Donald Trump has issued a White Home invitation to Pope Leo XIV, the Chicago-born pontiff who as Cardinal Robert Prevost beforehand criticised Trump’s administration.
The invitation got here through a letter from the US president and the primary woman, Melania Trump, that was delivered to the brand new pope by the US vice-president, JD Vance, throughout a gathering on the Vatican on Monday morning.
A video of the beginning of the assembly shared by the Vatican additionally confirmed Vance and his spouse giving the pontiff a Chicago Bears jersey with Leo’s title on it.
“As you can probably imagine, the US people are extremely excited about you,” stated Vance, who transformed to Catholicism in 2019.
In return, Leo gave Vance a bronze sculpture with phrases in Italian that means “peace is a fragile flower”.
The pope spoke to Vance privately earlier than they have been joined by the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio. The Vatican didn’t reveal what was mentioned.
Earlier than being elected pope earlier this month, Prevost criticised Trump’s administration in a number of posts on his X account, primarily focusing on the federal government over its hardline insurance policies on immigration.
In February he additionally shared on X an opinion article printed within the Nationwide Catholic Reporter titled “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others,” after feedback that Vance, who transformed to Catholicism in 2019, made in an interview on Fox Information.
After assembly Leo, Vance spoke with officers from the Vatican’s secretary of state. These talks have been “cordial”, the Vatican stated, including that there was “an exchange of 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”.
The conferences on the Vatican befell hours earlier than Trump was attributable to communicate by telephone with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, in an effort to finish the warfare in Ukraine.
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Vance, Rubio and their wives have been in Rome to attend a mass on Sunday marking the official begin of Leo’s papacy.
The Vatican has not confirmed or denied whether or not the earlier social media posts have been genuine, though the X account has been deleted. Trump and Vance additionally clashed with the late Pope Francis over immigration.
Christopher White, the Vatican correspondent for the Nationwide Catholic Reporter and writer of the forthcoming e book Pope Leo XIV: Contained in the Conclave and the Daybreak of a New Papacy, stated: “Vance certainly knows where the pope stands on the Trump administration’s position on migration, and so I think it was probably important for both sides to use the meeting today as a reset [in relations].
“But they’re obviously worlds apart on migration, and so today was really more about Ukraine and finding a solution. Before becoming pope, Leo was much more direct than Francis ever was because he characterised the war as an imperialistic aggression on the part of Russia.”
White stated that whereas Trump would search to capitalise on Leo’s papacy, it was unlikely the pontiff would make visiting the US a precedence. “He will be quite shrewd,” White added. “I think it’s fair to say that we can expect him to visit Peru, his adopted country, before he visits his homeland.”
