For a curious intersection of agendas, the vice -president of the United States JD Vance, who took part in the White House on Thursday 17 April in the meeting of Giorgia Meloni with Donald Trump, arrived in Rome on Good Friday together with his wife Usha. It is not an Easter holiday, also because then Vance will continue his trip to India. In the Roman agenda of Vance there are a new meeting with Giorgia Meloni and an interview with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, secretary of state. Vance should also participate in the second round of negotiations between the United States and Iran on the Iranian nuclear program. The meeting will take place on Saturday at the Oman Embassy, the country of the Gulf friend of all who has always exercised the role of mediation between Americans and Iranians.
A meeting between Vance and Pope Francis remains uncertain, given the Pope’s health of the Pope. However, it is not excluded that Francesco can briefly receive Vance and his wife as he did in recent days with King Charles III and Queen Camilla.
Usually the figure of the Vice -President of the United States and his visits abroad have no great importance. Thomas Marshall, who was vice -president of the United States between 1913 and 1921, loved to joke about it with this story: “There were two brothers. One went to the sea, the other became vice -president. Nothing of either of the two was known.”
But this time Vance Visit was followed carefully. First of all for the delicate international context (war of duties and attempts of American mediation on several tables: Ukraine, Gaza, Iran), then because the converted Catholic Vance represents an administration whose policies (first of all that of contrasting illegal immigration, but also the cuts to the agencies for cooperation) are not at all welcome to Pope Francis. Without forgetting that this child of the deep America, just forty years old, is considered by many to be Trump’s possible successor to the White House.
The US press stresses that the most interesting aspect of JD Vance’s trip to Rome is its relationship with the Church. “After the tensions with the pope, Vance, a converted Catholic, visit the Vatican”, headlines the Washington Post. More mischievous the question in the title of National Catholic Report: “The Easter visit of JD Vance to the Vatican could contribute to resurrecting his Catholic credentials?”.
According to the Catholic newspaper, in his encounters in the Vatican Vance he will have to try a tightrope walker exercise on a tense rope: “try to reassure his boss and his anti-immigrant base, but also try to repair relationships with the leaders of his own church”.
JD Vance converted to Catholicism in 2019 And a few days after the oath he had the somewhat risky idea of hiring a theological dispute with the Pope by invoking the concept ofOrdo Amoris (on which they reflected giants of theology such as Sant’Agostino and San Tommaso) to defend immigration policies. Idea dismantled by Francesco in a letter sent to the American bishops in which he did not mention Vance. But Vance understood the message by calling himself a “Baby Catholic” who still has many things to learn. We will see if you visit the Vatican and the participation in the rites of the Easter Triduum (probably precisely in the solemn Easter Mass in San Pietro) they will help him in his growth.
