Step aside, presidents and prime ministers: Vice President JD Vance says he wants to work with the newest world leader, Pope Leo XIV.
Vance told NBC News Tuesday that he and Secretary of State Marco Rubio had discussed U.S. foreign policy during his first meeting with the new pontiff, who hails from Chicago.
“We talked a lot about what’s going on in Israel and Gaza. We talked a lot about the Russia-Ukraine situation,” Vance said. “It’s hard to predict the future, but I do think that not just the pope, but the entire Vatican, has expressed a desire to be really helpful and to work together on facilitating, hopefully, a peace deal coming together in Russia and Ukraine.”
President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social Monday that “the Vatican, as represented by the Pope” was “very interested” in hosting negotiations between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
But the Vatican gave no indication it intends to wade into talks. In a statement about the meeting Monday, the Vatican said, “There was an exchange of views on some current international issues, during which hope was expressed that humanitarian law and international law be respected in areas of conflict and that there be a negotiated solution between the parties involved.”
Earlier this month, Pope Leo had called for an end to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, where the U.S. has directly funded Israel’s relentless slaughter of Palestinians in violation of international law. Since entering the White House, Trump has approved at least $12 billion in arms sales to Israel.
Pope Leo also called for an end to the “war of words and images,” and to end the targeting of journalists—which seemed, again, to be an indirect criticism of Trump’s administration and the MAGA movement. The pontiff had previously shared criticism of Trump’s immigration policies during his first administration, as well as some of Vance’s statements about Catholicism. The noted White Sox fan has also distanced himself from the MAGA crowd by advocating for gun reform and ending racism.
Now it seems Vance is hoping to make nice so as not to alienate a huge swath of the world’s population.
“We have an American pope of the world’s largest single religion—a guy who doesn’t have an army, but who I think has an incredible amount of capacity to convene and to influence not just Europe but, really, the entire world,” Vance told NBC News.
“I hope it’s the beginning of a very good relationship because I think he does care a lot about peace,” he said. “If there is a single most productive thing [from the trip], my hope is that it will be that the relationship between us and the Vatican leads to a lot fewer people getting killed and a lot less humanitarian disaster.”
The United States has maintained diplomatic relations with the papal state for more than 40 years, when former President Ronald Reagan established a partnership with Pope John Paul II to open an embassy in the Holy See.
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