Vice President JD Vance didn’t get the warm welcome he hoped for at the Vatican this weekend. Instead, he got a quick 17-second handshake from Pope Leo XIV, while the Pope spent real time talking privately with other world leaders like Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky and Peru’s Dina Boluarte.
The moment was awkward and hard to ignore. Vance stood in the line to greet the Pope after his inaugural Mass in St. Peter’s Square. When it was his turn, the Pope gave a quick handshake and moved along.
Meanwhile, other leaders were invited to closed-door talks with Pope Leo. That included Zelensky—who had argued with Vance earlier this year—and Boluarte, the President of Peru. Even EU leaders and others from Germany, Canada, and Italy had more extended conversations with the new Pope.
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So, why the snub?
There’s been apparent tension between JD Vance and the Vatican. Pope Leo XIV, formerly Father Robert Prevost, had made his thoughts known. Before becoming Pope, he reposted a Catholic op-ed titled “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.” That message came after Vance publicly said that people should care for others only after caring for their own families.
Pope Leo disagrees. In his sermon on Sunday, he didn’t name Trump or Vance directly, but his words were powerful:
“In this our time, we still see too much discord, too many wounds caused by hatred, violence, prejudice, the fear of difference, and an economic paradigm that exploits the Earth’s resources and marginalizes the poorest.”
This sounded like a direct challenge to the Trump administration’s immigration policies, which JD Vance has strongly defended.
Earlier this year, Pope Francis criticized Vance for supporting harsh deportation laws. In a letter, Francis said: “The act of deporting people who… left their land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution or serious deterioration of the environment, damages the dignity of many men and women, and of entire families, and places them in a state of particular vulnerability.”
Francis also met with Vance just before he passed away in April. It was a short meeting. Afterward, Vance visited his tomb and wrote online, “Many Catholics around the world beloved him.”
But it seems his attempts to fix things with the Church haven’t worked—at least not yet.
This new Pope, Leo XIV, is America’s first Pope, and his background is rooted in strong support for immigrant rights and economic justice. That puts him on the opposite side of JD Vance, who supports Donald Trump’s strict policies on immigration and family-first priorities.
The Catholic Church is powerful. It reaches billions of people around the world, and when the Pope sends a message—even silently—it is heard.
Featured image via Screengrab
