Cuba’s deepening crisis has again drawn the Vatican into a familiar diplomatic role. In early 2026, Cuban officials turned to the Holy See to help persuade U.S. President Donald Trump to ease the oil embargo, underscoring the Church’s rare capacity to mediate between Washington and Havana. Since Cuba relaxed religious restrictions in the 1990s, the Vatican has rebuilt a major institutional presence on the island and helped facilitate the 2015 normalization of U.S.-Cuba relations.
But tensions with the Trump administration are complicating that mediating role. In late 2025 the Vatican tried to avert military escalation in Venezuela by seeking asylum for former president Nicolás Maduro in Russia, an effort that failed. After the U.S. raid to capture Maduro in January 2026, Pope Leo XIV warned against diplomacy based on force. Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the Vatican’s ambassador to Washington, was then summoned to a tense meeting at the Pentagon, a confrontation U.S. officials later denied had included veiled threats.
The divide widened over Iran. The pope—an early critic of war—publicly called on the U.S. to halt its campaign and named Trump for the first time. He condemned Trump’s rhetoric about destroying Iran as “completely unacceptable.” Amid the fallout, the pope’s planned 2026 U.S. visit was postponed indefinitely. In April 2026 the pope said he had “no fear of the Trump administration” after Trump attacked him on social media as being “weak on crime.”
These flare-ups come after decades of mostly stable U.S.-Vatican ties. Catholics comprise roughly a fifth of American adults and are prominent in government circles. The current pope is the first American to lead the Church. Still, beneath surface alignment lies a longer, more conflicted history: early U.S. suspicion of centralized religious authority rooted in Protestant culture; waves of Catholic immigration that transformed the Church into a powerful social and political force; and recurring competition between Washington and Rome over influence in the Americas and beyond.
In the 19th century, Catholics were a small minority within a Protestant-dominated polity. Immigration changed that, and the Church built networks of schools, charities, and jobs that made it politically consequential. That rise provoked nativist backlash and conspiracy theories about papal influence. Meanwhile, the U.S. used the Monroe Doctrine to champion liberal reforms in Latin America that often curtailed Catholic privileges and encouraged Protestant missionary expansion.
The collapse of Iberian empires did not cripple the Church in the Americas. Instead, the Vatican centralized authority, asserting greater control over episcopal appointments and regional governance and fashioning a continental Catholicism that could compete with U.S. influence. In the Cold War era, that competition alternated with cooperation—especially as the U.S. and the Vatican aligned against Soviet influence, culminating in restored diplomatic ties in 1984 and a so-called “holy alliance” under Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II.
But ideological clashes persisted. The rise of liberation theology in the 1960s and 1970s—emphasizing social justice and at times overlapping with Marxist critique—alarmed U.S. policymakers. American agencies and allied governments worked to counter left-leaning elements within the Church, sometimes through repression. Domestically, Catholic politicians such as John F. Kennedy signaled growing acceptance but also had to reassure voters of their loyalty to the U.S. over Rome.
Contemporary disputes are not unique to the Trump era. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has opposed federal policies on contraception and often aligns with conservative groups on abortion, giving the Church a significant lobbying presence. Catholic humanitarian networks developed sophisticated migrant assistance systems that can clash with U.S. border enforcement. Under Trump’s administrations, differences over immigration, foreign policy, and climate policy have re-emerged and intensified.
Latin America remains the most obvious arena of friction. Nearly half of the world’s Catholics live in the Americas, and institutions like CELAM and dense local infrastructures give the Vatican real leverage. At the same time, the rapid rise of evangelical movements across the region—many supported historically by U.S. actors during anti-communist campaigns—has shifted political alignments. Evangelicals now represent a significant and growing voting bloc in countries such as Brazil, often linked to U.S. evangelical networks that buttress Washington’s regional footprint.
Africa is another area of unfolding competition. The continent hosts roughly a fifth of global Catholics and a rapidly growing Church presence. Catholic organizations often command more trust than Western NGOs in fragile states and are central to aid and logistics. In places like the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Catholic institutions played visible roles in elections and civic life, sometimes clashing with U.S. policy stances when Washington’s assessments shifted.
The Church’s social and political engagement frequently puts it at odds with U.S. policy positions. Controversial legislation in Uganda in 2023, which received tacit Catholic backing, drew criticism from the Biden administration while also attracting support from U.S. evangelical allies. Conversely, Catholic involvement in migration and humanitarian work can strain relations with conservative U.S. policymakers when priorities diverge.
Bipartisan unease also colors U.S. policy toward China. Lawmakers across the spectrum have criticized the Vatican’s 2018 agreement with Beijing on bishop appointments, fearing the Holy See was too conciliatory to the Chinese state. Concerns have been voiced by Democrats and Republicans, reflecting a rare area of alignment in U.S. skepticism of Vatican-China dealings.
Despite these tensions, the U.S. and the Vatican often find common ground, and overlapping interests can produce cooperation in places such as Venezuela—where both the Church and U.S. actors have at times been seen as external competitors or adversaries by local governments. Where institutions are eroded, U.S. resources combined with Catholic networks could in theory reconstruct elements of civil society. But cooperation requires willingness to coordinate rather than define influence in zero-sum terms.
Instead, recent policy shifts have pushed the relationship toward greater friction. Cuts to U.S. foreign aid and a more unilateral, security-focused posture have reduced Washington’s practical reliance on Church networks it once partnered with. The Vatican, embedded in local communities and often the only stable institution in fragile states, is structurally positioned to fill gaps left by retreating Western development agencies. As each side increasingly defines itself against the other, the indefinite postponement of the pope’s 2026 U.S. visit suggests relations may worsen before they improve.
John P. Ruehl is an Australian-American journalist 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.
