JD Vance is facing a sharp backlash in Washington and online this week after claiming in a New York Times interview that he spoke directly with Pope Leo XIV 'in the last few months,' a boast Vatican-connected sources now openly question.
The row erupted after Vance, the US vice president and a high-profile Catholic convert, sat down with columnist Ross Douthat for a wide-ranging interview about his faith, foreign policy and the White House's escalating confrontation with Iran. The conversation, which might have drifted into the usual culture-war terrain, instead triggered an awkward and very specific question: did Vance really have a recent back-channel to the Pope, at the very moment Donald Trump was denouncing him over the war?
