White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt—a cradle Catholic—put the Vatican on blast after it said it won’t participate in Donald Trump’s so-called “Board of Peace.”
The Vatican’s top diplomatic official, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, said on Tuesday that the Vatican believes such crisis situations should be handled by the United Nations, in response to the president’s January invitation for Pope Leo to join his initiative.
“I think it’s deeply unfortunate. I don’t think that peace should be partisan or political or controversial,” Leavitt fired back on Wednesday, the first day of Lent.
Leavitt—an enthusiastic crucifix wearer—was baptized a Catholic and went to a Catholic college, but was married to her 60-year-old husband outside the church after the birth of their child, and posted her attendance at a non-denominational in Easter 2025.
The White House press secretary insisted that the administration wants those invited to join the “Board of Peace,” which is set to oversee the rebuilding of Gaza, with Trump as its chairman.
“The ‘Board of Peace’ is overseeing the reconstruction of a territory that has been plagued with violence, with bloodshed, with poverty for far too long,” Leavitt said. “This president has a very bold and ambitious plan and vision to rebuild and reconstruct Gaza.”
She went on to claim it was a legitimate organization with “tens of member countries from around the world.”
Her response to a question at the White House briefing came after Parolin told reporters one of the Vatican’s concerns is that at the international level, “it should above all be the UN that manages these crisis situations,” according to Reuters.
In recent months, Chicago-born Pope Leo has not shied away from criticizing Trump’s foreign policy and violent immigration crackdown in the U.S.
Trump announced the “Board of Peace” with him at its helm last year as part of his multi-step plan to end the war in Gaza.
But he quickly made clear that the scope of the initiative would be much wider as the president desperately tries to cement himself as the “peace president” and boasts about ending wars.
Trump formally unveiled his “Board of Peace” last month with a ceremony held alongside the World Economic Forum in Davos, but his effort was snubbed by a series of Western allies who’ve raised concerns.
There has been harsh criticism that a U.S. president would oversee the reconstruction of a foreign region, as well as the board not including a Palestinian.
At the same time, the president confirmed last month that he even invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to join the initiative, despite Putin’s invasion and ongoing war in Ukraine.
The “Board of Peace” will hold its first official meeting on Thursday at the Institute of Peace, another building in Washington, DC, which the president slapped his own name on.
During the meeting, Leavitt revealed that Trump will announce that the board’s member states have pledged $5 billion toward Gaza reconstruction efforts and thousands of troops to maintain peace and security there.
The press secretary did not provide a breakdown of which countries had pledged money or support but said it would be made available. She indicated more than 20 countries would be participating in the meeting.
Asked who would control the $5 billion, Leavitt insisted it would be the “Board of Peace,” with the president as its chairman, and suggested member nations would get to vote on how the money is used.
The U.S.’s closest allies skipped Trump’s “Board of Peace” ceremony last month in Switzerland altogether. The drab event was instead attended by a group of strongmen and leaders of smaller nations.
When asked by the Daily Beast for further details on who would be in attendance for Thursday’s meeting, a senior administration official sent a list of 48 countries that span the globe, including from the Middle East, Europe, Asia, North America, and South America.
Speakers for the event will include the president, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Mike Waltz and others.
But the White House did not specifically address which countries had made pledges to the $5 billion being announced on Thursday.
“Since the President and his world-class team ended the war between Israel and Hamas last October, we have maintained the ceasefire, delivered historic amounts of humanitarian aid, and freed every single living and dead hostage. The Board of Peace will continue this historic success and prove itself to be the most consequential international body in history,” said spokesperson Anna Kelly in a statement about the event.
