Pope Leo XIV publicly pushed back at Donald Trump from Italy on Wednesday after the US president claimed the pontiff was effectively backing a nuclear armed Iran and 'endangering Catholics'. The pope insisted the Church has long opposed all nuclear weapons and told critics to 'tell the truth'. The clash came just days before Pope Leo XIV was due to meet US Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the Vatican on Thursday.
Trump has repeatedly attacked the pope over his anti war stance on Iran, casting the Vatican's calls for de escalation as naive and dangerous. In his latest broadside, delivered in a US radio interview, the president suggested Pope Leo XIV's position on the conflict meant he was comfortable with Tehran acquiring a nuclear weapon. The pope has now rejected that claim in unusually blunt on camera remarks.
