Extract from ABC News
Donald Trump says the pope should "stop catering to the Radical Left". (Reuters: Kevin Lamarque)
In short:
US President Donald Trump has attacked Pope Leo XIV on social media, calling him "weak" on crime and nuclear weapons.
The global leader of the Catholic Church has emerged as an outspoken critic of the US-Israeli war on Iran.
What's next?
The pope is set to embark on a 10-day tour of four African countries.
US President Donald Trump has accused Pope Leo as being "weak" on crime after the pontiff made a plea for peace over the weekend.
In a post on Truth Social, Mr Trump said the first American pope was "terrible for foreign policy" and he should "stop catering to the Radical Left".
"I don't want a Pope who thinks it's OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon," he wrote.
A short time later, speaking to reporters after Air Force One landed outside Washington from Florida, Mr Trump told reporters: "I'm not a big fan of Pope Leo."
"He's a very liberal person, and he's a man that doesn't believe in stopping crime," Mr Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, accusing the pontiff of "toying with a country that wants a nuclear weapon".
The comments were an extraordinary broadside against the global leader of the Catholic Church, who — while being known for choosing his words carefully — has emerged as an outspoken critic of the US-Israeli war on Iran.
The pope said Mr Trump's threat this month to destroy Iranian civilisation was "unacceptable".
On Saturday Pope Leo publicly implored leaders to end the violence. (AP: Gregorio Borgia)
He has also called for "deep reflection" about the way migrants are being treated in the US under the Trump administration.
Pope Leo decried the "madness of war" in an evening prayer service in St Peter's Basilica on Saturday, the same day the United States and Iran began face-to-face negotiations in Pakistan during a fragile ceasefire.
The US-born pope did not mention the United States or Mr Trump by name in his prayer. But his tone and message appeared directed at the president and US officials, who have boasted of America's military superiority and justified the war in religious terms.
In his social media post on Sunday night, Mr Trump went far beyond the war in Iran in criticising Leo.
The US 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", in a reference to the Trump administration ousting 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,"he added.
He also suggested 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".
Archbishop Paul S Coakley, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, issued a statement saying he was "disheartened" by Mr Trump's comments.
"Pope Leo is not his rival; nor is the Pope a politician. He is the Vicar of Christ who speaks from the truth of the Gospel and for the care of souls," he said.
Pope to begin 10-day African tour
The pope is set to begin a 10-day tour of four African countries.
He heads to Algeria for two days before continuing to Cameroon, Angola and Equatorial Guinea in a whirlwind tour to 11 cities and towns — one of the most complicated tours arranged for a pontiff in decades.
The pope is making the visit with a mission "to help turn the world's attention to Africa", Cardinal Michael Czerny, a senior Vatican official and close adviser to Leo, has told Reuters.
The pope has made only one big overseas trip since being elected last May, visiting Türkiye and Lebanon in November and December. He visited Monaco in March.
More than 20 per cent of the world's Catholics live in Africa, according to Vatican statistics. The three sub-Saharan nations the pope is visiting have populations where more than half identify as Catholic.
Algeria, though, is an overwhelmingly Muslim country with fewer than 10,000 Catholics among its population of some 48 million people.
Reuters/AP
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