Pope Leo has debuted a notably more assertive speaking style during his four-nation tour of Africa, delivering sharp denunciations of war and global inequality.
The change in rhetoric has, in turn, provoked repeated criticism from U.S. President Donald Trump.
Experts suggest this change reflects the pontiff’s growing concern over the direction of global leadership, particularly after maintaining a relatively low profile during the first ten months of his papacy.
Trump first attacked Leo as “terrible” on Sunday, in an apparent response to the pope’s earlier criticisms of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.
The president escalated his attacks on Thursday, implying the Pope lacked understanding of foreign policy matters.
Speaking in Cameroon, the first U.S. pope had declared the world was “being ravaged by a handful of tyrants”, though he refrained from naming specific individuals.
John Thavis, a retired Vatican correspondent who covered three papacies, said: “Normally, popes and the Vatican are cautious when it comes to international politics, preferring diplomacy to public censure.”
“(Leo) seems convinced that the world needs to hear explicit condemnation of injustice and aggression, and he seems aware that he is one of the very few people who have a global pulpit.”
The pope, known for choosing his words carefully, mostly avoided comment about the U.S. until March, when he emerged as an outspoken critic of the Iran war.
He first mentioned Trump by name publicly only at the beginning of April, suggesting that the president find an “off-ramp” to end the war.
In Africa, the pope has been speaking much more firmly. In speeches this week in Algeria and Cameroon, he warned that the whims of the world’s richest threaten peace and decried violations of international law by “neocolonial” global powers.
“Pope Leo is establishing himself as a moral leader for the global scale,” Bishop John Stowe of Lexington, Kentucky, told Reuters.
Stowe, president of a U.S. Catholic peace organisation, said Leo’s recent messages carried more weight by being given during a visit to Africa, “delivered face-to-face with the people who have lived with war, violence, famine and chronic poverty”.
Popes have long been a moral voice on the global stage, loudly decrying situations of injustice. But they have also generally striven for the Church to remain neutral in world conflicts, allowing the Vatican to act as a mediator if asked to do so.
