Cuba’s worsening crisis has once again placed the Vatican in a familiar diplomatic role. In early 2026, Havana appealed to the Holy See to help press President Donald Trump to ease an oil embargo, underscoring the Church’s unusual ability to mediate between Washington and Cuba. Since the 1990s, when Cuba relaxed restrictions on religious life, the Vatican rebuilt a strong institutional presence on the island and helped pave the way for the 2015 U.S.-Cuba thaw.
But recent frictions with the Trump administration have complicated that mediator role. In late 2025 the Vatican sought to head off military escalation in Venezuela by exploring asylum for former president Nicolás Maduro in Russia, an effort that foundered. After a U.S. raid to capture Maduro in January 2026, Pope Leo XIV publicly warned against diplomacy rooted in force. The Vatican’s ambassador to Washington, Cardinal Christophe Pierre, was summoned to a tense meeting at the Pentagon — a confrontation U.S. officials later said did not include veiled threats but which highlighted how fraught the relationship had become.
The split widened over Iran. An outspoken critic of war, the pope publicly urged the United States to stop its campaign and for the first time singled out Trump by name, calling rhetoric about “destroying Iran” “completely unacceptable.” The fallout included an indefinite postponement of a planned 2026 papal visit to the United States. In April 2026, after Trump attacked him on social media as “weak on crime,” the pope said he had “no fear of the Trump administration.”
These flare-ups stand atop decades of generally steady U.S.-Vatican ties, but they also reveal deeper, older fault lines. Roughly one in five American adults is Catholic and Catholics are prominent in government circles; the current pope is the first U.S.-born pontiff. Yet the relationship between Washington and Rome has long been shaped by competing philosophies and geopolitical interests.
In the 19th century, American government and public opinion were shaped by Protestant suspicions of centralized religious authority. Large waves of Catholic immigration transformed that dynamic, as the Church built schools, charities and jobs that made it a powerful social and political force. That rise provoked nativist backlashes and conspiracy theories about papal influence. At the same time, U.S. policy in the Americas, shaped by the Monroe Doctrine, often pushed liberal reforms that curtailed Catholic privileges and opened the region to Protestant missionary activity.
The collapse of Iberian imperial rule did not diminish the Church’s reach in the Western Hemisphere. The Vatican moved to centralize authority, tightening control over episcopal appointments and regional governance and promoting a continental Catholicism capable of countervailing U.S. influence. During the Cold War, rivalry and cooperation alternated — most notably as both Rome and Washington opposed Soviet expansion. Diplomatic relations were restored in 1984, and the Reagan–John Paul II era is often cited for its close alignment on anti-communist goals.
Yet ideological tensions persisted. Liberation theology, which emerged in the 1960s and 1970s with its stress on social justice and structural critique, alarmed many U.S. policymakers. American agencies and allied governments sometimes moved to blunt left-leaning elements within the Church, even supporting repressive measures in some settings. Domestically, the ascent of Catholic politicians such as John F. Kennedy marked growing acceptance of Catholics in public life but also required repeated assurances of political independence from Rome.
Contemporary disputes are a continuation of those competing impulses. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has long opposed federal policies on contraception and often aligns with conservative groups on abortion, giving the Church a substantial lobbying footprint. Catholic humanitarian networks have developed sophisticated systems to assist migrants, and those operations can clash with U.S. border enforcement priorities. Under Trump, disagreements over immigration, foreign policy and climate policy resurfaced and sharpened.
Latin America remains the clearest theater of tension. Nearly half the world’s Catholics live in the Americas, and regional bodies like CELAM and dense local church infrastructures give the Vatican real leverage. At the same time, the rapid growth of evangelical movements — historically boosted in parts by U.S.-aligned anti-communist efforts — has shifted political alignments. Evangelicals are now a significant and sometimes decisive voting bloc in countries such as Brazil, often connected to U.S. evangelical networks that extend Washington’s influence.
Africa is another emerging area of competition. The continent accounts for roughly a fifth of global Catholics and a rapidly expanding Church presence. Catholic organizations often enjoy more trust than Western NGOs in fragile states and play central roles in aid, logistics and civic life. In places like the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Catholic institutions have been visible in elections and public affairs, occasionally finding themselves at odds with U.S. policy judgments.
The Church’s social and political engagement can put it at odds with American priorities. Controversial legislation in Uganda in 2023, for example, received tacit support from some Catholic actors and drew criticism from the Biden administration while attracting backing from U.S. evangelical allies. Conversely, Catholic-led migration and humanitarian work sometimes strains relations with conservative U.S. policymakers when enforcement and humanitarian imperatives clash.
Bipartisan unease has also centered on the Vatican’s 2018 agreement with Beijing over bishop appointments. Lawmakers from both parties worried the Holy See had been too accommodating to the Chinese state, producing a rare moment of unified U.S. skepticism about Vatican diplomacy.
Despite recurring tensions, interests often overlap and cooperation is possible. In crises such as Venezuela, both U.S. actors and the Church have at times been perceived as external competitors by local governments; yet where institutions are weak, a combination of American resources and Catholic networks could theoretically help reconstruct civic life — if the two sides coordinate rather than treat influence as zero-sum.
Recent U.S. policy changes, however, have tilted relations toward friction. Aid cuts and a more unilateral, security-first posture have reduced Washington’s practical reliance on Church networks it once partnered with. The Vatican, rooted in local communities and often the most stable institution in fragile states, is well positioned to fill gaps left by retreating Western development agencies. As each side increasingly defines its role in contrast to the other, diplomatic strains deepen. The indefinite postponement of the pope’s 2026 U.S. visit is a stark symptom: relations may get worse before they improve.
John P. Ruehl is an Australian-American journalist based in Washington, D.C., and a world affairs correspondent for the Independent Media Institute. He contributes to several foreign affairs publications; 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.
