US President Donald Trump on Monday refused to apologize and doubled down on his criticism of Pope Leo XIV after the pontiff called for an end to violence in the Iran war.
“There’s nothing to apologize for. He’s wrong,” Trump told reporters, a day after he attacked the US-born pope on social media and in public remarks.
Trump said Pope Leo had taken the wrong position on Iran and defended his own policy approach.
“Pope Leo said things that are wrong. He was very much against what I’m doing with regard to Iran,” Trump said, adding that the pontiff was “very weak on crime and other things.”
In his social media post, Trump also praised the pope’s brother, Louis, saying he liked him “much better” because he was “all MAGA.”
Trump further claimed Leo’s rise to the papacy was tied to Washington, that the Church chose him because he was an American and because it believed that would be the best way to deal with Trump.
Pope Leo pushed back later on Monday, defending his calls for peace and saying he had no fear of speaking out.
“I have no fear of the Trump administration or speaking out loudly of the message of the Gospel, which is what I believe I am here to do, what the Church is here to do,” the pontiff told reporters aboard his plane as he began a 10-day trip to Africa.
“We are not politicians, we don’t deal with foreign policy with the same perspective as he might understand it,” he said. “But I do believe in the message of the Gospel, as a peacemaker.”
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, a close Trump ally, also criticized the US president’s remarks, calling them “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 every form of war,” Meloni said in a statement.
The clash reflects an unusually direct confrontation between a US president and the Bishop of Rome, with Trump openly challenging both the pontiff’s stance and the Catholic Church’s moral authority. Analysts say the dispute could also alienate Catholic voters in the United States, a key constituency in national elections.