Secretary Marco Rubio Reveals His Opinion Of Pope Leo Ahead Of His Visit To The Vatican

Sec. Marco Rubio spoke with reporters on Thursday in Turkey, where he was asked about his opinion on Pope Leo.

Transcript

00:00Can you speak to the outlook of the American Pope, how important this visit is?

00:05And what's your read on Pope Leo so far as a practicing Catholic?

00:08Can you tell what story John's working with?

00:11I've got 12 years of Catholic education.

00:13Yeah, I don't, listen, guys, I mean, maybe I just analyze this different.

00:17I'll tell you from, I'm a Roman Catholic.

00:19I believe that the Pope is the successor of Peter,

00:22appointed through apostolic succession and the intervention of the Holy Spirit through the cardinals.

00:30And the one thing I can tell you is that the only institution that was around 2,000 years ago

00:35that's still around is the Catholic Church, the universal church, and I have faith in that system.

00:40We've had very good popes, we've had bad popes, but we still have a church.

00:44And I think it speaks to the strength of the church and to the validity of it.

00:49And as a Roman Catholic, I believe it's because the Pope, the Bishop of Rome,

00:54is the inheritor of the power that was left to Peter by Jesus himself

01:00and has been passed down through the generations.

01:03No other human institution would have been able to survive the ups and downs the church has faced.

01:07What's kept it is that he's the rock, and upon that rock he built the church.

01:10That's what I believe deeply, and that's how I analyze the situation.

01:15I just don't view him as a political leader.

01:18He may have political opinions, and the church has social teachings,

01:20which have informed much of what I say and have done in politics, especially in the last few years.

01:25I gave a speech at Catholic University in 2018 that was built on an encyclical by a Pope Leo.

01:33But again, I don't view the papacy as a political office.

01:36I view it as a spiritual one.

01:37Okay, thank you.

01:39Thank you very much.