Vice President JD Vance has revealed that when he and Pope Leo XIV sat down together for the first time on Monday, the two discussed immigration, world peace and… online dating.
Vance was in Rome for the pope’s inaugural mass on Sunday, when the two briefly met and shook hands. On Monday, they sat down for a private conversation before being joined first by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and then a larger delegation that included Vance and Rubio’s wives.
The pope, then known as Cardinal Robert Prevost, criticized Vance in February, posting “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.”
The Vatican offered few details about the 45-minute audience except to say the two had “cordial talks” about bilateral relations, religious freedom, and international affairs, as well as an “exchange of views on some current international issues.”
The Catholic News Agency took that to be a reference to disagreements, though Vance wrote in a social media post on X that it was a “great conversation” and that he was “humbled and honored” to meet Pope Leo.
Shortly after the meeting, the vice president sat down for a podcast interview with The New York Times’ Ross Douthat, which aired on Wednesday. At first, the vice president said the two generally discussed “issues the Vatican cares a lot about,” including migration and the wars in Gaza and Ukraine.
But later, during a discussion with Douthat about artificial intelligence and its potential to disrupt the labor market, Vance said that he and the pope had also talked about artificial intelligence and online dating.
“The [AI] trend that I’m most worried about, there are a lot of them, and I actually, I don’t want to give too many details, but I talked to the Holy Father about this today,” he told Douthat. “If you look at basic dating behavior among young people—and I think a lot of this is that the dating apps are probably more destructive than we fully appreciate.”
“I think part of it is technology has just for some reason made it harder for young men and young women to communicate with each other in the same way,” he continued. “Our young men and women just aren’t dating, and if they’re not dating, they’re not getting married, they’re not starting families.”
I was humbled and honored to meet Pope Leo XIV and lead the presidential delegation to Rome for his inaugural mass. We had a great conversation, and I know he is a true servant of God. I hope all Americans will join me in praying for the new pope as he begins his ministry. https://t.co/z7Q9J48Sdz
— JD Vance (@JDVance) May 19, 2025
He said he wasn’t worried about AI leading to job losses, but that he thought it could be “profoundly dark and negative” if teenagers in particular turned to chatbots to feel less lonely and only ended up being more isolated as a result.
“They start to develop a relationship, [and] they start to expect a chatbot that’s trying to give a dopamine rush,” he said. “Compared to a chatbot, a normal human interaction is not going to be as satisfying, because human beings have wants and needs.”
Which could very well be true, but the downsides of AI aren’t an either/or proposition. More than 40 percent of companies worldwide plan to downsize their workforces over the next five years thanks to AI, according to the World Economic Forum’s 2025 Future of Jobs Report.
During his first press conference a week earlier, Leo had called for the “discerning use” of AI to make sure the technology is used “for the good of all.”
“As you know, communication is not only the transmission of information, but it is also the creation of a culture, of human and digital environments that become spaces for dialogue and discussion. In looking at how technology is developing, this mission becomes ever more necessary,” he told about 1,000 journalists gathered at the Vatican on May 12.
“I am thinking in particular of artificial intelligence, with its immense potential, which nevertheless requires responsibility and discernment in order to ensure that it can be used for the good of all, so that it can benefit all of humanity,” he added.
On the topic of communication, the pope also called for an end to the type of aggressive and divisive rhetoric favored by the Trump administration.
“We do not need loud, forceful communication, but rather communication that is capable of listening and of gathering the voices of the weak who have no voice,” he said, inviting the audience to “disarm communication of all prejudice and resentment, fanaticism and even hatred.”
“Let us free it from aggression,” he said.
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