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Unhinged Internet Trolls Claim JD Vance Killed Pope Francis

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JD Vance
Photo Credit: "J. D. Vance" by Gage Skidmore is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/?ref=openverse.

Pope Francis, spiritual leader of more than a billion Catholics worldwide, passed away on Easter Monday at the age of 88, and the internet is blaming Vice President JD Vance for his death.

Despite the unhinged rumors, the Vatican confirmed the pontiff died following a lengthy struggle with respiratory illness, which had resulted in a 38-day hospital stay and multiple brushes with death in recent months.

His passing, though mourned by millions, has been weaponized in certain corners of the internet, where Vice President JD Vance became the subject of outlandish insinuations for being among the pope’s final visitors.

Vance, who was previously an atheist before his conversion to Catholicism, spent Easter weekend in Rome with his family.

He posted photos of his brief Easter Sunday encounter with Pope Francis, which, according to a Vatican-released video, showed the two engaging warmly in what would be one of the pontiff’s final meetings.

“Hello,” Vance greeted, taking the pope’s hand. “So good to see you.”

Though seated in a wheelchair and visibly frail, Pope Francis accepted the gesture.


His voice was inaudible in the recording, but the interaction carried the tone of respect and solemnity.

Vance added, “I know you’ve not been feeling great, but it’s good see you in better health.”

Hours after the pope’s death was confirmed, Vance offered a tribute that focused not on politics, but on Francis’ spiritual impact.

“I just learned of the passing of Pope Francis,” he wrote. “My heart goes out to the millions of Christians all over the world who loved him.”

“I was happy to see him yesterday, though he was obviously very ill,” Vance added. “But I’ll always remember him for the below homily he gave in the very early days of COVID. It was really quite beautiful. May God rest his soul.”

Still, that solemn message did not shield the vice president from a wave of bizarre accusations and tasteless jokes on X, where some attempted to connect Vance’s Vatican visit to the pontiff’s passing.

One user posted, “Now I’m not saying that JD Vance killed the Pope, per se. I just think his actions raise some questions, like for example: Did JD Vance kill the Pope?”

Another wrote, “The Pope meets with Vance immediately dies of cringe.”

Model and influencer Emily Sears chimed in sarcastically: “So JD Vance celebrated Easter by killing the Pope? Got it.”

John F. Kennedy’s grandson Jack Schlossberg echoed the sentiment with a blunt statement on Instagram: “Okay JD killed the pope.”

The pile-on continued with several users comparing the situation to the late Queen Elizabeth II’s final public meeting with British Prime Minister Liz Truss, suggesting an eerie pattern of high-profile figures dying shortly after such meetings.

“Liz Truss meets The Queen then [dies]. JD Vance meets the Pope then [dies]. Interesting……. Can they meet with Putin next?” read one viral post.

Despite the noise on social media, the pope’s declining health had been public knowledge for months.

Reports confirmed that doctors had warned him following his most recent hospitalization that his recovery was fragile and that he should remain in isolation.

Despite doctor’s orders, Pope Francis defied those recommendations. In the week leading up to his death, he made multiple public appearances.

The Pope was seen greeting crowds on Palm Sunday, visiting prisoners on Holy Thursday, and showing up unexpectedly at St. Peter’s Basilica on Holy Saturday.

None of that stopped critics online from zeroing in on Vance, even as the vice president had done nothing more than pay his respects to the leader of his faith.

While the visit itself appeared cordial, with Francis even presenting three large Easter eggs for Vance’s children, ideological tensions between the two had surfaced earlier in the year.

On Easter Sunday, following their meeting, the pope’s official address appeared to contain a pointed critique aimed at the Trump administration and its immigration policies, which Vance has defended.

“How much contempt is stirred up at times towards the vulnerable, the marginalized and migrants,” Francis wrote in a message read aloud by an aide, due to his weakened condition.

This echoed a theme from a February letter in which the pope took issue with Vance’s use of Catholic doctrine in the ongoing U.S. immigration debate.

Francis wrote that he had been monitoring what he described as a “major crisis” in the United States relating to the mass deportation program.

Though acknowledging a nation’s right to protect its people, the pontiff urged followers “not to give in to narratives that discriminate” against migrants and refugees.

“The act of deporting people who in many cases have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution or serious deterioration of the environment, damages the dignity of many men and women, and of entire families, and places them in a state of particular vulnerability and defenselessness,” Francis wrote in the letter.

He also warned against immigration strategies built on coercion: “What is built on the basis of force, and not on the truth about the equal dignity of every human being, begins badly and will end badly.”

Vice President Vance had responded to similar critiques in the past by citing the Catholic concept of ordo amoris — or “order of love.”

In a February post on X, he laid out his reasoning: “You love your family, and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country. And then after that, you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world.”

Francis, in his letter, disagreed with Vance’s reading of the concept. “Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups,” he wrote.

Instead, he offered a vision of “a fraternity open to all, without exception.”

Still, after Francis’s death, critics flooded social media with memes portraying Vance as the Grim Reaper, complete with scythe and cloak, contributing more to a circus of conspiracy than any meaningful dialogue about the pontiff’s legacy or Vance’s brief visit.

Far-right pundit Ann Coulter, a longtime critic of Pope Francis’ progressive tendencies, disgustingly posted: “Good work, JD.”

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