The remarks had been written well before Trump's comment that he was "not a big fan" of the American pope.
Pope Leo XIV speaks during the weekly audience in St Peter’s Square in the Vatican on December 17, 2025. (Photo by Andreas SOLARO / AFP)
Pope Leo XIV said Saturday he regretted remarks he made were interpreted as a response to criticism from President Donald Trump, insisting he had no interest in debating the US leader.
An example was a speech about “tyrants” ransacking the world that he delivered in Cameroon on the second leg of a tour of Africa, Leo told journalists as he travelled to Angola.
The remarks had been written well before Trump’s comment that he was “not a big fan” of the American pope. “And yet it was perceived as if I were trying to start a new debate with the president, which doesn’t interest me at all,” Leo said.
READ ALSO: Pope Condemns Use Of AI To Fuel ‘Polarisation, Conflict, Fear and Violence’
His clarification comes as he, on Friday,warned against the use of AI to fan “polarisation, conflict, fear and violence” and criticised the “environmental devastation” caused by the extraction of rare earths to fuel the digital boom.
The challenge posed by these systems is greater than it appears: it is not just about the use of new technologies, but about the gradual replacement of reality by its simulation,” he said in a speech at the Catholic University of Central Africa in Yaounde, Cameroon.
”In this way, polarisation, conflict, fear and violence spread. What is at stake is not merely the risk of error, but a transformation in our very relationship with truth.”
It marks the pontiff’s latest outspoken intervention on a landmark 11-day tour of Africa that has seen him abandon his previous restraint to deliver impassioned pleas for world peace.
Religion: I Regret My Remarks Were Interpreted As Debate With Trump – Pope Leo
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