“I am not afraid of the Trump administration” and “I will continue to raise my voice to build peace,” responded Pope Leo XIV to the disqualifications of the president of the United States, Donald Trump, who called him “weak against crime” and “terrible in foreign policy.”
Trump reacted to the Pope’s appeals to peace during Easter and the days following and his criticism of Trump’s threat to annihilate “an entire civilization” in his war against Iran.
“I am not a politician, I have no intention of entering into a debate with him, the message remains the same: promote peace,” the American pope declared to journalists aboard the plane that was taking him to Algeria, his first destination on an eleven-day international trip through Africa that will also take him to Cameroon, Angola and Equatorial Guinea.
Pope: “You cannot add resentment to resentment”
The Algerian president, Abdelmayid Tebún, personally received the pontiff at the Algiers international airport, in a historic visit for this Muslim country, and birthplace of Saint Augustine, which welcomes a pontiff for the first time. The pope announced that he will be able to continue “the discourse of dialogue and building bridges between Christians and Muslims” that he already began on his first trip to Türkiye and Lebanon.
Already in the Algerian capital, upon visiting the Martyrs’ Memorial (Maqam Echahid), the iconic monument that honors those who died in the war of independence from French colonization, Leo
Italy outraged by “the degradation of political language”
Trump’s insults to his compatriot, the American and Peruvian Pope Leo
“In a time marked by international conflicts and tensions, his voice represents a demanding call to respect the dignity of people, dialogue and responsibility,” said the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI), in support of the Pope.
The far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, a recognized ally of Trump on the European continent, published a message to wish that the Pope “encourage conflict resolution” on his trip to Africa, subtle words interpreted as a support for the pontiff after the criticism of the American, whom she does not quote.
Even his vice president, Matteo Salvini, leader of the ultra League and daily defender of Trump, has come out in defense of the pope, ensuring that attacking “a symbol of peace and spiritual guide for billions of Catholics” is “neither useful nor intelligent.”
The main opposition party, the Democratic Party (PD, center left), considered that Trump’s words against the pope “are unacceptable” and mark “a worrying leap in the degradation of political language,” in the opinion of Senator Beatrice Lorenzin.
The mayor of Rome, the progressive Roberto Gualtieri, has also expressed the city’s support for the pontiff and called the American’s remarks “unacceptable” and “hurtful.”
The spokesman in the Senate of the 5 Star Movement (M5S), Luca Pirondini, criticized that “Trump has exceeded all limits” by attacking the pope and seeing the Vatican as “personal property.” (AFP, EFE)
