Cuba’s deepening crisis has once again pulled the Vatican into a familiar role. In March, it was revealed that Cuban officials turned to the Holy See to help persuade US President Donald Trump to ease the US oil embargo, underscoring the Church’s position as one of the few actors capable of mediating between Washington and Havana.
Since Cuba relaxed religious restrictions in the 1990s, the Vatican has reemerged as a major institutional force on the island, helping to facilitate the normalization of US-Cuba relations in 2015.
Yet tensions with the Trump administration are complicating the role the Church has traditionally played in diplomatic mediation. In late 2025, the Vatican sought to mediate in Venezuela by offering asylum to former President Nicolas Maduro in Russia to avert military escalation, which ultimately failed.
Days after the January 2026 raid by the US to capture Maduro, Pope Leo XIV warned against further conflict in his “state of the world” address, after which Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the Vatican’s US representative, was summoned to a tense, closed-door meeting at the Pentagon, where US officials later denied issuing veiled threats.
The divide has further widened over Iran. As an early critic of war, the pope called on the US on March 31 to halt its campaign, naming Trump for the first time publicly. Shortly after, the pope condemned Trump’s rhetoric about destroying Iran as “completely unacceptable.” Amid the fallout, the pope’s planned 2026 visit to the US has been postponed indefinitely.
On April 13, matters further escalated after Pope Leo XIV said that he had “no fear of the Trump administration,” responding to Trump’s criticism of him on social media as being “weak on crime,” according to the New York Times.
These tensions follow decades of outwardly stable relations between Washington and the Holy See. Catholics make up roughly 20% of American adults and remain well represented at the highest levels of government, including former President Joe Biden, Vice President J.D. Vance, and six of the nine Supreme Court justices. The current pope, notably, is the first American to lead the Church.
Underneath this overlap lies a more complicated history. Early American suspicion of centralized religious authority, tied to predominantly Protestant culture, has evolved into recurring domestic and foreign political disagreements with the Vatican. While the two sides share some common ground, competing spheres of influence are becoming more pronounced under Trump.
Given that the US was founded in part on a rejection of entrenched religious hierarchy, early friction with the Vatican was almost inevitable. At the time, however, the Papal States were already in decline against the growing power of neighboring monarchies in Europe, and American leaders paid little attention to the Holy See as either a strategic concern or domestic threat.
Catholics made up only a small minority of relatively elite communities until about 1845, within a larger society dominated by a Protestant political and cultural order. This changed with waves of Irish and later Italian immigration in the 19th century, with the number of Catholics growing from 5% of the population in 1850 to 17% by the end of the century. The Catholic Church built extensive networks of social services, education and jobs, and became a major social and political force.
This led to backlash, including nativist movements that warned of immigrants’ allegiance to the pope and conspiracy theories of Vatican involvement in Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. Tensions also emerged beyond US borders, with Washington using the Monroe Doctrine to justify backing liberal movements across Latin America, which often stripped the Catholic Church of land, legal privileges, and political authority, while simultaneously encouraging Protestant missionary expansion.
Although the decline of the Portuguese and Spanish empires left the church without much of its formal authority in Latin America, the end of royal patronage resulted in the Catholic Church becoming a more centralized and globally coordinated institution.
Greater control over episcopal appointments and governance helped the Vatican “[consolidate] its grip on the new regional structures, linking them to the reconstruction of its global project,” with a form of Catholic continentalism becoming a post-imperial alternative to cementing its power in the Americas, according to a 2019 study published in the publication Territory, Politics, Governance. Instead of collapsing with the empires that brought it there, the Church evolved beyond them, sometimes placing itself in competition with Washington.
Geopolitical rivalries continued into the Cold War, particularly with the rise of liberation theology in 1960s Latin America. Its focus on social justice and perceived overlap with Marxism alarmed American policymakers, who worked with governments in Bolivia, El Salvador, and elsewhere to counter left-leaning elements within the Church, at times through violent suppression.
“Liberation theology was perceived as a threat to U.S. dominance in the region by leaders in the CIA and even the White House. … For the US government, by siding with the interests of the poor and oppressed, the proponents of liberation theology stood against the interests of the empire. And that was deemed unacceptable,” stated a blog by theologian Stephen D. Morrison.
Domestically, the election of John F Kennedy signaled growing Catholic acceptance in the US, but he was still compelled to constantly reassure voters that his loyalty lay with Washington over the Vatican.
But the 20th century also proved that cooperation could emerge when interests aligned. The US quietly supported Catholic actors during the Mexican Revolution in the early century and later found common ground in opposing communism.
The diplomatic relations that were severed in 1867 were reestablished by US President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II in 1984 and developed into what came to be known as the “holy alliance” to counter Soviet influence.
Contemporary clashes
Modern US disagreements with the Vatican are not unique to Trump. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) issued a rare special message in 2013 opposing the Obama administration’s contraceptive mandate, and has long aligned with conservative groups on issues like abortion.
This cross-partisan engagement, combined with the Church’s institutional reach and lobbying capacity, has made policymakers on both sides wary of its influence, with “[v]ery few religions having the type of lobby machine that the United States Conference of Bishops have,” according to Jon O’Brien, former president of Catholics for Choice.
Despite occasional tensions, relations between the Church and Trump were largely free of sustained disputes until his first term, which saw disagreements over immigration, foreign policy, and climate issues.
Catholic networks developed sophisticated humanitarian and legal support systems for migrants moving north from Latin America, often parallel to, and at times conflicting with, US policy that expanded border controls into Mexico and restricted access to asylum.
These divisions have escalated into Trump’s second term. Pope Leo XIV has been openly critical of the Trump administration’s immigration policies, aligning with the USCCB, which chose not to renew cooperative agreements with the federal government amid funding cuts for refugees. The body later issued another special message in 2025, expressing concern over enforcement practices and detention conditions.
Latin America remains the most obvious area of friction between the US and the Vatican. As Trump attempts to consolidate U.S. dominance in the hemisphere, it competes with the Vatican’s longstanding presence.
Nearly half of the world’s Catholics live in the Americas, and through institutions such as the Latin American and Caribbean Episcopal Council (CELAM) and strong local infrastructures, the Vatican continues to shape politics and society.
At the same time, the Catholic Church faces a growing internal challenge through the rapid rise of Latin American evangelical movements. The U.S. supported these modern movements in the 1970s and 1980s “as a pretext for anti-communist policies,” which continue to have enormous effects today.
Evangelicals now make up more than a quarter of Brazil’s population, up from 5% in 1970. In fact, such congregations have expanded across Latin America. Evangelicals enjoy growing political power, with many maintaining links to US evangelical networks that complement Washington’s larger regional footprint.
Africa has also seen increasing competition between the US and the Vatican, despite historical cooperation. The continent is home to roughly 20% of the world’s Catholics, and that share is growing rapidly. While the Church’s presence in Africa has not become as deeply entrenched as seen in Latin America, it has nonetheless been established in many African countries for more than a century and often commands greater trust than Western NGOs.
Many international aid operations rely on Church-linked infrastructure for logistics and community access, with the Church in turn relying on Western funding.
The Church’s political role is particularly visible in countries where state institutions are weakest. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Catholic organizations such as the National Episcopal Conference of Congo deployed thousands of election observers during the 2018 presidential vote and openly challenged official results.
While Washington initially expressed similar concerns, it changed its position within weeks and recognized the outcome, prompting criticism from Church leaders and marking a larger pattern of divergence in parts of Africa.
The scope of Catholic activity frequently brings it into conflict with various US policies. In Uganda, for example, the passage of controversial anti-LGBTQ legislation in 2023, with tacit support from the Catholic Church, drew sharp criticism from the Biden administration, while receiving backing from US evangelical networks.
Conversely, the Church’s involvement in migration and humanitarian initiatives in Africa has exacerbated tensions with conservative US policymakers.
Bipartisan unease is also evident in US policy toward China. Lawmakers from both parties have concerns that the Holy See has been overly accommodating to Beijing, particularly following the 2018 agreement allowing the Chinese government a role in selecting bishops in the country.
Democratic leaders like Representative Nancy Pelosi, Trump officials, and members of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, an independent, bipartisan federal commission, have all voiced their concern over the agreement in recent years.
Despite the disagreements, the US and the Vatican remain more aligned than opposed in many of the world’s regions, even in those most contested between them. In Venezuela, both former presidents, Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro, framed the US and Catholic Church as quasi-colonial actors.
Meanwhile, Nicaragua’s government shared a similar sentiment, expelling the Vatican ambassador in 2022 amid a wider crackdown on Church activities. A shared set of adversaries, at least in theory, forms a basis for cooperation, as seen during the Cold War.
That could be beneficial in fragile states. Venezuela’s eroded institutions could be improved by US resources and Catholic networks to help rebuild elements of civil society. Competition would be unavoidable, but it could take a more constructive form rather than outright confrontation.
Instead, the relationship is drifting in the opposite direction. Cuts to US foreign aid and a more unilateral, security-driven approach have reduced Washington’s reliance on Church networks it once worked alongside.
The Vatican remains embedded at the local level and structurally positioned to fill the vacuum left by the hollowing out of USAID. With each side increasingly defining itself against the other, the pope’s decision to indefinitely postpone his 2026 visit to the US suggests relations will get worse before they can get better.
John P Ruehl is an Australian-American journalist living in Washington, DC, and a world affairs correspondent for the Independent Media Institute. He is a contributor to several foreign affairs publications, and his book, “Budget Superpower: How Russia Challenges the West With an Economy Smaller Than Texas’”, was published in December 2022. Follow him on X @john_ruehl.
This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute, and is republished with permission.
