Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio will attend Pope Leo XIV’s inaugural mass in Vatican City on Sunday, a source familiar with the plans confirmed to NBC News.
Leo is the first American pope, marking a major moment for American Catholics.
Vance, who is Catholic, previously met briefly with Pope Francis before his death last month.
The vice president, Rubio and second lady Usha Vance will be among the U.S. delegation attending the mass, which marks the formal installation of the first U.S.-born pope. The new pope will preside over an inauguration mass on Sunday, which will be held in Saint Peter’s Square, according to the Vatican.
Vance and Rubio’s plans were first reported by Bloomberg.
Leo, who was born Robert Prevost in Chicago, was elected pope by a conclave last week.
Before his elevation from cardinal to pope, Prevost occasionally posted on social media, including some messages that appeared to be critical of Vance, President Donald Trump and their worldview.
Leo, then Prevost, has previously posted links to X highlighting stories critical of the vice president. In one post, he quoted the article’s headline, which read, “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.”
Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019, congratulated Leo after news of his election.
“I’m sure millions of American Catholics and other Christians will pray for his successful work leading the Church,” the vice president wrote on X. “May God bless him!”
Asked about his reaction to Leo’s ascendancy last week in an interview with conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt, Vance acknowledged their potential political differences while also downplaying them.
“You know, people are asking, “Is he a conservative or is he a liberal? Will he attack President Trump and JD Vance on certain things?’ … And I guess my response to this is, it’s very hard to fit a 2,000-year-old institution into the politics of 2025 America,” Vance told Hewitt. “I try not to do that.”
Vance continued, saying that he was “sure he’s going to say a lot of things that I love.”
“I’m sure he’ll say some things that I disagree with, but I’ll continue to pray for him and the Church despite it all and through it all, and that’ll be the way that I handle it,” the vice president said.
After Leo was announced as the new pope, Trump said in a post to Truth Social that Leo’s selection was “a Great Honor for our Country.”
“I look forward to meeting Pope Leo XIV,” Trump wrote at the time. “It will be a very meaningful moment!”
The White House waded into controversy in the days leading up to the conclave, when Trump posted an artificial intelligence-generated image depicting himself as the pope. The move generated backlash from some Catholics, who criticized the image as being in poor taste.
“There is nothing clever or funny about this image, Mr. President,” the New York State Catholic Conference said in a post to X. Separately, Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York told NBC News that the post “wasn’t good,” and former Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said that the post “offends believers.”
Leo was made a cardinal by Pope Francis in 2023 and has lived and worked in Peru.
