Vice President JD Vance was heckled at a Turning Point USA event after questioning Pope Leo XIV‘s recent comments about the Trump administration.
“Was 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, from you know … those who had survived the Holocaust?” Vance, 41, said during the event in Athens, Georgia, on Tuesday, April 14. “I certainly think the answer is ‘Yes.’”
An attendee later interrupted Vance, stating, “Jesus Christ does not support genocide!”
Vance agreed and said he enjoys when the pope, 70, “comments on questions” regarding issues such as immigration, abortion and “matters of war and peace” because “it invites a conversation.”
“Now we can, of course, have disagreements about whether this or that conflict is just,” he continued. “But I think that it’s important, in the same way that it’s important for the vice president of the United States to be careful when I talk about matters of public policy, I think it’s very, very important for the pope to be careful when he talks about matters of theology.”
Earlier this month, the first American pope took to social media to address the Trump administration.
“God does not bless any conflict. Anyone who is a disciple of Christ, the Prince of Peace, is never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs,” he wrote via X on Friday, April 10. “Military action will not create space for freedom or times of #Peace, which comes only from the patient promotion of coexistence and dialogue among peoples.”
President Donald Trump later took aim at the pop, claiming via his Truth Social platform that he is “WEAK on Crime” and “terrible for Foreign Policy.”
“I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon,” Trump wrote on Sunday, April 12. “I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s terrible that America attacked Venezuela, a Country that was sending massive amounts of Drugs into the United States and, even worse, emptying their prisons, including murderers, drug dealers, and killers, into our Country.”
Vance, for his part, previously addressed the public back and forth.
“When it comes to the disagreements with the Vatican, we’re going to have disagreements from time to time,” he told Fox News on Monday, April 13. “I think it’s a good thing actually that the Pope is advocating for the things that he cares about. But we’re always going to have disagreements on matters of public policy.”
He added:, “The Pope has been critical of our immigration policy but ultimately the immigration policy of the United States is set by Donald Trump. The Pope is going to have disagreements on other issues. We certainly respect the Pope, we certainly have a good relationship with the Vatican.”
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