhetoric coming from Washington.

Italian journalist Massimo Franco, author of “Popes, Dollars and Wars,” a book examining U.S.-Vatican relations, suggested Trump expected the American-born pope to show deference to the United States.

“A pope must be a pope. He must respond to a wider community,” Franco explained. “And if he sees that Trump’s policy risks giving a distorted view of the United States, I think the pope is helping the United States as well, not just the United States, to find the right path.”

The clash also reveals the unique moral position the papacy occupies on the global stage. The Rev. Antonio Spadaro, a prominent Italian Jesuit theologian and undersecretary to the Vatican’s Dicastery for Culture and Education, suggested that Trump’s angry response demonstrated the limits of political power when confronted with moral authority.

“He can’t bring the pope to the same terrain where he has brought everyone else, where he can dominate with language,” Spadaro told Italian Radio 24. “In this sense, the moral force of the church is evident. It is not a counter-power but a space in which power is being judged by criteria that power itself cannot control.”

The diplomatic tension between the Vatican and Washington comes at a particularly sensitive time as the pope continues his African tour, where he has emphasized themes of reconciliation and peaceful coexistence in regions affected by conflict.