Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni has strongly condemned Donald Trump’s criticism of Pope Leo XIV, describing the U.S. president’s remarks as “unacceptable.”
The dispute began after Pope Leo XIV spoke out against the ongoing Middle East war, calling for peace and urging an end to violence. In response, Trump told reporters that he was “not a big fan of Pope Leo,” accusing the pontiff of
toying with a country (Iran) that wants a nuclear weapon.
Trump later doubled down on his criticism in a post on Truth Social, writing:
I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon.
Trump also described the first American Pope in history as “weak on crime, and terrible for foreign policy.”
Meloni reacted on Monday, April 13th issuing a statement in which she emphasised the Pope’s role as the head of the Catholic Church and defended his right to speak on issues of peace and war.
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.
Amid the controversy, Trump removed from his social media a piece of AI slop ‘art’ which appeared to portray him as Jesus Christ. In an echo of the cult TV series Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace, Trump claimed he thought that the graphic on Truth Social depicted him not as the Messiah but as a hospital doctor.
