{"id":585085,"date":"2026-04-15T05:15:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T05:15:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/585085\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T05:15:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T05:15:13","slug":"vance-warns-the-pope-should-be-careful-when-talking-about-theology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/585085\/","title":{"rendered":"Vance warns the pope should ‘be careful’ when talking about theology"},"content":{"rendered":"

Vice President JD Vance<\/a> said Tuesday that Pope Leo XIV should \u201cbe careful\u201d when he talks about theology, rebuking the pontiff over his criticisms of U.S. foreign policy.<\/p>\n

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Vance argued that the pope, who has said<\/a> Jesus \u201cis never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs,\u201d was failing to take into account conflicts such as World War II.<\/p>\n

\u201cWas God on the side of the Americans who liberated France from the Nazis? Was God on the side of the Americans who liberated Holocaust camps and liberated those, those innocent people, you know, those who had survived the Holocaust? I certainly think the answer is yes,\u201d he said at a Turning Point USA event in Athens, Georgia.<\/p>\n

Vance, who is Catholic and met with the pope<\/a> in May, said that he likes it when the pope weighs in on issues such as abortion, immigration or \u201cmatters of war and peace\u201d but that he sometimes disagrees with him.<\/p>\n

\"ViceAttendees at the Turning Point USA event Tuesday. Chip Somodevilla \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cNow we can, of course, have disagreements about whether this or that conflict is just, but I think in the way that it\u2019s important for the vice president of the United States to be careful when I talk about matters of public policy, I think it\u2019s very, very important for the pope to be careful when he talks about matters of theology,\u201d Vance said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I think one of the issues here is that if you\u2019re going to opine on matters of theology, you\u2019ve got to be careful. You\u2019ve got to make sure it\u2019s anchored in the truth, and that\u2019s one of the things that I try to do, and it\u2019s certainly something I would expect from the clergy, whether they\u2019re Catholic or Protestant,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The pope and President Donald Trump have exchanged barbs<\/a> over the past several days, with the pope denouncing the war in Iran and Trump responding by saying Leo was \u201cWEAK on crime\u201d and \u201cterrible for Foreign Policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Vice U.S. Vice President JD Vance (R) speaks with Turning Point USA spokesperson Andrew Kolvet during a Turning Point USA event at Akins Ford Arena at the Classic Center on April 14, 2026 in Athens, GA.Chip Somodevilla \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

Leo, asked by NBC News about Trump\u2019s words, said he has \u201cno fear\u201d of the Trump administration. He also vowed to keep up his appeals for peace, saying they were rooted in Gospel.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s digs at the pope caused upheaval among the Catholic community in America, with clergy defending Leo<\/a> and saying Trump\u2019s attacks were inappropriate.<\/p>\n

They came shortly before Trump posted an AI image<\/a> depicting himself as a Christ-like figure. He deleted the post following pushback from supporters and allies. The next day, Trump said that he thought the image was a reference to the Red Cross and that it depicted him as a physician healing a patient.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Vice President JD Vance said Tuesday that Pope Leo XIV should \u201cbe careful\u201d when he talks about theology,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":585086,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-585085","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-united-states-of-america","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=585085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585085\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/585086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=585085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=585085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=585085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}