HOLY SMOKE

Catholic Convert JD Vance Lectures the Pope on Key Issue

The vice president’s feud with the spiritual leader of his church continues.

Vice President JD Vance is not backing down from his ongoing feud with Pope Leo XIV.

Speaking to Fox News’ Laura Ingraham on Tuesday night, Vance addressed criticisms from conservative Catholics who Ingraham claims are “very concerned… that we have a pope who is very, deeply in some regard, anti-capitalist.”

The vice president said that he wasn’t concerned by the pope’s purported anti-capitalism, telling Ingraham that he doesn’t see it the same way.

“I don’t see Pope Leo as anti-capitalist. I do think that some of the things that have come out of the Vatican on the immigration question in particular have been troubling, and ultimately I disagree with it,” Vance said.

He added, “I actually like this interplay between the pope, between Christian clergy, and between the administration. We don’t always have to agree on these issues, but I think the fact that we’re actually having the right conversations, that we’re pushing back when we disagree about how they’re applying a pragmatic principle of immigration policy, that’s a natural and reasonable thing to do.”

“What I would hope that the Catholic leadership has learned from some of the things that me, and Marco [Rubio] and the president have said about immigration is it’s not just about the dignity of the immigrant, it’s also about the dignity of the native-born people who have had their lives upended.”

Leo has been outspoken against several key Trump administration policies and actions, including the president’s war with Iran and his hardline immigration policies.

Last month, the Chicago-born pontiff was asked for his thoughts on “remigration,” a mass deportation plan pushed by the European far-right and embraced by the White House.

“Often, we don’t recognize the reason why these people were forced to leave their home countries. For many reasons—violence, war, conflict,” Leo told reporters outside his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo. “To simply say, ‘We’re going to send them away and wash our hands of the problem’ doesn’t seem like the most Christian response.”

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Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019 and recently published a book about his conversion, has had a rocky relationship with the leaders of his own church.

In Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith, the 41-year-old wrote that his meeting with Vatican officials in April 2025 was “unsettling,” criticizing officials for being “overly diplomatic” and unwilling to have a frank discussion about the disagreements between the Trump administration and the Holy See.

“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.

He has also lashed out at the pope, attempting to school the Catholic leader on theology and warning, “I think it’s very, very important for the pope to be careful when he talks about matters of theology.”

“If you’re going to opine on matters of theology, you’ve got to be careful, you’ve got to make sure it’s anchored in the truth.”

He also railed against the pope’s anti-war arguments, citing the “just war” theory and the liberation of Europe from Nazi Germany during World War II, asking, “How can you say that God is never on the side of those who wield the sword?”

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“There is a 1,000-year, more than a 1,000-year tradition of just war theory, OK?” he added.

On Friday, just over two months after Vance tried and failed to educate the pope on the just war theory, it was reported by Politico that Leo is planning a secret meeting with the world’s cardinals to discuss whether the theory needs updating in an era of increasingly industrialized and technology-driven warfare.

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Vance’s repeated attempts to position himself as the face of Catholicism in America have yet to pay off. A Navigator poll conducted in early June found that the vice president had a net favorability rating of -12 among American Catholics, while Pope Leo enjoys a favorability rating of +57.

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