JD Vance to spend Easter in Rome amid tiff with Pope Francis
SUMMARY
On Friday, Vice President JD Vance, the top Catholic in U.S. government, landed in Rome for Easter weekend, meeting Italian PM Giorgia Meloni on April 17 and attending Good Friday mass at St. Peter’s Basilica. He’s set to huddle with Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin amid a feud with Pope Francis, who slammed Trump’s mass deportation push in a February letter to U.S. bishops, calling it a blow to human dignity. “What is built on force…begins badly and will end badly,” Francis wrote, rebuking Vance’s February X post citing “ordo amoris” to defend prioritizing Americans. Vance fired back at the February National Catholic Prayer Breakfast, saying, “I think…Trump…has been an incredibly good president for Catholics,” without directly challenging Francis. Trump, a non-denominational Christian, won Catholics by 10 points in 2024, up from 1 in 2020, and stacked his team with Catholics like Vance and Marco Rubio.
