JD Vance explains why he didn’t kiss Pope Leo’s ring
The Catholic Herald• May 22, 2025
US Vice-President JD Vance has revealed that he made a conscious decision not to kiss the papal ring of Pope Leo XIV when he met the new pontiff, due to his political role for the United States and despite being a convert to Catholicism.
His comments come in an interview on the “Interesting Times” podcast hosted by Ross Douthat, the conservative columnist at the New York Times, and which occurred while the two men were in Rome for Pope Leo XIV’s official inauguration Mass on 18 May.
In the interview, Vance also opens up about how his Catholic Faith informs his political views and how he squares his religious beliefs with his strict views on immigration enforcement, reports the Catholic News Agency (CNA).
Although kissing the papal ring – also known as the Fisherman’s Ring – is a common act of respect toward a pontiff, Vance explained that kissing the ring of a foreign leader would be against the protocol for a US vice-president.
“So, no sign of disrespect, but it’s important to observe the protocols of the country that I love, and that I’m representing and that I serve as vice-president of, the United States,” he told Douthat.
Vance explained that getting this balance right does not mean he will “just disregard” positions of Church hierarchy, rather “you make a prudential judgment informed very much by the Church’s teachings as reflected by these leaders”.
He highlighted that during his time in Rome he was “not there as JD Vance, a Catholic parishioner” but rather “I’m there as the vice-president of the United States and the leader of the president’s delegation to the Pope’s inaugural Mass”.
“So some of the protocols about how I respond to the Holy Father [as vice-president] were much different than how I might respond to the Holy Father [as a parishioner], or how you might respond to the Holy Father purely in your capacity as a citizen,” Vance told Douthat.
Vance also discussed during the interview how his faith and Catholic social teaching contribute to his views on governance.
Vance said he disagrees with the view that policy and religion are “two totally separate matters … because it understates the way in which all of us are informed by our moral and religious values”.
Yet this does not mean he could take direct orders from the Vatican on policy matters. he said, as that “would be a violation of the US Constitution”.
Instead, he continued: “When you really believe something, it ought to influence how you think about the way that you do your job, the way that you spend time with your wife and your children – it just kind of necessarily informs how I live my life.”
This philosophical balance means he thinks “the purpose of American politics” is “to encourage our citizens to live a good life”.
Photo: A woman kisses the hand Pope Leo XIV at the end of his first weekly general audience at St Peter’s Square in the Vatican, 21 May 2025. (Photo by FILIPPO MONTEFORTE/AFP via Getty Images.)
As a result, Vance said his faith informs his care for “the rights of the unborn” along with his belief in “dignified work”, whereby a person has “a high-enough wage that [he or she] can support a family”.
He added that when it comes to family policy, he fears that the US and other Western societies have “become way too hostile to family formation”, arguing that they “have been quite bad at supporting families over the last generation, and I think you see that in the fact that fewer people are choosing to start families”.
Vance noted that he has faced criticism from the political Right in the US for being “insufficiently committed to the capital-M market”, countering: “I am a capitalist,” while adding that he is not in principal against all interventions in the marketplace; he cited the administration’s tariff policies as an example.
“I think one of the things that I take from my Christian principles and Catholic social teachings – specifically whether you agree with the specific policies of our administration – is the market is a tool, but it is not the purpose of American politics,” the vice-president said.
Vance addressed the issue of migration which led to clashes between the Trump administration and the papacy of Pope Francis.
Vance said he spoke with “a lot of cardinals this weekend” about immigration policy and “had a lot of good, respectful conversations, including with cardinals who very strongly disagree with my views on migration”.
“The point that I’ve tried to make is I think a lot about this question of social cohesion in the United States,” he said. “I think about how we form the kind of society again where people can raise families, where people join institutions together.”
The vice-president argued that proponents of mass migration do not recognise “how destructive immigration at the levels and at the pace that we’ve seen over the last few years is to the common good”.
“I really do think that social solidarity is destroyed when you have too much migration too quickly,” he continued. “That’s not because I hate the migrants or I’m motivated by grievance. That’s because I’m trying to preserve something in my own country where we are a unified nation. And I don’t think that can happen if you have too much immigration too quickly.”
“My obligation more broadly as a vice president [is] to serve the American people,” Vance said.
Vance became a Catholic in August 2019, at the age of 35 years old. He is the second Catholic vice-president of the United States. Former President Joe Biden – the second Catholic US president – was the first Catholic vice-president when he served under former President Barack Obama from 2008–2016.
Some have commented that JD Vance may be missing the more important point about kissing the papal Fisherman’s Ring: that it isn’t so much a sign of respect, rather it is a way of receiving a direct spiritual blessing for the individual who – by kissing the ring – humbly respects the authority of Jesus Christ’s invested representative on Earth.
Photo: Vice-President JD Vance talks to reporters on board of the Air Force Two at Leonardo da Vinci International Airport after attending the inauguration of Pope Leo XIV, Rome, Italy, 19 May 2025. (Photo by JACQUELYN MARTIN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images.)