Vice President JD Vance has described a 2025 meeting with Vatican diplomats in Rome as “unsettling,” citing what he characterized as superficial and evasive responses from officials on key issues such as migration and international conflicts. His reflections are detailed in his forthcoming book, *Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith*, which traces his religious journey from evangelical Christianity through atheism to his conversion to Roman Catholicism in 2019.
Vance’s account centers on an April 2025 meeting with Vatican diplomats, including Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state. The meeting occurred shortly before an Easter Sunday audience with Pope Francis, who was gravely ill at the time and died less than 24 hours later. Vance was in Italy en route to India with his family when these encounters took place.
According to Vance, the Vatican diplomats relied heavily on “trite platitudes” and diplomatic clichés rather than engaging in direct dialogue on contentious subjects. After discussions touched on the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, Cardinal Parolin reportedly shifted the conversation to migration. Vance criticized the Vatican officials for taking a vague stance that acknowledged U.S. border control rights while urging humane treatment of migrants without elaborating on specific objections to U.S. immigration policies.
“Here I was, the most senior Catholic in the United States government, and the Vatican seemed unwilling to move its moral guidance past the point of trite platitudes,” Vance wrote, noting that the diplomats “never specified” what they opposed about his administration’s policies. He suggested the officials avoided detail out of a cautious desire to remain diplomatic but added that such abstraction was “too abstract to be helpful.” Vance expressed disappointment that an institution with significant moral authority appeared hesitant to offer a clear or controversial stance on migration.
The meetings also occurred under the shadow of Pope Francis’s declining health, with uncertainty among both Vatican and U.S. diplomats about whether the pope would meet with Vance. The vice president said he was mindful of the potential diplomatic fallout if the meeting did not occur and expressed empathy for the stress caused by the situation. Ultimately, Francis did not participate in the initial Vatican meeting but did meet privately with Vance on Easter morning for approximately 10 minutes. Vance described Francis as physically fragile but kind, recalling a moment when he called his wife from the car afterward to report on the pope’s condition.
Following Vance’s arrival in India, he learned of Francis’s death from a member of his staff. In the book, Vance contrasts his preference for the pope’s direct and candid approach with what he saw as the diplomats’ evasiveness. He wrote that he valued an “honest conversation” over one “masked by clichés,” referencing Francis’s willingness to confront him publicly on policy matters during his tenure.
*Communion* also addresses personal and political moments from Vance’s career, including his past controversial remarks about “childless cat ladies,” a phrase he used during his 2021 Senate campaign. He acknowledges the criticism that followed and now describes the comment as “boneheaded” and “dumb.” Vance reflects on how his faith has influenced his understanding of accountability and charity, stating that a “Christian statesman” should admit errors and approach issues with more compassion.
The vice president’s depiction of his interactions with the Vatican and his reflections on faith and public life offer insight into his evolving views and the complexities of navigating religious and political spheres amid global and domestic challenges.