VANCE TELLS POPE TO STAY IN HIS LANE

In the latest episode of “As the World Turns, but with more ecclesiastical side-eye,” Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic convert and soon-to-be author of a book about his faith, explained on Fox News that the pope really ought to mind the Church while the president kindly handles American public policy, which is a neat little arrangement if you can ignore that his boss has already been busy calling Pope Leo XIV “weak on crime” and too liberal. The pontiff, for his part, has said he has “no fear of the Trump administration,” which is exactly the kind of bold spiritual messaging that tends to arise when the nation’s political class starts treating the Vatican like a guest on cable news that forgot its manners. Vance dismissed the whole clash as natural and not that big a deal, a calming bit of theology from the man most likely to publish a book on virtue while standing between a press conference and a backlash.