Pope Francis meets US Vice President JD Vance for a ‘few minutes’ on Easter Sunday in Vatican | Today news

Pope Francis held a short private meeting with US Vice President JD Vance on Sunday, the Vatican said in a statement. “Pope Francis had a short private meeting … a few minutes took to exchange good wishes on Easter day,” the Vatican statement reads. The meeting with JD Vance comes before the Pope’s appearance for Easter Sunday. Vance is currently Italy with his family. His office issued a brief statement confirming the meeting, but offered no further details. Video footage shows that Francis shook in his wheelchair with the Vice President and his wife. The Vice President, who visited Italy with his family over the weekend, met the Vatican senior officials on Saturday for more formal talks. The pope, which recovers from double pneumonia, did not participate in the discussions. Pope Francis’s collision with Donald Trump their meetings came to a transition between Pope Francis and the administration of US President Donald Trump over his anti-migrant policy. Pope and Vatican officials have criticized several of the policy of President Donald Trump’s administration, including his plans to deport millions of migrants from the US and his widespread cuts to foreign aid and domestic welfare programs. Pope Francis called the immigration suppression a ‘disgrace’. Vance, who became Catholic in 2019, quoted the Catholic doctrine of the medieval era to justify the policy. The Pope refuted the theological concept of Vance that was used to defend the oppression in an unusual open letter to the US Catholic bishops over the Trump administration in February and calls Trump’s plan a ‘big crisis’ for the United States. Pope Francis greets on Sunday at Easterpous Francis delivered his Easter message from the balcony of St Peter’s Basilica to thousands of people on Vatican Square. The 88-year-old head of the Roman Catholic Church was recently discharged from Rome’s Gemelli Hospital, where he received treatment for an infection for five weeks that led to double pneumonia. On Easter Sunday he was able to offer the ‘Urbi et orbi’ blessing to the city [of Rome] and to the world “. Only the pope can offer this blessing, which includes the offer of a leniency, a remission for the effect of sins. Pope Francis has committed his Easter burial to an appeal to peace worldwide for global disarmament and for the release of prisoners.