Pope Leo XIV has thrown more shade at Donald Trump’s global power grabs, holding a private meeting at the Vatican with Venezuela’s opposition leader as he calls for the country to remain independent.
More than one week after U.S. forces captured former Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, the pope met on Monday with Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado ahead of her high-stakes trip to Washington, where Trump is eyeing her award.
The previously unannounced meeting underscored the Holy See’s ongoing concern about political developments in Venezuela, where the Trump administration has frozen out Machado in favor of working with Maduro’s inner circle to seize the nation’s oil reserves.
But while the president insists he is “in charge” of the Latin American country and has refused to give a timeline for free and fair elections to restore democracy, the pope has called for Venezuela’s sovereignty to be protected.
In a major foreign policy address ahead of Monday’s meeting, he also criticized the growing reliance on military force in international affairs, declaring that “war is back in vogue, and a zeal for war is spreading.”
The meeting between Pope Leo and Machado took place as Trump weighs up intervening in yet another country, threatening “strong” military action against Iran should more demonstrators be killed as protests in Tehran escalate.
But it was not the first time the U.S.-born pope has put the spotlight on Trump’s policy positions.
In December, he hit out at Trump’s Russia-Ukraine peace proposal and warned that the administration risked destroying the longstanding alliance between Europe and the United States.
In October, days after Trump described climate change as “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world,” Leo declared that world leaders should “act with courage” on the issue. This resulted in MAGA Republicans hitting out and calling him a “woke pope.”
He has also repeatedly raised concerns about the treatment of immigrants under Trump’s deportation strategy, raising the ire of the White House.
“This administration is trying to enforce our nation’s laws in the most humane way possible, and we are upholding the law,” Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, a Catholic, told reporters.
“We are doing that on behalf of the people of our country who live here.”
After Monday’s meeting, the Vatican posted a photo of the pope smiling alongside the opposition leader, who was clad in a black dress and wearing a white rosary.
Machado’s opposition party, backed by consecutive Republican and Democratic administrations, had vowed for years to immediately replace Maduro with one of their own and restore democracy to Venezuela.
But Trump delivered a heavy blow last week by allowing Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, to assume control in his bid to seize the nation’s oil.
Trump is due to host the Nobel laureate María Corina Machado in the Oval Office this week, amid a public and behind-the-scenes lobbying campaign to have her hand her prize to the president.
Speaking about that possibility in an interview with Sean Hannity last Thursday, Trump lit up, saying: “I’ve heard that she wants to do that. That would be a great honor.”
But his hopes were dashed on Friday by the Norwegian Nobel Institute, which said its rules do not permit passing the coveted prize to someone else.
“A Nobel Prize can neither be revoked nor transferred to others,” a spokesperson told the Daily Beast. Once the announcement of the laureate(s) has been made, the decision stands for all time. As for the prize money, the laureate(s) are free to dispose of it as they see fit.”
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