Rome – Two high profile Catholics, Papa Leo XIV And the United States vice president, JD Vance, met Monday before a series of diplomatic efforts led by the United States to advance in a high fire in the Russian war in Ukraine.
He saw Vance’s caravan entering the city of the Vatican just after 7:30 am, Vance, a Catholic convert, had taken the United States delegation to the formal mass Opening the pontificate of the first American Pope.
He joined Vance in the Vatican, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, also Catholic, said Vance spokesman Luke Schroeder.
The Vatican listed the Vance delegation as the first of several private audiences, Leo was having on Monday with people who had come to Rome for their inaugural mass, including other Christian leaders and a group of faithful from their former diocese in Chiclayo, Peru.
The Vatican, who was largely marginalized during the first three years of the Russian War, He offered to organize any peace conversation While the humanitarian efforts continue to facilitate the exchanges of prisoners and bring together Ukrainian children taken by Russia.
After briefly greeting Leo at the end of Sunday’s Mass, Vance spent the rest of the day in separate meetings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the president of the EU Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.
Leo, former Cardinal Robert Prevost, is an Augustinian missionary born in Chicago who spent most of his ministry in Chiclayo, a commercial city of around 800,000 on the northern Pacific coast of Peru.
In the days after your May 8 election, Leo has promised “All efforts” To help bring peace to Ukraine. He has also emphasized his continuity with Pope Francis, who made the care of migrants and the poor a priority of his pontificate.
Before your choice, PREVOST shared News articles about X that criticized the Trump administration plans for mass deportations of migrants.
Vance was one of the Last foreign officials to meet with Francis before the death of the Argentine Pope of April 21. The two had tangled up on migration, with Francis reprimanding publicly The Trump administration deportation plan and correcting Vance’s theological justification for it.
Later on Monday, president of the United States Donald Trump He has planned separate phone calls with Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr, as well as calls to NATO leaders.
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