"Pope Leo brushes off Trump criticism amid growing Vatican"U.S. tensions over Iran war
"I will continue to speak out loudly against war, looking to promote peace, promoting dialogue and multilateral relationships among states to find just solutions to problems," he said.
"Too many people are suffering in the world today. Too many innocent people are being killed. And I think someone has to stand up and say there's a better way."
A Vatican spokesman responded to Trump's social media posts, saying they reflected his "impotence" in the face of the Vatican's criticism of the Iran war.
"When political power turns against a moral voice, it is often because it cannot contain it," Father Antonio Spadaro, under-secretary of the Vatican's Dicastery of Culture and Education, wrote in a social media post. " ... Unable to absorb that voice, power tries to delegitimize it. Yet in doing so, it implicitly acknowledges its weight."
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Trump's rebuke came as three U.S. cardinals chose to speak out against the Iran war in a rare joint television appearance on 60 Minutes on Sunday night.
"In Catholic teaching, this is not a just war," Cardinal Robert McElroy, the archbishop of Washington, D.C., told the program.
"This is a war of choice. ... I think it's embedded in a wider moment in the U.S. that's worrying: We're seeing before us the possibility of war after war after war."
The Iranian president also took the opportunity to weigh in. President Masoud Pezeshkian posted a message on Monday that said in part -
"I condemn the insult to Your Excellency on behalf of the great nation of Iran, and declare that the desecration of Jesus, the prophet of peace and brotherhood, is not acceptable to any free person."
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