From Klippenstein:
When Trump declared Pope Leo “terrible for foreign policy,” the U.S. intelligence community took the president’s remarks as a directive to prioritize spying on the Vatican. It has for years, sources tell me. The CIA has human spies working inside the Holy See bureaucracy. The NSA and CIA seek to intercept telecommunications, emails, and texts. The FBI investigates crimes committed against and by the Vatican. The State Department closely follows the ins and outs of Papal diplomacy and politics. All of these agencies liaise with the Vatican’s own foreign policy, intelligence and law enforcement agencies.
Tension between the Vatican and the White House is nothing new, but historically it has taken place through surrogates, policy statements, or pointed silence. Trump’s very public swipe against Pope Leo cast the American-born head of the Roman Catholic church as a threat to U.S. interests. It is an unprecedented label.