Pope Leo said he did not fear the Trump administration and would continue to speak out against war after Donald Trump delivered an extraordinary broadside against him in which he said he did not think the Chicago-born pontiff was “doing a very good job”, while also suggesting he should “stop catering to the radical left”.

In remarks that have been widely criticised, the US president used a lengthy social media post to sharply criticise Leo while he flew from Florida to Washington on Sunday night, then continued in comments on the tarmac to reporters. “I’m not a fan of Pope Leo,” he said.

Trump made the comments after Leo suggested over the weekend that a “delusion of omnipotence” was fuelling the US-Israeli war in Iran. While it is not unusual for popes and presidents to be at cross purposes, it is exceedingly rare for the pope to criticise a US leader – and for the president to respond in such a stinging manner.

“Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy,” the president wrote in his post, adding: “I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon.” He repeated that sentiment in comments to reporters, saying: “We don’t like a pope who says it’s OK to have a nuclear weapon.”

Later, he posted a clearly AI-generated image of himself as a Jesus-like figure, appearing to “cure” a man. He deleted it after a backlash from some of his religious supporters.

Leo presided over an evening prayer service in St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican on Saturday, the day the US and Iran began face-to-face negotiations in Pakistan during a fragile ceasefire. The pope did not mention the US or Trump by name, but his tone and message appeared to be directed at Trump and American officials, who have boasted of US military superiority and justified the war in religious terms.

Leo arrived in Algeria on Monday as part of an 11-day tour of Africa, and during the papal flight he told reporters he was not a politician and that he did not want to enter into a debate with Trump.

“The message of the church, my message, the message of the gospel: blessed are the peacemakers. I do not look at my role as being political, a politician.” Leo said he did not think the message of the gospel should “be abused, as some are doing”.

“I continue to speak strongly against war, seeking to promote peace, dialogue and multilateralism among states to find solutions to problems,” he said.

Responding to a question from a US journalist, the pope said: “I’m not afraid 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.”

US bishops have defended Leo, saying he is not a political rival but a “vicar of Christ who speaks from the truth of the gospel” while their Italian counterparts called on Trump to respect Leo and his ministry.

The Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, said he condemned Trump’s “insult” in a message addressed to Leo on social media. “On behalf of the great nation of Iran, I condemn the insult to Your Excellency and declare that the desecration of Jesus (peace be upon him), the prophet of peace and brotherhood, is unacceptable to any free person,” he wrote.

Italian politicians from across the spectrum also criticised Trump’s comments. Matteo Salvini, the far-right deputy prime minister who has been a staunch supporter of Trump, said: “If anyone is working hard on the issue of peace and conflict resolution, it’s Pope Leo. Attacking the pope, a symbol of peace and a spiritual guide for billions of Catholics, doesn’t seem like a useful or intelligent thing to do.”

Italy’s far-right prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, said Trump’s words were “unacceptable”. But that was only after she came under pressure from the opposition when she omitted to address the remarks in a social media post earlier on Monday that praised Leo for his role in “fostering the return of peace” and his trip to Africa. Her government has formed strategic partnerships on the continent, mainly aimed at addressing irregular immigration.

Meloni, who is ideologically in tune with Trump and has nurtured good relations with him, said in a statement: “I find President Trump’s words toward the Holy Father unacceptable. The pope is the head of the Catholic church, and it is right and proper that he calls for peace and condemns all forms of war.”

Matteo Renzi, Italy’s liberal former prime minister, said it was a “duty” to defend the pope. “Not only for Catholics but also, and above all, for the laity,” he said.

“It’s been centuries since we’ve seen such blatant aggression [against a pope],” Renzi said, describing the pontiff as a “bridge builder”, in contrast to Trump, who he described as “a destroyer of relationships and civilisations”.

Leo’s criticisms of the war have intensified since the US-Israeli strikes on Iran began. In ones of his harshest condemnations, he said God “does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them”.

This was seen as a rebuke to the US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, who said he prayed for “overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy”.

Leo has also referenced an Old Testament passage from Isaiah, saying that “even though you make many prayers, I will not listen – your hands are full of blood”.

Before the ceasefire, when Trump warned of mass strikes against Iranian power plants and other infrastructure and that “an entire civilization will die tonight”, Leo described such sentiments as “truly unacceptable”.

In his social media post on Sunday night, however, Trump went far beyond the war in Iran in criticising Leo. The president wrote: “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.” That was a reference to the Trump administration ousting the Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro in January.

“I don’t want a Pope who criticizes the President of the United States because I’m doing exactly what I was elected, IN A LANDSLIDE, to do,” Trump added, referencing his 2024 election victory.

Trump also suggested in the post that Leo only got his position “because he was an American, and they thought that would be the best way to deal with President Donald J Trump”.

“If I wasn’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican,” Trump claimed, adding: “Leo should get his act together as Pope, use Common Sense, stop catering to the Radical Left, and focus on being a Great Pope, not a Politician. It’s hurting him very badly and, more importantly, it’s hurting the Catholic Church!”

In his subsequent comments to reporters, Trump remained highly critical, saying: “I don’t think he’s doing a very good job. He likes crime I guess,” adding: “He’s a very liberal person.”

In the 2024 election, Trump won 55% of Catholic voters, according to AP VoteCast, an extensive survey of the electorate. But Trump’s administration also has close ties to conservative evangelical Protestant leaders and has claimed heavenly endorsement for the war on Iran.

Hegseth has urged Americans to pray for victory “in the name of Jesus Christ”. When Trump was asked whether he thought God approved of the war, he said: “I do, because God is good – because God is good and God wants to see people taken care of.”

The US vice-president, JD Vance, urged the Vatican to “stick to matters of morality”.

Vance told Fox News: “In some cases, it would be best for the Vatican to stick to matters of morality … and let the president of the United States stick to dictating American public policy.”

The Guardian

Pope Leo XIV has arrived in Algeria for the first papal visit to the country, calling for peace on the opening stop of a tour of Africa that signals the continent’s growing importance to the Catholic church.

The 11-day trip, which will include stops in Cameroon, Angola and Equatorial Guinea, is the longest by Pope Leo since being elected to the papacy in May last year.

The choice to visit Africa sends a powerful signal that the continent is one of the church’s top priorities, according to academics and theologians.

Adriaan van Klinken, a professor of religion and African studies at the University of Leeds, said this reflected shifting demographics, with Africa home to one of the fastest-growing Catholic populations and accounting for about 20% of Catholics worldwide. By contrast, the Catholic population in western Europe is in decline.

“Africa is the site of vitality, of growth, of the future of the church,” Van Klinken said.

In the last year alone, 14 new dioceses have been created across Africa, with the Catholic population growing by 7 million, according to John Pontifex, from the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need UK. “A focus on Africa this early on in Pope Leo’s pontificate no doubt reflects a sense that in terms of Catholicism this is a continent that is coming of age,” he said.

The pope, on arrival at Algiers international airport on Monday, was welcomed by Algeria’s president, Abdelmadjid Tebboune. He was later taken to the Maqam Echahid, a monument that commemorates those who died in the 1954-62 Algerian war for independence against French colonial rule.

Father Peter Claver Kogh, the rector of the Basilica of Our Lady of Africa in Algiers, described the visit as a moment to strengthen bonds between Christian and Muslim communities, and solidify “the desire to have a climate of peace and tolerance among these two religions”.

He added: “That is what the world needs now – a world of fraternal living and living in harmony. That will be the utmost importance of this visit for Christians and Muslims who are here, and all those who desire to live in peace and harmony.”

For Austen Ivereigh, a biographer of Pope Francis, the trip signals continuity with his predecessor’s priorities. In 2019, Francis broke new ground with the joint “human fraternity” document signed with leading Muslim figures. “Leo will want to continue that all-important alliance in building a new world order of peace,” Ivereigh said.

Pontifex said the trip was not just about interfaith relations, but also a sign that the pope remained committed to freedom of religion and belief. “His visit comes at a time when religious freedom in Algeria, be it for Christians, Ahmadi Muslims and more liberal Muslims, has declined in recent years, according to our research.”

The trip has also been viewed as an opportunity to spotlight communities with long histories of injustice and exploitation who are often overlooked by the west.

Lucy Esipila, the regional coordinator for Caritas Africa, said she believed the pope’s visit would have a profound impact on Catholic communities in the region. “At a time when many African nations continue to face conflict, debt burdens, and widening inequalities, this apostolic journey is a powerful expression of synodality, of ‘walking together’ as a global church that listens to voices from the peripheries.”

Algeria is the only Muslim-majority country on the pope’s tour. While its Catholic population is relatively small, the country holds particular significance for Pope Leo as the birthplace of Saint Augustine. Leo is the first pontiff from the Augustinian order, a theological tradition that emphasises a commitment to “live together in harmony”.

Prof Anna Rowlands, the holder of the St Hilda chair in Catholic social thought and practice at Durham University, said: “Starting his visit in Algeria shows the other side of African Christianity that Leo is also deeply attuned to: its ancient legacy.”

North Africa was home to some of the earliest Christian communities before the arrival of Islam and remains central to the church’s intellectual and theological heritage.

Rowlands added that as the former head of the Augustinian order, Pope Leo, then Friar Robert Prevost, travelled frequently to African communities. “The church in Africa is well known to him – probably better known than to any pope in the modern era.”

The decision to make these African countries the focus of his longest trip so far as pope comes alongside his decision not to visit the US. “That’s the unspoken part of this,” said Dr Miles Pattenden, a historian of the Catholic church at the University of Oxford.

Pope Leo not only declined an invitation to the US, Pattenden said, but on 4 July, American independence day, he will be making a visit to the Italian island of Lampedusa, which is the place of arrival for many Africans making the perilous journey across the Mediterranean.

“He’s sending an extremely powerful message, which President Trump obviously understands, and that may explain some of his bombastic criticisms of the pope over the past few days,” Pattenden said.

That contrast appears to speak directly to the communities Leo is seeking to reach.

“It’s a feeling of joy,” Father Kogh said of hearing Leo address the people of Algeria. “I’m so glad to have heard that message, because it was what I was expecting: a message of peace, and a call to coexistence and living in fraternity. So my joy redoubles.”

The Guardian

JD Vance says talks failed due to Iran’s refusal to give up nuclear programme

Iranian delegates in Islamabad say Washington needs to do more to win their trust if talks to resolve US-Iran conflict are to be successful

The US vice-president, JD Vance, has blamed the failure of marathon negotiations with Iran on the country’s refusal to abandon its nuclear weapons programme, while Iranian delegates have claimed Washington needs to do more to win their trust.

Vance, who left Islamabad on Sunday morning after 21 hours of talks with Iranian officials in the Pakistani capital, said his team had been very clear on its red lines, as hopes faded of a quick end to the conflict that began on 28 February.

The vice-president said he spoke with Donald Trump at least half a dozen times during the talks, and one of the most significant points of difference between the two sides was on Iran’s nuclear programme.

“We need to see an affirmative commitment that [Iran] will not seek a nuclear weapon, and they will not seek the tools that would enable them to quickly achieve a nuclear weapon,” he said. “That is the core goal of the president of the United States, and that’s what we’ve tried to achieve through these negotiations.”

Vance added that while the failure to reach an agreement in Islamabad was “bad news”, it was “bad news for Iran much more than it’s bad news for the United States of America”.

Iran’s parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who led Iran in the negotiations, said although he and his colleagues had offered “constructive initiatives”, the US had been “unable to gain the trust of the Iranian delegation in this round of negotiations”. He said it was now up to Washington “to decide whether it can gain our trust or not”.

The country’s foreign ministry downplayed the apparent breakdown in the talks, saying no one had held any expectation that they would reach an agreement within one session.

“Naturally, from the beginning we should not have expected to reach an agreement in a single session. No one had such an expectation,” the ministry’s spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said, according to the state broadcaster IRIB.

He said Tehran was “confident that contacts between us and Pakistan, as well as our other friends in the region, will continue”.

Meanwhile, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency said “excessive” US demands had hindered reaching an agreement.

Neither Washington nor Tehran has said what will happen after the 14-day ceasefire initially agreed by the US, Iran and Israel, but Pakistani mediators called on the US and Iran to refrain from renewing hostilities.

“It is imperative that the parties continue to uphold their commitment to the ceasefire,” said Pakistan’s foreign minister, Ishaq Dar, adding that his country would try to facilitate a new dialogue between Iran and the US in the coming days.

The war, which began with US and Israeli strikes on Iran six week ago, has killed at least 3,000 people in Iran, 2,020 in Lebanon, 23 in Israel and more than a dozen in Gulf Arab states. It has caused lasting damage to infrastructure in half a dozen Middle Eastern countries.

The Israeli security cabinet minister Ze’ev Elkin told Army Radio that more talks were still an option, but added: “The Iranians are playing with fire.”

The talks in Islamabad were the first direct US-Iranian meeting in more than a decade and the highest-level discussions since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The final outcome could determine the fate of the fragile ceasefire and the reopening of the strait of Hormuz, a choke point for about 20% of global energy supplies that Iran has blocked since the war began. The conflict has sent global oil prices soaring.

Vance, the US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner met Ghalibaf and the foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, for two hours before a rest, according to a Pakistani source.

The Iranian delegation arrived on Friday dressed in black in mourning for the late supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and others killed in the war. They carried shoes and bags of children killed during the bombing of a school next to a military compound, the Iranian government said. The Pentagon has said the strike is under investigation but Reuters has reported that military investigators believe the US was probably responsible for it.

“There were mood swings from the two sides, and the temperature went up and down during the meeting,” said another Pakistani source in reference to the first round of talks.

Islamabad, a city of more than 2 million people, was locked down for the talks with thousands of paramilitary personnel and army troops on the streets. Pakistan’s mediating role is a remarkable transformation for a nation that was a diplomatic outcast a year ago.

As the talks started, the US military said it was “setting the conditions” to start clearing the strait of Hormuz. The strategic waterway is central to the discussions. The US military said two of its warships had passed through the strait, and conditions were being set to clear mines, while Iran’s state media denied any US ships had been through it.

Before the talks began, a senior Iranian source told Reuters that the US had agreed to release frozen assets in Qatar and other foreign banks. A US official denied agreeing to release the money.

As well as the release of assets abroad, Tehran is demanding control of the strait of Hormuz, payment of war reparations and a ceasefire across the region including in Lebanon, according to Iranian state TV and officials. Tehran also wants to collect transit fees in the strait of Hormuz.

Trump’s stated goals have shifted, but as a minimum he wants free passage for global shipping through the strait and the crippling of Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme to ensure it cannot produce an atomic bomb.

The Guardian