Rubio to visit Vatican, Rome after Trump row

AFP | Rome

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US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will visit Rome and the Vatican this week, an Italian government source said yesterday, weeks after President Donald Trump’s stinging criticism of Pope Leo XIV.

Italian media reported that Rubio would meet the US pontiff himself on Thursday, but there was no immediate confirmation of this.

Newspapers presented the visit by Rubio -- a Catholic -- as a meeting to “thaw” relations.

The government source told AFP that Rubio would meet Vatican Secretary of State Pietro Parolin and Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani.

The meetings come just weeks after Trump’s extraordinary criticism of Pope Leo over the Catholic leader’s anti-war rhetoric. The source said Rubio had asked for a meeting with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, one of Trump’s closest European allies, whom he turned on after she defended the pope.Media reports said he was also due to meet Defence Minister Guido Crosetto, amid a deepening rift in transatlantic ties over the Middle East war.