VATICAN CITY - US Vice President JD Vance met with Pope Francis on Easter Sunday, a remarkable encounter between the ailing head of the global Catholic Church and a high-profile convert to the faith who has publicly criticised some of the church’s social teachings.
The vice president’s meeting with the pope was not announced in advance but was widely anticipated as Vance made something of a Catholic pilgrimage to the Vatican over Easter, with Sunday being the faith’s holiest day.
The “private meeting” occurred at 11:30 a.m. at the papal residence, Casa Santa Marta, the Vatican said, and happened while Easter Mass was being said in St. Peter’s Square. “The meeting, which lasted a few minutes, gave them the opportunity to exchange Easter greetings,” the Vatican said in a statement. Vance also met with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state and Francis’s No. 2, on Saturday.
“I know you’ve not been feeling great, but it’s good to see you in better health,” Vance said to Francis, sitting down facing the pope in his wheelchair.
“Thank you very much for your visit,” an interpreter for Francis said to the vice president. Vance was presented with several gifts, including a Vatican necktie and a rosary, as well as rosaries for his family and chocolate Easter eggs for his children. Francis could be heard saying very little.
As the meeting concluded, Vance took Francis’s right hand in his and touched the pope’s arm with his other hand. “Pray for you every day,” Vance said. “God bless you.”
After the encounter, Francis was wheeled out to the Loggia of Blessings overlooking St. Peter’s Square to cheers from a crowd of 35,000. He offered a silent blessing and a short, breathless greeting before Archbishop Diego Ravelli, master of apostolic ceremonies, read aloud Francis’s Easter speech - known as the “Urbi et Orbi” (“to the city and the world”) - which presented a worldview in stark contrast with that of President Donald Trump’s administration.
“How much contempt is stirred up at times towards the vulnerable, the marginalised and migrants,” Ravelli read, without mentioning a country or person. In a later passage, he said, “I appeal to all those in positions of political responsibility in our world not to yield to the logic of fear which only leads to isolation from others, but rather to use the resources available to help the needy, to fight hunger and to encourage initiatives that promote development. These are the ‘weapons’ of peace: weapons that build the future, instead of sowing seeds of death.”
The meeting with Francis amounts to one of Vance’s most conciliatory public acts since entering the vice presidency three months ago. He has used the office to forcefully lambaste leaders and institutions with whom he disagrees - perhaps most notably officials in Europe.
The encounter found Vance in the position of greeting the spiritual leader of 1.4 billion Catholics who has preached humility, mercy and inclusion at a time when the Trump administration has sought to project dominance at all cost.
While Vance has taken issue with the church’s posture on immigration - rebuking the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ response to his and Trump’s policies on migrants and acknowledging that he and the pope diverge on the issue - he has also, at times, sought to calm tensions with the Vatican. The pope is “fundamentally a person who cares about the flock of Christians under his leadership,” Vance said at a Catholic prayer breakfast in late February.
Vance, 40, converted to Catholicism six years ago. The visit to Rome at the end of Holy Week is the first leg of a trip Vance is taking to India, where he is scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday.
“I’m grateful every day for this job, but particularly today where my official duties have brought me to Rome on Good Friday,” Vance wrote Friday evening on X, as he traveled to Saint Peter’s Basilica to attend a Good Friday service with second lady Usha Vance and their three children.
A Vatican readout portrayed Vance’s meeting with Parolin as a substantive discussion on a wide range of issues. It noted “cordial talks” and an expression of “satisfaction” over “good existing bilateral relations” and a common commitment to protect the right to “freedom of religion and conscience.” It also mentioned an “exchange of opinions” on war, political tensions and humanitarian situations, with “particular attention to migrants, refugees, and prisoners.”
But there were also obvious signs of a still wide gap between the Vatican and the Trump administration. In a move the National Catholic Reporter described as a “tone-deaf Good Friday tweet,” the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See posted on X on Friday that “the Trump Administration is working to preserve U.S. sovereignty by curbing illegal immigration. We support legal pathways to citizenship.”
A day earlier, the Rev. Evelio Menjivar-Ayala, the auxiliary bishop of Washington, penned an op-ed condemning the administration’s “shock and awe” campaign against migrants and urging the faithful to “speak up” against it. “We cannot let the dark side of anti-immigrant animus take hold,” he wrote.
Despite the pope’s still fragile health after a five-week hospital stay, Vatican watchers said that not meeting with Vance would have been seen as a snub, though Vance’s advisers had avoided suggesting they believed a meeting was likely.
Francis, who continues to struggle for breath when speaking, is recovering after a bout of double pneumonia that nearly took his life. But despite doctors’ orders to rest for two months, he has made several public appearances since his release from a hospital on March 23 and has held several audiences, including with King Charles III and Queen Camilla of Britain.
Francis and the Trump administration remain at odds on several issues, including massive cuts to foreign aid that have hobbled Catholic charities across the globe, and the migrant crackdown in the United States. And the Jesuit pope’s signature traits of humility and mercy - he declined to live in the opulent papal apartment atop the Vatican Palace, choosing a more modest accommodation - are in stark contrast with Trump’s comments about seeking revenge and his longtime embrace of luxury.
But the Vatican - and the pope when he wears his hat as global diplomat - has a reputation for open doors.
“The Vatican has one golden rule: ‘We talk with everyone - dictators, good Catholics, anyone,’” said Massimo Faggioli, a Catholic theologian at Villanova University.
Vance’s meeting with Francis comes two months after the pope issued an extraordinary letter to U.S. bishops in which he challenged the administration’s “mass deportations.” In the letter, the pope appeared to take Vance to task specifically for suggesting that the “ordo amoris” - a medieval Catholic concept - could be used to defend such deportations by outlining a pecking order of Christian care, with the family first, followed by neighbors, the community, fellow citizens and, lastly, those beyond.
Francis, in his retort, wrote that “the true ordo amoris that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the ‘Good Samaritan.’”
But Vatican watchers said both sides were likely to seize the moment to build a “rapport.”
“Vance is here to break through the enmity and get around potential prejudice with a personal gesture, to [try to build] a good rapport,” said a senior diplomat close to the Vatican who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue. “And it’s a very clever move: Should he and the pope hit it off, that would supersede any ideological obstacle.”
For Francis, the official said, it was a moment that presented an opportunity to establish a “personal rapport” with Vance. “Francis has an incredible gift to make you like him. If he wants to,” the diplomat said.
Ahead of Vance’s visit, Vatican officials expressed optimism about the chance for improved dialogue with the administration, particularly on the issue of Ukraine. One senior Vatican official said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in a call with Parolin on March 14, had asked for the Vatican’s assistance in efforts to reach a ceasefire. Ukrainian officials have previously bristled at Francis’s initial reluctance to call Russia the aggressor and its vocal calls to end the war.
“Vice President JD Vance’s own Catholicism could possibly lay the groundwork for a deeper conversation with the Holy See,” said the Vatican official, who was not authorized to speak publicly. “So his trip will be a chance to figure out what the collaboration with the new U.S. administration will look like.”
The pope did not celebrate Easter Mass on Sunday because of his health. Cardinal Angelo Comastri, the archpriest emeritus of St. Peter’s Basilica, said that Mass as his surrogate.
WASHINGTON POST