Pope Leo responds to President Trump’s criticisms

LONDON (CBS, KYMA) - Pope Leo is visiting Africa Monday and pushing back against President Donald Trump's public attack against him over the weekend.

Pope Leo opened a ten-day trip to Africa with a familiar message to the faithful.

"Let us remember that God desires peace for every nation," the pope declared.

The appeal came a day after President Trump slammed the pope's stance against the war in Iran and U.S.' immigration policy.

"We don't want a Pope that's gonna say that it's okay to have a nuclear weapon…we don't want a Pope that says crime is okay in our cities...I'm not a big fan of Pope Leo. He's a very liberal person," the president expressed.

The American-born pontiff responded saying, "I don't want to get into a debate with him," while adding he has "no fear" of the Trump Administration and will keep promoting peace.

"Too many innocent people are suffering in the world today...too many innocent people are being killed," the pontiff said.

Trump posted a long message on social media Sunday, calling Pope Leo "terrible for foreign policy" and suggesting he was only elected because the Vatican thought it would be the best way to deal with Trump in office.

The president then posted an AI-generated photo depicting him as Jesus, prompting outrage online, even from some who urged him to take it down.

Trump defended the now-deleted post saying, "I did post it and I thought it was me as a doctor and had to do with the Red Cross as a Red Cross worker there which we support."

Pope Leo Monday called the name of the president's social media platform, Truth Social, "Ironic" and said Trump doesn't understand the message of the gospel.

When asked if he would apologize to the pope, Trump said, "No, I don't, because Pope Leo said things that are wrong. He was very much against what I'm doing with regard to Iran, and you cannot have a nuclear Iran...We have the lowest crime numbers we've had in a long time, despite the fact that many criminals were allowed into our country, but we've gotten a lot of them out."

The pontiff has strongly criticized the treatment of migrants under Trump, labelling it as "inhuman" and he has been a staunch critic of the Iran war, calling Trump's threat to destroy Iranian civilization "unacceptable."

He has urged the president to find an "off-ramp" to end the conflict.

The U.S. has more than 70 million Catholic, about 20% of the population. This includes Vice President JD Vance who converted to Catholicism in 2019.