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Washington-Vatican feud deepens as JD Vance says pope should 'stick to matters of morality'
US Vice President JD Vance has waded into the feud between President Donald Trump and Pope Leo XIV, after the American president sparked global controversy for erupting at the Catholic leader over his criticism of the US-Israeli war on Iran.
“I certainly think that in some cases it would be best for the Vatican to stick to matters of morality, to stick to matters of what’s going on in the Catholic Church and let the president of the United States stick to dictating American public policy,” Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019, told Fox News on Monday.
American-born Pope Leo XIV, who has emerged as a vocal critic of the conflict, last week slammed Trump’s apocalyptic rhetoric against the people of Iran as “truly unacceptable".
On Sunday, he denounced the "delusion of omnipotence that surrounds us and is becoming increasingly unpredictable and aggressive", a statement that appeared to be directed at the US leader.
Trump took to Truth Social in the early hours of Monday to post a 330-word condemnation of the Pope, with his characteristic mix of all-caps words, unusual punctuation and exaggerated language, labelling the leader of approximately 1.4 billion Catholics worldwide as “WEAK”.
“Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime”, “Foreign Policy” and “Weak on Nuclear Weapons,” he raged.
“I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon.
I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s terrible that America attacked Venezuela, a Country that was sending massive amounts of Drugs into the United States,” he continued.
Pope Leo has not made any statement to suggest he supports nuclear weapons, and has spoken out against them.