WASHINGTON (RNS) — After most as a lot as date public sparring with Pope Francis and U.S. bishops, Vice President JD Vance struck a extra conciliatory tone on the Nationwide Catholic Prayer Breakfast on Friday (Feb. 28), searching for to alleviate tensions with the Catholic hierarchy while stopping brief of abandoning views or protection positions that sparked the assist and forth.
Talking to a sprawling crowd of Catholics gathered on the Walter E. Washington Convention Heart, the typically strident Vance described himself as a “minute one Catholic” — a reference to his being a extra most as a lot as date convert to Catholicism — and framed himself as an “frightful” Christian.
“I try and be humble as most piquant I will be succesful to after I talk in regards to the faith in public, because, needless to impart, I’m not repeatedly going to fetch it factual, and I don’t want my inadequacies in describing our religion to fall assist on the faith itself,” acknowledged Vance, who converted to Catholicism and was as soon as baptized in 2019.
“So if you ever hear me pontificating in regards to the Catholic religion, please watch it comes from a residence of deep belief, nevertheless it indubitably furthermore comes from a residence of not repeatedly colorful all the pieces the final time.”
The remarks were a stark departure for Vance, who on the final engages publicly in controversial points and is acknowledged to swap insults on-line and on TV — including in his most as a lot as date debates with Catholic prelates. Within per week of his inauguration, Vance chided the U.S. Convention of Catholic Bishops, accusing them, with out citing evidence, of resettling “illegal immigrants” and being too reliant on government funds. “Are they in actuality panicked about their backside line?” the vice chairman asked.
Bishops rep since time and but again rejected Vance’s assertion. In February, Bishop Mark Seitz of the Diocese of El Paso, who oversees USCCB’s committee on migration, known as Vance’s comments “a tall mischaracterization.”
Bishop Mark Seitz on the U.S. Convention of Catholic Bishops meeting in Orlando, Florida, Thursday, June 15, 2023. (RNS portray/Jack Jenkins)
Extra lately, Vance ended up in a assist-and-forth with the pope himself. After the vice chairman insisted at some level of an interview that the Trump administration’s hardline immigration insurance policies — which embody allowing arrests of immigrants at churches and guarantees of mass deportations — were in accordance with a “Christian theory” of loving citizens of your rep country forward of “the relaxation of the arena,” he doubled down on the argument on-line, telling a critic on the social media platform X to Google the theological knowing acknowledged as “ordo amoris” forward of including the commentator has “an IQ of 110 and thinks he has an IQ of 130.”
A pair of days later, Pope Francis rejected the vice chairman’s interpretation in a letter to U.S. bishops, though he did not name Vance.
“The most piquant ordo amoris that also can merely peaceable be promoted is that which we ogle by meditating repeatedly on the parable of the ‘Precise Samaritan,’ that’s, by meditating on the admire that builds a fraternity start to all, with out exception,” Francis wrote in his letter.
Vance addressed the controversies at as soon as in his speech, asserting, “You know, typically the bishops don’t love what I impart,” forward of including, “typically they’re factual and continuously they’re imperfect.”
But Vance furthermore seemed to counsel that while Catholics also can merely peaceable not “ignore” clergy on matters of public protection, the vice chairman and other Catholics shouldn’t “obsess” over what they are saying.
Vice President JD Vance addresses the Nationwide Catholic Prayer Breakfast on Friday, Feb. 28, 2025, on the Walter E. Washington Convention Heart in Washington, DC. (RNS portray/Jack Jenkins)
“What I try and remind myself of is that we’re not known as as Christians to obsess over each social media controversy that implicates the Catholic Church, whether it involves a clergy or a bishop or the Holy Father himself,” he acknowledged. “I contemplate that we are in a position to also merely peaceable frankly grasp a page out of the books of our grandparents who revered our clergy, who regarded to them for guidance, nevertheless didn’t obsess and wrestle over each single be conscious that came out of their mouth and in our social media.”
He added that he was as soon as “stunned” the pope criticized the Trump administration’s immigration insurance policies in his letter, after which posited the doc wasn’t suited for this day’s social media-pushed discourse.
“I contemplate it’s incumbent upon our spiritual leaders to note that within the skills of social media, of us will grasp on each single be conscious that they direct, despite the indisputable truth that that wasn’t their diagram, and despite the indisputable truth that a given declaration wasn’t meant for consumption within the social media age,” Vance acknowledged.
Vance closed his remarks with an impassioned social gathering of the pontiff, who has been severely ill, asserting he and his younger of us rep prayed for the pope on each day basis since Francis entered the well being facility two weeks within the past. Vance grew visibly emotional as he referenced a March 2020 homily by the pope within the muse of the pandemic, asserting the pope’s phrases were “incredibly meaningful” to him.
He then concluded by leading those gathered in a prayer for Francis.
“If the Holy Father can hear us, I am hoping he knows that there are millions of faithful Catholics in this room and millions of faithful Catholics in this country who are praying for him as he weathers his particular storm,” Vance acknowledged.
Even with his conciliatory tone, alternatively, tensions between the Trump administration and Catholic leaders ought to not at possibility of subside rapidly.
To boot to Vance’s assist-and-forth with the bishops and Pope Francis, the USCCB has filed swimsuit in opposition to the Trump administration over the government’s decision to freeze funds for religion-essentially essentially based organizations eager about refugee resettlement. The lawsuit was as soon as referred to mediation on Monday, nevertheless on Thursday — the day forward of a scheduled listening to on the case — the government with out note canceled its contract with the USCCB altogether and filed a contemplate about within the case arguing the bishops not rep standing.
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