JD Vance met with senior officials from the Vatican following a fractious round of exchanges between Donald Trump’s administration and Pope Francis.
The US vice-president arrived for the meetings with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state, on Saturday morning as part of a three-day diplomatic trip to Italy over the Easter weekend.
The Pope has been a long-standing critic of Mr Trump and in February said the president’s mass deportation efforts are driving a “major crisis” that “damages the dignity of men and women.”
Doubts remain whether Mr Vance will be granted an audience with the Pope, 88, who is in recovery from a near-fatal bout of double pneumonia and is limiting his public appearances.
The pontiff demonstrated on Thursday he is still physically capable of making engagements when he paid a half-hour visit to inmates inside a prison in Rome.