Vice President JD Vance said Pope Leo XIV should "be careful" after saying Jesus "is never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs."
"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, you know, those who had survived the Holocaust? I certainly think the answer is yes," Vance said at a Turning Point USA in Georgia.
Vance went on to say that he likes it when the pope weighs in on different matters, including abortion, immigration or "war and peace" but sometimes disagrees with him.
"Now we can, of course, have disagreements about whether this or that conflict is just, but I think in the 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," he said in a passage of the speech.
"But I think one of the issues here is that if you're going to opine on matters of theology, you've got to be careful. You've got to make sure it's anchored in the truth, and that's one of the things that I try to do, and it's certainly something I would expect from the clergy, whether they're Catholic or Protestant," added Vance, who is Catholic and met with the pope in May.
Vance's rhetoric is more measured than that of President Donald Trump, who recently slammed him as "WEAK on Crime" and "terrible for Foreign Policy." He also said he is not a fan of him and accused him of being "very liberal" and of "catering to the Radical Left."
Pope Leo, in turn, said he has "no fear" of the Trump administration and will keep speaking out against war. Speaking to reporters aboard the papal plane to Algeria, Leo said the Church's duty is to proclaim the Gospel as "a peacemaker," not to follow the political logic of governments.
