Just hours before Pope Francis’ death on Easter Monday, US Vice President JD Vance became the last known world official to meet the pontiff alive. It was a brief but poignant encounter that now carries historic weight.
Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019, met the 88-year-old Pope at his Vatican residence on Easter Sunday morning. According to a Vatican statement, the private audience lasted only a few minutes, during which the two exchanged Easter greetings. Though visibly frail and confined to a wheelchair, Pope Francis was reportedly in good spirits, offering Vance chocolate Easter eggs for his children and rosaries as gifts.
The Vice President later shared his condolences on social media following the Vatican’s announcement of Francis’ death the next morning. ‘He was obviously very ill,’ Vance wrote, ‘but I’ll always remember him for the beautiful homily he gave in the early days of COVID. May God rest his soul.’
A Meeting Marked by Tension and Respect
Despite their ideological differences, particularly over immigration policy, Vance and Pope Francis have maintained a respectful if occasionally strained relationship. As a vocal critic of the Trump administration’s hardline immigration agenda, Francis previously labelled mass deportation efforts a ‘disgrace’ and called on world leaders to uphold the dignity of migrants. Vance, then a senator and now Vice President under Donald Trump‘s return to office, had defended such policies using Catholic just war theory. In response, Francis issued a rare open letter to US bishops, criticising the theological justification.
Nevertheless, the Pope appeared to set aside their differences during Sunday’s meeting. Grasping Vance’s hand, the Vice President said: ‘Pray for you every day. God bless you.’
Later that morning, Pope Francis appeared from the Loggia of Blessings overlooking St Peter’s Square to offer a final Easter blessing. He waved to crowds in what would be his last public act before passing away the following day.
AFP News
JD Vance’s Quiet Journey to Catholicism
Vance’s connection to Catholicism may not have been well known to the public until recently, but his journey into the faith was anything but superficial. Raised in a loosely evangelical household, Vance began exploring Catholicism in earnest during his 30s while living in Cincinnati. He was drawn to the Church’s intellectual tradition, particularly the writings of St Augustine, whose treatise City of God deeply influenced him.
According to a New York Times profile, Vance began one-on-one theological instruction with Dominican friars at St Gertrude Church. After months of study and contemplation, he was baptised and received his first communion in a private chapel in 2019. His patron saint, fittingly, was Augustine — an early Christian thinker who critiqued Roman imperialism and wrestled with the tensions between faith and public life.
‘It was the best criticism of our modern age I’d ever read,’ Vance later told a Catholic literary journal. ‘A society oriented entirely towards consumption and pleasure, spurning duty and virtue.’
A Political Identity Shaped by Faith
Vance’s Catholicism has not been merely personal but overtly political. He often frames public policy through the lens of Catholic social teaching, emphasising family values, economic populism and social cohesion. In a conversation with Rod Dreher, Vance stated: ‘If the conservative movement stands for anything, it should be pro-babies and pro-families.’
His views represent a growing cohort of traditionalist Catholic thinkers within the Republican Party. Figures such as Senator Josh Hawley and Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito belong to this movement, which prioritises cultural conservatism and often stands in contrast to Pope Francis’ more progressive approach to issues like climate change and LGBTQ+ rights.
Still, Vance has distanced himself from some ultratraditionalist practices. Speaking at the Napa Institute during his Senate run, he noted: ‘I’m not a big Latin Mass guy,’ though he admires the Church for its resistance to modernity’s instability.
A Spiritual Anchor Amid Political Ambition
Vance’s conversion came during a period of intense personal and professional change. After graduating from Yale Law School and serving in the Marine Corps, he rose to national prominence with his memoir Hillbilly Elegy, which explored poverty and resilience in working-class America. Yet behind the scenes, he was also exploring deeper questions about morality, masculinity and spiritual purpose.
His relationship with the Dominican friars offered him what he described as ‘a touch from God’ — an experience that began while listening to a psalm in Aramaic during a train ride and hearing the same chant later during midday prayer at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington.
Today, Vance and his wife, Usha Chilukuri, are raising their three children in the Catholic faith. Though the couple married before his conversion, she has reportedly supported his journey, noting it made him a more present and patient father.
The Legacy of a Last Visit
The meeting between Vance and Pope Francis now holds a unique place in history. It was not only the final diplomatic engagement of the Pope’s life, but also a quiet moment of human connection between two men with sharply different visions of the world, bound briefly by the language of faith.
Whether Vance’s role as the last official to meet Pope Francis alive will deepen his religious symbolism or political narrative remains to be seen. But as the Vatican prepares to lay its reformist pontiff to rest, one thing is certain: their shared Easter encounter is a poignant coda to a papacy, and a conversion, shaped by conviction, contrast and enduring belief.
