Vice President Vance will lead the U.S. delegation to the inauguration mass of Pope Leo in Vatican City on Sunday, his office announced on Thursday.
The vice president will be joined by second lady Usha Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his wife, Jeanette Rubio, for the first American pope’s inauguration.
Vance converted to Catholicism in 2019 and met with the late Pope Francis last month just before he died. He is the second Catholic vice president in U.S. history, following former President Biden, who later became the second Catholic president in U.S. history.
Pope Leo, who was born in Dolton, Ill., was elected by cardinals last week in a historic moment for the church. He is an Augustinian friar who attended Villanova University and spent much of his adult life working in Peru, where he has a dual citizenship. Francis made him a Cardinal in 2023.
Vance’s attendance at the mass is also notable because the pope has shared criticism of the vice president’s stance on immigration in the past.
In February, he shared an opinion article that criticized Vance on X with the headline, “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.” He also shared an article with the headline “Pope Francis’ letter, JD Vance’s ‘ordo amoris’ and what the Gospel asks of all of us on immigration.”
Vance has received criticism from other Catholics over his stance on migrants and his comments that Christians love their families, neighbors and fellow citizens before the rest of the world.
The last X post from the new pope was April 14, when he shared a post about the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador, with the questions, “Do you not see the suffering? Is your conscience not disturbed? How can you stay quiet?”
President Trump is not expected to attend the mass. Then-Vice President Biden led the U.S. delegation to Francis’s inaugural mass in 2013 and then-President Obama didn’t attend.
Trump attended Francis’s funeral in Rome last month and he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky inside of St. Peter’s Basilica before the funeral began.
