X account with Robert Prevost’s name criticized JD Vance in February

With the Catholic Church receiving its new Pope in the person of American-born Cardinal Robert Prevost, now called Pope Leo XIV, a post on social media has surfaced from February in which Prevost criticized US Vice President JD Vance.

Indeed, it appears that the new Pope referred to Vance’s interpretation of Christian doctrine as “wrong”, as he attached an article by NCR titled “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others,” in a post on an X profile bearing his name from February 3.

What started the debate with Robert Prevost

Specifically, the NCR article, shared by Pope Leo XIV when the pontiff was still a Cardinal, quoted Vance from his earlier Fox News interview, in which he said that:

“There is a Christian concept that you love your family and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens, and then after that, prioritize the rest of the world. A lot of the far left has completely inverted that.”

Soon after, his words ignited an online debate on whether his sentiment was truly biblical or not – some defending him with quotes from the Scripture itself, others warning that caution is necessary when it comes to interpreting various things as ‘biblical,’ as with many other matters.

From his February post (provided it really is his X profile), it’s clear on which side of the debate the new head of the Catholic Church stands on, and CNN’s political analyst Maggie Haberman believes that it might lead to tension with the current US administration. As she said:

“We don’t know what kind of Pope this will be. Will this be a Pope who is outspoken, in the mold of Pope Francis? (…) It absolutely could lead to tensions, we will see how long the calm lasts.”

Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump has welcomed the election of Robert Prevost as the Pope, writing on his social media website, Truth Social, that it was an honor that the upcoming Catholic pontiff was an American:

However, Prevost, who was born in Chicago and is a naturalized citizen of Peru, did not acknowledge his American background during his address in St Peter’s Square in Vatican, which he delivered in Italian, the official language of The Holy See, throwing in a few words in Spanish to honor his Peruvian diocese.