Robert Francis Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV, on the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City on May 8, 2025 (Marco Iacobucci Epp/Shutterstock.com)
The new Donald Trump administration hasn't had much of a positive relationship with the Vatican since entering office and now he may not even be the first U.S. president to meet Pope Leo XIV.
Former congressional candidate in Tennessee and ex-Barack Obama White House staffer Christopher Hale wrote that the two men share a relationship with South Side Chicago.
Meanwhile, the Pope declined to meet with Vice President JD Vance. The Trump administration had a tense meeting when the Pentagon deployed threats against Cardinal Christophe Pierre. In that case, The Free Press first reported, that the White House was furious to hear the Pope attack Trump's war in Iran.
On Tuesday, Pope Leo said that Trump's threat to wipe out an entire civilization was "truly unacceptable."
"There are certainly issues of international law here, but even more so a moral issue for the good of the whole, entire population," the Pope said in Italian to reporters outside his residence in Castel Gandolfo, Italy. "I would like to invite everyone to truly think in their hearts about the many innocent people, so many children, so many elderly, completely innocent, who would also become victims of this escalation of a war that began from the very first days."
The U.S. administration felt like the Pope attacked them.
While the report cited unnamed senior Vatican sources, in a closed-door meeting, a Defense Department official reached for a 14th-century weapon and invoked the Avignon Papacy. It was a short period in the 1300s in which the French monarchy forced the papacy into exile from Rome for nearly seven decades.
The Vatican said that some Vatican officials interpreted it as a threat that the U.S. would be willing to use military force against the Holy See, Hale wrote.
One Vatican official said, “The Pope may well never visit the United States under this [Trump] administration."
Vance explained to the press that he didn't know who Cardinal Pierre was until recently.
Once reminded, he declined to comment on the Pentagon’s January meeting with the cardinal or on the "bitter lecture.”
Defense Department officials became incensed with Pope Leo warned that “a diplomacy that promotes dialogue and seeks consensus among all parties is being replaced by a diplomacy based on force,”The Free Press report said.