JD Vance goes to rome

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

But one of its main tasks is not in the official schedule – for Pope Francis.

According to four sources familiar with this issue, the vice president, the devout Roman Catholic, hopes that at least for a short meeting with the 88-year-old Pontiff, which will become the main point of his visit.

Such a moment will have a powerful symbolic weight, politically and personally, especially for Easter, the most important holiday in the Catholic calendar, said a source familiar with its thinking.

It can also signal the thawing between the Vatican and Washington after months of tension in connection with issues such as moral leadership and migration, and the Pope earlier stated that mass deportations of people flee poverty or persecution damaged “the dignity of many men and women and entire families”.

“Pope Francis and JD Vance-known Catholics today, one at the head of the church and the Catholic hierarchy, the other-professional, which is now the Vice-President of the United States,” said Father Roberto Regly, Professor of the History of the Church at the Pontified Gregorian University.

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

The White House and the Vice President’s office did not answer BBC questions about Vens’s trip, and the Vatican did not confirm any official and informal meeting with Vens.

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

Since his return to the Vatican a month ago he canceled most of his official meetings.

However, when his condition improves, Pope Francis started a surprise – he recently met King Charles III and Queen Camila during an official visit to Italy last week.

“The photo with Pope Francis will be the main victory for JD Vance, and it also reflects Pope Francis’ inclusion – his willingness to welcome and meet anyone, even those who have different visions and values,” said David Gibson, director of the Fordham University, Jesuit University.

But if there are no meetings, he adds, there will inevitably think about sleep or the health of the Pope.

While meeting with the Pope remains enveloped in uncertainty, it was heavily closed during the weeks – the official handshake with the Prime Minister of Italy Georgia Meloni.

The Catholic and the bearer of the populist Europe in Europe, it is politically consistent with the US administration and shares its faith in a difficult position on migration.

She is expected to receive the vice president for a bilateral meeting during her visit, after returning from Washington, where she met with Donald Trump on Thursday.

The meeting may offer another view of ideological alliances that Vnes hopes to educate in Europe, as Meloni acted as a natural mediator between the US and the EU, especially in prickly issues such as tariffs and trade.

According to Italian officials, Italian Italian Antonio Tajani, Vans and Meloni will join two deputies of Italy, engaged in Matteo Salvini and Forsah Italy.

Vnes’ visit has been the first in Europe since it has made an ideological wide level against European leaders at the Munich Security Conference in February.

He accused them of abandoning freedom of speech, experiencing political correctness and losing communication with his citizens on issues such as migration and national identity.

The fact that friction with the leaders on the continent also extends to the Vatican, where relations with the Trump administration were intense by a tough immigration policy, which faced a strong abandonment of Catholic leaders and Pope Francis.

The conference of the American bishops, which are contrary to the common to good, were sentenced to refugee programs, the prospect of large -scale deportation plans, arrests in worship and efforts to incorporate citizenship.

Pope Francis himself called on a more merciful response to migration, based on evangelical teachings and a parable of a good Samaritan.

In a letter to the US bishops in February, he expressed concern about the administration policy and implicitly challenged Vens’ attempts to use the Catholic doctrine to justify the administration repression, saying that “Christians are very well aware that it is only confirming the infinite dignity that our own identity as a community.”

“The meeting between Pope Francis and JD Vance would certainly emphasize a sharp contrast between their vision of Catholicism,” Gibson said.

“However, the meeting will serve both men – for Vens, a photo with the Pope can mitigate the perception that he is the opponent of the church; for Francis it would show his welcome approach, and, most importantly, creating a photo from JD Vance, can mark (another) a significant step in returning to public duties.”

Others also see the benefit for Vnes in connection with the moral authority of the papacy when he receives a meeting or photograph with a man who heads 1.2 billion Catholics of the planet.

He will have time with a high -ranking Vatican official, Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Pute. And it is expected to participate in the ceremonies near the Easter Sunday.

The vice president came to faith relatively late in life. Vens, raised in many ways impractical, evangelical household, spent some of his adolescence, attracted to the Pentecostal Church, only later abandoning the organized religion.

And only in August 2019, at the age of 35, did he formally go to Catholicism in Dominican Prior in Cincinnati.

He has since explained the decision that it followed from the search for a moral and philosophical basis, capable of comprehending the public breakdowns he had been chronicled in his bestseller Hillbilly Elegy.

In the essay of 2020, Vnes, for the Catholic magazine, Vens, he wrote to his spiritual turn, describing his need for a worldview, which can take into account both personal responsibility and structural injustice.