In an effort to smooth relations with Pope Leo XIV and Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni, the Trump administration is sending its best. Not Vice-President J.D. Vance, who may be the most prominent Catholic convert in the United States, but Marco Rubio, the secretary of State. Some perceive this as a snub to Vance, though Rubio’s presence on the mission has another logic: He is the nation’s top diplomat, was christened in the Catholic faith, and was married in a Catholic church, though he and his wife attended an Evangelical congregation for a number of years. In public, he refrains from attacking the pope, who decried “the delusion of omnipotence” behind the U.S. war on Iran. Vance, meanwhile, responded by telling Pope Leo to “stick to matters of morality.”

Rubio will visit the Vatican at a precarious moment for the relationship between the U.S. government and the leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics. Leo, the first U.S.-born pope, criticized the administration’s “extremely disrespectful” treatment of migrants last year. His remarks on Iran have enraged Donald Trump, who on Monday accused him of “endangering a lot of Catholics and a lot of people.” Although Rubio says the trip was planned before Trump’s sniping, the friction is hard to ignore, and it may be the product of a much deeper rift. Trump, Vance, and Rubio all have distinctive religious identities, but in the White House, they tend to promote one version of Christianity while the pope represents another. The Iran war has only pushed the strains further apart, and Rubio’s diplomatic mission won’t bring them back together.

Rubio is an Iran hawk,........

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