By Katherine Tinsley
4:22pm PDT, May 19, 2025
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Pope Leo XIV previously criticized
Donald Trump and
J.D. Vance's stance on immigration and other issues, but the vice president, who is Catholic, still attended the religious leader's inaugural mass, where the new pope reportedly gave him the cold shoulder.
Keep reading for the details…
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Pope Leo XIV, who is the first American pope, preached a sermon focused on unity and lifting up other communities.
"In this our time, we still see too much discord, too many wounds caused by hatred, violence, prejudice, the fear of difference and an economic paradigm that exploits the Earth's resources and marginalizes the poorest," Leo said.
Some listeners interpreted the pope's comments as a jab at Donald Trump's policies.
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While in Vatican City on May 18, J.D. Vance and wife
Usha Vance shook Pope Leo XIV's hand, but his holiness' interaction with the couple reportedly lasted only 17 seconds — shorter than other world leaders' time with the Vicar of Christ. The pope also did not invite the Vances to meet with him privately. (He reportedly met privately with Ukrainian President
Volodymyr Zelensky and with Peruvian President
Dina Ercilia Boluarte Zegarra.)
Before he became the pope, Leo criticized the vice president's use of Christianity to explain the Donald Trump administration's controversial policies.
"J.D. Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn't ask us to rank our love for others," Leo once wrote on social media, according to
DailyMail.com.
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In his final X post as Robert Prevost, Pope Leo XIV shared his disapproval of the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was sent to El Salvador without due process.
"Do you not see the suffering? Is your conscience not disturbed? How can you stay quiet?" he wrote on April 14.
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In 2018, Pope Leo XIV commented on Donald Trump's deportation methods, which result in the separation of families.
"There is nothing remotely Christian, American, or morally defensible about a policy that takes children away from their parents and warehouses them in cages," the priest said at the time.
"This is being carried out in our name and the shame is on us all," he added.
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J.D. Vance publicly ignored the criticism he received from both Pope Leo XIV and the late Pope Francis.
"I try not to play the politicization of the Pope game," Vance told Hugh Hewitt, according to DailyMail.com.
"I'm sure he's going to say a lot of things that I love," Vance continued. "I'm sure he'll say some things that I disagree with, but I'll continue to pray for him and the Church despite it all and through it all, and that'll be the way that I handle it."
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During Donald Trump's first presidency, Pope Francis told Catholics that anyone interested in turning away immigrants is "not a Christian."
"I'm not going to soil the man's legacy by talking about politics, I think he was a great Christian pastor and that's how I choose to remember the Holy Father," J.D. Vance told reporters
after Francis died just hours after they spent time together in late April.
