US Secretary of State Marco Rubio meets Pope Leo in the Vatican for a potentially fraught encounter, as US President Donald Trump has continued a series of disparaging attacks on the Catholic leader over the Iran war.
Rubio’s convoy drove through the central Roman boulevard leading to the Vatican under tight security, arriving at 11:10 a.m. (0910 GMT) for the first visit between the pope and a Trump cabinet official in nearly a year.
The closed-door meeting between Leo and Rubio, who also serves as Trump’s national security adviser, was expected to last about a half-hour. Rubio will meet afterward with the Vatican’s top diplomat, Italian Cardinal Pietro Parolin.
Leo, the first US pope, drew Trump’s ire after becoming a firm critic of the US-Israeli war on Iran and the Trump administration’s hardline anti-immigration policies.
The president has kept up an unprecedented series of public attacks on the pope in recent weeks, drawing a backlash from Christian leaders across the political spectrum.
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