At a Turning Point USA event at the University of Georgia on April 14, Vice President JD Vance delivered a stark warning to Pope Leo XIV to “be careful” when discussing religious matters, igniting fierce criticism over the 41-year-old’s decision to lecture the pontiff on theology despite converting to the faith just seven years ago.
The vice president’s rebuke came in response to the 70-year-old pontiff’s April 10 condemnation of President Donald Trump’s military action in Iran. Pope Leo XIV had stated that “God does not bless any conflict” and proclaimed that Christians are “never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs.”
During his Georgia remarks, Vance questioned how the pope could claim “God is never on the side of those who wield the sword,” pointing to “more than a thousand-year tradition of just war theory.” The vice president’s argument revealed a striking irony that quickly became apparent to Catholic scholars and observers.
Pope Leo XIV served as Prior General of the Order of St. Augustine for 12 years and remains the first pope ever from that religious order. St. Augustine of Hippo, along with St. Thomas Aquinas, developed the very just war doctrine that Vance attempted to explain to the pontiff. The timing proved particularly awkward: while Vance delivered his lecture in Georgia, the pope was physically present at the archaeological site of Hippo in Annaba, Algeria—where St. Augustine served as bishop until his death in 430. During his ongoing visit to four African countries, Pope Leo XIV planted an olive tree at the historic location.
Vance converted to Catholicism in August 2019 at age 35, having been raised in a loosely evangelical tradition and identifying as an atheist during his college years. He selected St. Augustine as his patron saint. The pope, by contrast, holds a Master of Divinity degree from the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago and earned a doctorate in canon law from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome. He also served in the Augustinian mission in Chulucanas, Peru, accumulating decades of theological training and pastoral experience.
The vice president’s remarks escalated the Trump administration’s ongoing feud with the Vatican over the war with Iran, drawing additional administration allies into the confrontation. White House border czar Tom Holan, also a Catholic, told the pontiff to “leave politics alone” during an April 14 appearance on Newsmax, adding that the Church should “stay out of immigration because they don’t know what they’re talking about.” House Speaker Mike Johnson joined the criticism, telling reporters the just war doctrine is “a very well-settled matter of Christian theology.”
Bishop James Massa, 65, the auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Brooklyn, delivered the Catholic Church’s response on April 15 on behalf of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Doctrine. Massa’s statement affirmed that when Pope Leo XIV “speaks as supreme pastor of the universal Church, he is not merely offering opinions on theology, he is preaching the Gospel and exercising his ministry as the Vicar of Christ.” The bishop emphasized that Catholic doctrine requires nations to take up arms only “in self-defense, once all peace efforts have failed.”
Vincent J. Miller, the Gudorf Chair in Catholic Theology and Culture at the University of Dayton, said the Church actually condemned the conduct of total war in WWII, including the obliteration bombing of cities—directly undercutting Vance’s WWII liberation argument. “The vice president’s answer shows he has much to learn about what the Church actually teaches about peace and war,” Miller said.
The Vatican’s editorial director, Andrea Tornielli, issued a pointed rebuttal of Vance’s just war argument, noting that the doctrine was developed centuries ago when wars were fought with swords, not machine-guided drones. “There has been a growing awareness that war is not a path to be followed,” Tornielli wrote on Vatican Media.
Tensions between the Trump administration and the Vatican escalated further when President Trump blasted the pope on Truth Social the weekend of April 11–12, then posted an artificial intelligence-generated image widely criticized as blasphemous, depicting himself in Christ-like imagery. Trump later deleted the post after an uproar from Christians, but refused to apologize, claiming he thought the image depicted him “as a doctor making people better.”
Pope Leo XIV responded defiantly, declaring he has “no fear of the Trump administration or of speaking out loudly about the message of the Gospel.”
In a letter issued on April 14 to participants of a Vatican conference on the use of power in democratic societies, the pontiff warned that without a foundation in moral values, democracy “risks becoming either a majoritarian tyranny or a mask for the dominance of economic and technological elites.” The letter did not name a specific country.
Vance’s theological credentials faced additional scrutiny earlier this month when he announced his forthcoming 304-page memoir about converting to Catholicism, titled “Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith.” The book’s cover features Mount Zion Church in Elk Creek, Virginia—a congregation of the United Methodist Church’s Holston Conference, not a Catholic church.
The incident generated viral backlash across social media, with late-night host Stephen Colbert among those mocking the vice president’s audacity in lecturing the leader of 1.3 billion Catholics worldwide.
Vance’s evolution from Trump critic to loyal defender remains striking. In 2016, a private message to his law school roommate revealed he called Trump “America’s Hitler” and “a cynical ****” before eventually joining the 2022 Senate campaign that launched his political alliance with Trump.