In a brief but sharp denunciation of how news outlets have covered his Africa trip, Pope Leo XIV told reporters on Saturday that he had no interest in continuing a debate with President Trump and that some of his remarks had been misinterpreted as criticism of the president.
Last Monday, early in his 11-day trip to four African countries, the pope said he had “no fear” of Mr. Trump, responding to an extraordinary presidential broadside against him on social media. But since then, “there’s been a certain narrative that has not been accurate in all of its aspects,” the pope told journalists traveling on the papal plane from Cameroon to Angola on Saturday.
“Because of the political situation created when, on the first day of the trip, the president of the United States made some comments about myself,” Pope Leo said, “much of what has been written since then has been more commentary on commentary trying to interpret what has been said.”
The pope cited a speech he gave on Thursday in Bamenda, a city in a region of Cameroon where English-speaking separatists have clashed violently with the Francophone government for a decade.
In those remarks, he said “woe to those who manipulate religion and the very name of God for their own military, economic and political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth” — remarks that many in the media, including The New York Times, interpreted as referring not just to the conflict in Cameroon but to the Trump administration.
But Leo said Saturday that speech “was prepared two weeks ago, well before the president ever commented on myself and on the message of peace that I am promoting.”
“It was looked at as if I was trying to debate again the president,” he said, “which is not in my interest at all.”
Before embarking on the trip to Africa, Leo had made remarks that, without naming names, seemed directed at the Trump administration’s policies.
Shortly after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called on the American people to pray “in the name of Jesus Christ” for military victory in Iran, the pope said in a homily that the Christian message had often been “distorted by a desire for domination, entirely foreign to the way of Jesus Christ.”
But it wasn’t until the president attacked Leo personally on his social media platform, Truth Social, calling him “weak on crime” and “terrible for foreign policy,” that the pope mentioned the Trump administration by name, saying he would continue to “speak loudly of the message of the Gospel.”
The pope reiterated Saturday that his mission during his visits to Algeria, Cameroon, Angola and Equatorial Guinea, where he noted there was “unequal distribution of wealth,” was “to celebrate with, to encourage and accompany all of the Catholics throughout Africa.”
Motoko Rich is the Times bureau chief in Rome, where she covers Italy, the Vatican and Greece.
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