VATICAN CITY — After JD Vance invoked a medieval Catholic concept to defend the Trump administration’s migrant crackdowns, Pope Francis responded with a rebuke. Vance, a converted Catholic, then extended something of an olive branch, calling himself a “baby Catholic’’ who had things to learn while paying homage to the leader of the world’s largest Christian faith.
Now, Vance is set to travel to Rome for a three-day trip that includes high-level meetings at the Vatican, where his balancing act between faith and politics could face scrutiny again. The presidential surrogate will enter a Holy See some Trump supporters deride as the home of a “woke’’ pope.
Vance is set to meet Saturday with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state and Francis’s No. 2. Still unannounced is whether Vance will meet with the pope.
The vice president arrives at a time when senior Vatican officials are alarmed by the administration’s “America First’’ nationalism, its campaign against migrants — a leading cause of Francis’s — and its cuts in foreign aid that Catholic charities have called a “catastrophic’’ blow to their ability to assist millions across the globe. But the trip also comes amid deep divisions in the American Catholic Church, with the pope and the administration appearing to be on opposite sides.
Nowhere was that more evident than at President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla., on March 19, when Bishop Joseph E. Strickland — a vocal Francis critic who was removed from his post by the Vatican — was invited to lead an event sponsored by the pro-Trump group Catholics for Catholics. Trump, Strickland, and Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser, all appear on the homepage of the group’s website, while Francis does not.
In a message distributed to dozens of conservative Catholic priests in attendance, the Texas bishop again called out the pope, this time for allegedly refusing to “reject the siren call of sodomy,’’ an apparent reference to Francis’s LGBTQ+ outreach.
“There’s no doubt that some of these critics mean to diminish the authority of the pope, to water down his teachings and claim that they have on their side a pure, correct, rigorous Christianity,’’ one senior Vatican official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter, said of the conservative Catholics in the administration’s orbit.
The official added, however, that it was in the Vatican’s interest to hold pragmatic talks with Vance. “Of course that’s all there,’’ he said of the tensions. “But I’d say that won’t really affect the climate. I think content will be key, more than the company one keeps.’’
Vatican insiders say the Holy See will seek to engage Vance cordially, both as a relatively new Catholic — he converted in 2019 — and a representative of an American administration with which the Vatican seeks to engage on key diplomatic points. The Holy See, like the White House, is advocating for a cease-fire in Ukraine. Francis also sees an end to the war in the Gaza Strip as urgent. The Vatican is expected to raise both topics with Vance.
