Pope and JD Vance meet ahead of diplomatic push for Ukraine ceasefire

Pope Leo XIV and US vice president JD Vance have met at the Vatican ahead of a flurry of American-led diplomatic efforts to make progress on a ceasefire in Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Mr Vance, a Catholic convert, had led the US delegation to the formal Mass opening the pontificate of the first American pope.

The US vice president extended an invitation to Leo to visit the United States during the meeting.

Mr Vance gave the first American pope a letter from US President Donald Trump and the first lady, inviting him to the States.

The Chicago-born Pope took the letter and put it on his desk and was heard saying “at some point”, in video footage of the meeting provided by Vatican Media.

Mr Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019, also gave the Augustinian pope a copy of two of St Augustine’s most seminal works, The City Of God and On Christian Doctrine, the vice president’s office said. Another gift was a Chicago Bears T-shirt with Leo’s name on it.

“As you can probably imagine, people in the United States are extremely excited about you,” Mr Vance told Leo as they exchanged gifts.

In return, Leo gave Mr Vance a bronze sculpture with the words in Italian: “Peace is a fragile flower,” and a coffee-table sized picture book of the papal apartments in the Apostolic Palace.

Leo noted that Francis had chosen not to live in them and added: “And I may live in (them), but it’s not totally decided.”

Joining Mr Vance at the meeting was US secretary of state Marco Rubio, also a Catholic, Vance spokesperson Luke Schroeder said.

According to the photo of the visits released by the Vatican, Leo’s brother, Louis Prevost, a self-described “MAGA-type”, and his wife Deborah joined the delegation during the visit.

According to a Vatican statement after their meeting: “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 Vatican listed Mr Vance’s delegation as the first of several private audiences Leo was having on Monday with people who had come to Rome for his inaugural Mass, including other Christian leaders and a group of faithful from his old diocese in Chiclayo, Peru.

The Vatican, which was largely sidelined during the first three years of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, has offered to host any peace talks while continuing humanitarian efforts to facilitate prisoner swaps and reunite Ukrainian children taken by Russia.

After greeting Leo briefly at the end of Sunday’s Mass, Mr Vance spent the rest of the day in separate meetings, including with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

He also met with European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Italy’s Premier Giorgia Meloni, who said she hoped the tri-lateral meeting could be a “new beginning”.

In the evening, Ms Meloni spoke by phone with US President Donald Trump and several other European leaders ahead of Mr Trump’s expected call with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin on Monday, according to a statement from Meloni’s office.

Leo, the former Cardinal Robert Prevost, is a Chicago-born Augustinian missionary who spent the bulk of his ministry in Chiclayo, a commercial city of around 800,000 on Peru’s northern Pacific coast.

In the days since his May 8 election, Leo has vowed “every effort” to help bring peace to Ukraine.

He also has emphasised his continuity with Pope Francis, who made caring for migrants and the poor a priority of his pontificate.

Before his election, then-cardinal Prevost shared news articles on X that were critical of the Trump administration’s plans for mass deportations of migrants.

Mr Vance was one of the last foreign officials to meet with Francis before the Argentine pope’s death on April 21.

The two had tangled over migration, with Francis publicly rebuking the Trump administration’s deportation plan and correcting Mr Vance’s theological justification for it.