JD Vance Just Met The New Pope—And A Video Of Their Interaction Sparked Some Theories

Social media users have lots of theories after Vice President JD Vance and his wife, Second Lady Usha Vance, attended newly-elected Pope Leo XIV's first mass in Rome.

It's worth remembering that Pope Leo was criticized by MAGA supporters two weeks ago after they became aware of an article he once shared that criticized Vance because "Jesus doesn't ask us to rank our love for others."

Notably, the new pope previously condemned the Trump administration on social media for Trump’s “anti-immigrant rhetoric” back in 2015. He later reposted messages criticizing the death penalty, mass deportations, and Congress’s failure to act on gun reform after mass shootings.

Putting that aside, Pope Leo held a closed-door meeting with Vance at the Vatican on Monday morning on the heels of the pope's remarks Friday suggesting the Catholic Church could serve as a mediator in global conflicts—remarks later echoed by his second-in-command, who specifically named the war between Ukraine and Russia as one such opportunity.

Plenty of opportunity for awkwardness, don't you think? (Especially when the last Pope died just hours after meeting Vance.)

You can see footage of their initial meeting below.

It didn't look like the pope was too comfortable around Vance—and people certainly had thoughts.

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During their meeting, Vance presented Pope Leo with a personalized Chicago Bears jersey bearing the name “Pope Leo XIV” on the back. He also gifted the pontiff a copy of Saint Augustine’s The City of God, a fifth-century theological classic that Vance has credited as influential in his 2019 conversion to Catholicism. Pope Leo is a former leader of the Order of Saint Augustine.

Following the papal audience, Vance met with Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Vatican’s secretary for relations with states. The discussions were described as “cordial” and served to reaffirm “good bilateral relations,” according to a statement from the Vatican press office.

We'll see how long this lasts.