Pope Meets With JD Vance After Criticism of Trump Administration

Pope Meets With JD Vance After Criticism of Trump Administration

Francis and the vice president briefly exchanged Easter wishes, the Vatican said. An earlier meeting between Mr. Vance and church officials involved “an exchange of opinions” on migration.

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By Emma Bubola

Reporting from Rome

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Vice President JD Vance met with Pope Francis at the pontiff’s residence in Rome on Sunday, the Vatican said, in a previously unannounced visit during Easter celebrations.

The Vatican said the meeting was a “brief” exchange of Easter wishes that lasted “a few minutes.” In a photograph released by the Vatican, the pope is seated in a wheelchair opposite Mr. Vance as the pair talk.

The meeting came after the pope criticized the Trump administration’s deportation policies and urged Catholics to reject anti-immigrant narratives, in an unusually direct attack on the American government.

The rebuke came in the form of an open letter to American bishops in February, with some of the pope’s criticisms apparently leveled directly at statements made by Mr. Vance.

Mr. Vance, who was baptized as a Catholic six years ago, has been spending Holy Week in Rome with his family. He attended the Good Friday service in St. Peter’s Basilica. On Saturday, Mr. Vance met with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state, and with Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Vatican’s foreign minister.

Mr. Vance had not been expected to meet the pope, who only recently left the hospital after spending five weeks there in serious condition. The pope has made unannounced appearances since his hospital stay, but his health tightly restricts his planned engagements.

“I know you have not been feeling great but it’s good to see you in better health,” Mr. Vance told the pope, according to video footage of the visit. An aide to the pope handed Mr. Vance gifts, including three chocolate Easter eggs for his children, a tie with the Vatican’s emblem and rosaries. “I pray for you every day,” Mr. Vance told the pope before he left.

The two met at Casa Santa Marta, the pope’s residency, as the Sunday mass continued in St. Peter’s Square with a cardinal presiding over the liturgy in place of Francis. The pope later appeared on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica, waved at the tens of thousands gathered below, and wished them a happy Easter.

In a message read to the crowds by an aide in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Francis reiterated his condemnation of anti-immigrant positions.

“How much contempt is stirred up at times towards the vulnerable, the marginalized, and migrants!” he wrote.

Before entering the hospital, the pope, a staunch advocate for migrants and refugees, had directed a sharp critique toward President Trump over his administration’s immigration policy, saying that deporting people who come from difficult situations violates the “dignity of many men and women, and of entire families.”

In those remarks, the pope appeared to give a riposte to Mr. Vance, who has defended the deportation policies by referring to the Christian concept of “ordo amoris” — which he defined as a hierarchy of duties that prioritizes immediate obligations to one’s family or community over more distant needs. “The true ordo amoris that must be promoted” is “love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception,” Francis wrote in his open letter to American bishops.

Speaking at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in February, Mr. Vance acknowledged the pope’s critical comments, but said he would continue to express his views.

During the meeting between Mr. Vance and the Vatican officials on Saturday, “there was an exchange of opinions” on “difficult humanitarian situations, with particular attention to migrants, refugees, and prisoners,” among other issues, according to a statement from the Vatican.