Vice President Vance tells conservative Catholics to respect, pray for ailing pope

Vice President J.D. Vance acknowledged Pope Francis’ displeasure with the Trump administration’s immigration policy and led a prayer for the ailing pontiff Friday at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast.

Mr. Vance converted to Catholicism in 2019. Speaking at the annual Washington event, he told the right-leaning gathering that it’s counterproductive for conservative Catholics to treat the 88-year-old pontiff as “just another social media influencer” and drag him into U.S. culture-war issues.

“Every day since I heard of Pope Francis’ illness, I say a prayer for the Holy Father, because while, yes, I was certainly surprised when he criticized our immigration policy in the way that he has, I also know that the pope — I believe that the pope — is fundamentally a person who cares about the flock of Christians under his leadership,” Mr. Vance said, drawing a round of applause. “And he’s a man who cares about the spiritual direction of the faith.”

Pope Francis, the leader of more than 1.3 billion Catholics worldwide, remains in critical condition after suffering two falls and contracting a lung infection.

Mr. Vance said that while his positions were well known and he would “speak to them consistently,” it was also essential to respect the pope’s voice and listen to “people of faith and people of conscience.”

“You have an open door to the Trump administration, even and especially, maybe, when you disagree with us,” Mr. Vance said. “So please use that opportunity. Communicate with us when we get things right, but also when we get things wrong.”

Tensions have flared between the American Catholic hierarchy and the White House over the Trump administration’s recent moves to restrict illegal immigration and expand in vitro fertilization.

During his first week in office, Mr. Vance criticized the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for accepting more than $100 million in federal grants to provide social services to migrants. Citing Catholic theology, he argued that Americans have a moral duty to care for the people closest to them ahead of those from other countries.

Mr. Vance’s remarks provided a spur for a critical public letter from Francis to the American bishops, decrying the new administration’s plans for mass deportations of immigrants and Mr. Vance’s own reading of Catholic doctrine.

“The act of deporting people who in many cases have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution or serious deterioration of the environment, damages the dignity of many men and women, and of entire families, and places them in a state of particular vulnerability and defenselessness,” the pope wrote in part.

More recently, the church’s conservative wing blasted President Trump for a Feb. 18 executive order that seeks to lower the costs of IVF, which violates Catholic teachings on sexuality.

Mr. Vance did not mention IVF on Friday but praised Mr. Trump’s broader pro-life policies as “very good” for the Catholic Church, which teaches that abortion in all circumstances is a grave sin.

“Catholicism — Christianity at its root, I think — teaches our public officials to care about the deep things, the important things: the protection of the unborn, the flourishing of our children, and the health and the sanctity of our marriages,” Mr. Vance said. “And yes, we care about prosperity, but we care about prosperity so that we can promote the common good of every citizen in the United States of America.”

Lay Catholics attending the breakfast were largely enthusiastic about the speech.

“J.D. Vance was just like us,” said Joyce Morris, who traveled from Orange, Texas, for the event. “He talked about living our faith.”

Andrew Shivone, headmaster of St. Jerome Institute, a private high school in the District, praised Mr. Vance’s emphasis on promoting the common good — a key tenet of Catholic social teaching — over economic success.

“I truly hope that the Trump administration prioritizes the common good in all their decisions,” Mr. Shivone said.

Established in 2004 as a response to Pope John Paul II’s call for lay Catholics to evangelize politically, the annual breakfast has often served as a spotlight for high-profile Republicans to explain their policies to churchgoers.

Past speakers, including former President George W. Bush in his second term and former Vice President Mike Pence in 2017, have emphasized the Republican Party’s kinship with the Catholic Church’s opposition to legal abortion.

This year’s breakfast also honored Rep. Chris Smith, New Jersey Republican, with an award for authoring decades of legislation seeking to limit abortion and human trafficking.

He noted in an acceptance speech that more than 66 million pregnancies have been terminated in the U.S. since 1973, when the Supreme Court legalized abortion nationally in Roe v. Wade.

“Abortion has become a weapon of mass destruction,” said Mr. Smith, who is Catholic.

Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the pope’s U.S. representative, thanked attendees for praying for Francis’ health. He exhorted them in an invocation to be examples of unity, prayer, Gospel values and action for the common good in their politics.

“As Christians, we have a different method than what the world offers,” the cardinal said. “It’s not the usual politics.”