While some US visitors back their president, shopkeepers who serve the papacy and tourists are on the pontiff’s side
O
n the wall of the back room of an opticians in Borgo Pio, a neighbourhood in Rome that borders the Vatican, hangs the photos of five popes dating back to the late 1970s, charting both the recent history of Catholic church leaders and the shop itself.
As its owner, Walter Colantini, who fitted glasses for one of the pontiffs, gestures towards them, he recalled the diplomatic strain between the Vatican and White House over the 1991 Gulf war.
But, he said, nothing compares to the rupture provoked by Donald Trump in response to Pope Leo’s criticisms of the US-Israeli strikes in Iran.
