JD VANCE heads to Rome

When US Vice President JD Vance came to Rome on Friday, he was ready to meet with the Prime Minister of Italy and the Vatican Secretary of State.

But one of his main goals is not on the official schedule – to see with Pope Francis.

According to four sources familiar with the question, the Vice-President, a pierced Roman Catholic, hopes at least for a short meeting with the 88-year-old Pontiff, who will become the focal point of his visit.

Such a moment would carry a powerful symbolic burden, political and personal, especially in Easter, the most important holiday in the Catholic calendar, said a source familiar with his thinking.

This can also signal a defrosting in the relationship between the Vatican and Washington after months of tension on issues such as moral leadership and migration, and the Pope has previously said that the mass deportation of people who are running away from poverty or persecution have damaged “the dignity of many men and women, and of entire families.”

“Pope Francis and JD Vance are the most famous Catholics of today, one leading the church and the Catholic hierarchy, the other layman, who is now Vice President of the United States,” said Father Roberto Reglie, a professor of the history of the Church at Pontica Gregory.

“The meeting between the leaders of two global forces of this caliber would be of great symbolic meaning.”

The White House and the Vice President did not answer questions from the BBC about the Vance trip, and the Vatican did not confirm an official or informal meeting with Vance.

Pope Francis was in poor health after a five -week hospital stay for double pneumonia.

Since he returned to the Vatican a month ago, he has canceled most of his official appointments.

However, as his condition improved, Pope Francis began to make surprising appearances – last week he briefly met with King Charles III and Queen Camilla during their official visit to Italy.

“A photo with Pope Francis would be a major victory for J.

But if there is no meeting, he adds, there will be inevitably speculation about Snub or the Pope's health.

While the potential meeting with the Pope is uncertain, another meeting has been firmly locked for weeks – a formal handshake with Italian Prime Minister George Meloni.

The Catholic and the bearer of the standard of the populist right in Europe, it is politically aligned with the US administration and shares its belief in taking a difficult position in terms of migration.

She is expected to receive the Vice-President for a bilateral meeting during his visit, after returning from Washington, where he met with Donald Trump on Thursday.

The meeting may offer a more view on the ideological unions that Vance hopes to nourish in Europe, as Meloni has become a natural mediator between the US and the EU, especially on thorny issues such as tariffs and trade.

Later, Vance and Meloni will be joined by the two deputy minister of Italy, Mateo Salvini in the League and Antonio Tajani of Forz Italy, according to Italian officials.

Vance's visit is the first in Europe as it gave an ideologically wide end against European leaders at the Munich Security Conference in February.

He accused them of giving up freedom of expression, having entered political correctness and losing connection with their citizens on issues such as migration and national identity.

This rubbing with continent leaders also extends to the Vatican, where relations with the Trump administration are strained by solid immigration policies that face discounts by Catholic leaders and Pope Francis.

The reduction of refugee programs, the prospect of large -scale deportation plans, arrested in places of worship and effort to restrict the citizenship of firstborn rights were sentenced by the conference of US bishops as in contravention of the common good.

Pope Francis himself called on a more compassionate response to migration, relying on the evangelical teachings and the parable of the good Samaritan.

In a letter to the US bishops in February, he expressed concern about administration policies and implicitly challenged Vance's attempts to use the Catholic doctrine to justify the immigration repression of the administration, saying that “Christians know very well by confirming the endless dignity of our own identity.

“The meeting between Pope Francis and JD Vance will surely emphasize the great contrast between their visions of Catholicism,” Gibson said.

“Still, a meeting will serve the two men – for a Vance photo with the Pope, he can soften the perceptions that he is an opponent of the church; for Francis, this will demonstrate his welcoming approach and, which is important by presenting a photo with JD Vance, can mark a significant step in his return to the public achievement.”

Others also see the benefit of Vance in the association with the moral authority of the papacy if he receives a meeting or a photo with the person leading 1.2 billion Catholics on the planet.

He will have time with a highly ranked Vatican employee, his Secret Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin. And is expected to participate in ceremonies around Easter Sunday.

The Vice President reached the faith relatively late in life. Educated to a large extent not practicing, evangelical household, Vance spends some of his adolescence attracted by Pentecostal Church only to abandon the organized religion later.

It was not until August 2019 at the age of 35 that he officially became Catholicism in Dominican priori in Cincinnati. Ohio.

The decision, since then, has explained, stems from the search for a moral and philosophical framework capable of making sense of the public collapses, which chronicles in its most selling Memoir Elegy of Hilbils.

In the 2020 essay about the Catholic journal The Lamp, Vance frankly wrote about his spiritual reversal, describing his need for a worldview, which can take into account both personal responsibility and structural injustice.