Crux

ROME – After attending Pope Leo XIV’s installation Mass, United States Vice President JD Vance on Monday had private meetings with the pontiff and other top-ranking officials, with key themes being religious freedom and the need for negotiation in conflict areas.

According to a May 19 Vatican communique, earlier that morning the pope and Vance held a private meeting, which lasted roughly 45 minutes, beginning around 7:56 a.m. and ending around 8:41 a.m., after which Vance met with the Vatican’s Secretary for Relations with States, British Archbishop Paul Gallagher.

“During the cordial talks held at the Secretariat of State, satisfaction at the good bilateral relations was reiterated, and the collaboration between Church and State was discussed, as well as some matters of special relevance to ecclesial life and religious freedom,” the statement said.

In addition, the parties also exchanged views on “some current international issues, calling for respect for humanitarian law and international law in areas of conflict and for a negotiated solution between the parties involved.”

United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio was also present with Vance for the meeting in the Vatican’s Secretariat of State.

A spokesperson for Vance said that his meeting with Pope Leo began one on one, and afterward Rubio joined, “and following that portion, they were joined by their spouses and the larger U.S. delegation.”

Vance on Sunday attended Pope Leo’s installation Mass in St. Peter’s Square, afterward holding talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

It was Vance’s second visit to the Vatican in just a few weeks, having come with his family for a Good Friday service in St. Peter’s Basilica and holding a private greeting with Pope Francis on Easter morning, hours before the pontiff’s death following a stroke April 21.

In the past, Francis had been heavily critical of the United States administration’s position on immigration, specifically its mass deportation policy, calling out Vance in particular for remarks on the Christian order of love, as beginning with those close and then extending to those farther away.

Then-Cardinal Robert Prevost, prior to his election to the papacy, had also apparently criticized Vance’s remarks on social media platform X, previously known as Twitter, saying, “JD Vance is wrong. Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.”

Immigration was not specifically mentioned in Monday’s statement, however, it could have been among the “current international issues” that were discussed.

While in Rome last month, Vance during an April 19 meeting with Gallagher and Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin discussed a variety of issues, including migration and global peace efforts.

That conversation also took place after several high-ranking Vatican officials received detailed correspondence from a lawyer and a human rights organization in Peru outlining alleged financial crimes committed by the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae (SCV), a once-powerful Catholic entity which was suppressed by Pope Francis, and which is now in the process of being liquidated by its Vatican-appointed overseer.

Among other points, the correspondence warned Vatican officials that individuals linked to the SCV have attempted to use a church-state agreement to gain tax breaks on lucrative businesses only to send that money to holding companies in the United States.

Officials who received the letters, which Crux has seen, include Parolin; then-Cardinal Robert Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV; and Italian Sister Simona Brambilla, prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for Religious, which was responsible for the suppression of the SCV.

Spanish Monsignor Jordi Bertomeu, one of the Vatican officials who investigated the SCV and the papal delegate charged with the liquidation of its assets, said in an interview last month that the Vatican was asking financial authorities in the United States to intervene in helping them investigate the allegations of international money laundering.

Follow Elise Ann Allen on X: @eliseannallen