US President Donald Trump defied calls to apologise for his attacks on Pope Leo XIV on Monday, as Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni condemned his criticism of the supreme pontiff —triggered by the pope's denunciation of the Iran war — as "unacceptable".
"The pope is the head of the Catholic Church, and it is right and normal for him to call for peace and to condemn all forms of war," Meloni said in a statement on Monday.