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Donald Trump's hugely controversial comments have sparked worldwide condemnation.
17:42, Tue, Apr 14, 2026 Updated: 18:00, Tue, Apr 14, 2026
Donald Trump launched an astonishing attack against Pope Leo XIV (Image: Getty)
Donald Trump's extraordinary attack against Pope Leo XIV has sparked a furious response from international visitors to the Vatican. The world was stunned at the extraordinary clash between the US-born Pope and the American president.
Trump called Leo "weak" and captive to the "radical left" on social media this week, after the Pope called Trump's threats toward Iran "truly unacceptable."
Speaking outside the White House on Tuesday, Trump refused to apologise for the remarks he made. At the Vatican, visitors strongly defended Pope Leo while he was away on a 10-day trip to Africa.
"It's just ridiculous, because if the Pope is not speaking about peace, and is not taking care of every person in the world, he's not the Pope," said Joerg Soler, who was visiting the Vatican from Switzerland.
"It's completely inappropriate," said Mariella Acciaioli, a French tourist. "Things are getting too much. We need to mobilise everyone, especially our leaders, to deal with this behaviour that is going beyond every limit."
US tourist Paul Sarauskas expressed disbelief at Trump's unprecedented broadside, calling it "absurd."
Pope Leo XIV found himself on the end of some furious criticism from Donald Trump (Image: Getty)
"I think he needs to keep his nose out of religion. He's telling the Pope what to do. He's telling the Pope how to do his job," Sarauskas said.
"Where the Pope just wants to do good things, right? He wants to talk about peace, about helping other people, whereas the current administration is doing something completely opposite.
"They're just tearing people apart. They're talking about division and war and hate."
Trump clearly expected the American pope to be "subservient" to the United States, said Italian journalist Massimo Franco, who has a new book, "Popes, Dollars and Wars," about US-Vatican relations.
"A Pope must be a Pope. He must respond to a wider community. And if he sees that Trump's policy risks to give a distorted view of the United States, I think the Pope is helping the United States as well, not just the United States, to find the right path," Franco said.
Trump refused to apologise for the remarks towards Pope Leo XIV (Image: Getty)
The Rev. Antonio Spadaro, a prominent Italian Jesuit theologian and undersecretary to the Vatican's Dicastery for Culture and Education, said Trump's fury "against a moral voice" shows that "the president is powerless."
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"He can't bring the Pope to the same terrain where he has brought everyone else, where he can dominate with language," Spadaro told Italian Radio 24.
"In this sense, the moral force of the church is evident. It is not a counter-power but a space in which power is being judged by criteria that power itself cannot control."
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