JD Vance shakes Zelensky’s hand at Pope Leo’s inauguration mass after war of words between pair and US Vice President

Volodymyr Zelensky shook hands with JD Vance in their first meeting since their heated exchange at the White House in February that shocked the world.

The Ukrainian president and US vice president were pictured together at the inauguration of Pope Leo XIV in Vatican City on Sunday.

Zelensky approached Vance as he sat in the front row for the new Pontiff’s inaugural mass.

Vance rose to his feet to shake the Ukrainian war leader’s hand enthusiastically before Zelensky quickly moved on.

However, he then spotted the Second Lady, Usha Vance, out of the corner of his eye and returned to shake her hand too. 

The handshake appeared to show signs of a diplomatic thaw after the pair’s dramatically falling out earlier this year when Zelensky left the White House early on February 28 when an argument broke out in the Oval Office between himself, Donald Trump and Vance.

Vance accused the Ukrainian leader of ‘moralistic garbage’, ‘historical illiteracy’ and of being a ‘globalist’ during the tense conversation. 

He also accused Zelensky of trying ‘to litigate this in front of the American media’ after Vance claimed that a diplomatic solution was needed to the Ukraine-Russia war.

‘What kind of diplomacy, JD, you are speaking about?’ Zelensky said. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I’m talking about the kind of diplomacy that’s going to end the destruction of your country,’ a visibly angry Vance replied. 

Pope Leo XIV also shook hands with JD Vance following his inauguration mass, only weeks after his criticism of the US Vice President resurfaced. 

The US Pontiff, 69, warmly took hold of Vance’s hand as he received a series of world leaders at St Peter’s Square. 

Leo has repeatedly criticised Donald Trump‘s administration’s immigration stance.

The Pope also previously shared several articles that address Catholic Vance’s stance on immigration. One of them was titled: ‘JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.’ 

Vance last week appeared to brush aside Leo’s previous criticisms as he told conservative broadcaster Hugh Hewitt: ‘I try not to play the politicisation of the Pope game.

‘I’m 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.’

Zelensky sat down with Vance and other senior members of the Trump administration, including secretary of state Marco Rubio, after the new Pope’s inauguration.  

The meeting between came two days after the first direct talks between Ukraine and Russia in over three years in Turkey, where a prisoner exchange was agreed but no progress made on securing a ceasefire.

‘We discussed the talks in Istanbul, where the Russians sent a low-level delegation with no decision-making powers,’ Zelensky wrote on Telegram following the meeting with Vance at the US ambassador’s residence in Rome after the two of them attended Pope Leo’s inaugural mass in the Vatican.

‘We also touched on the need for sanctions against Russia, bilateral trade, defence cooperation, the situation on the battlefield and the future exchange of prisoners,’ Zelensky added. 

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Zelensky’s aide Andriy Yermak were also present at the meeting, where the two sides discussed steps towards a just and lasting peace in Ukraine.

Vance also held a meeting with the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Italy’s Prime Minister Georgia Meloni.

A senior Ukrainian official from the president’s office, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP that Zelensky and Vance also discussed preparations for Monday’s telephone conversation between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social on Saturday that he would speak by phone with Putin on Monday in order to stop the ‘BLOODBATH’ in Ukraine.

Leo said this morning at his inaugural mass that he wanted to confront modern challenges.

Vance was one of the last foreign officials to see Pope Francis before he died, and paid his respects at the Argentine pope’s tomb upon arriving in Rome late Saturday.

The Pontiff said during his homily ‘we still see too much discord, too many wounds caused by hatred, violence, prejudice, the fear of difference, and an economic paradigm that exploits the Earth’s resources and marginalises the poorest’. 

Leo said he wanted to be a servant to the faithful through the two dimensions of the papacy: love and unity.

He said: ‘I would like that our first great desire be for a united church, a sign of unity and communion, which becomes a leaven for a reconciled world.’

He said there was no room in the church for religious propaganda or power play.

It comes as the Vatican confirmed the first US Pontiff will hold a private meeting this afternoon with Zelensky. 

Leo has offered the Vatican as a venue for peace talks between Ukraine and Russia to help solve the ‘very difficult, dramatic situation‘.

The leaders of Britain, Germany and France also want to talk to Trump ahead of that call with Putin, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said. The US president has increased pressure on Ukraine and so far abstained from critisising Putin, who started the biggest conflict in Europe since World War Two. 

Speaking moments after Sunday’s Mass, Leo mentioned the ‘martyred’ Ukraine and called for a ‘just and lasting peace’. 

Earlier, the Ukrainian President warmly greeted a smiling US Vice President JD Vance as the Secretary of State Marco Rubio looked on. 

Echoing the priorities of his predecessor, Pope Francis, Leo criticised the global economic system.

He also warned against the centralization of power within the papacy, saying he would seek to govern ‘without ever yielding to the temptation to be an autocrat’.

Leo appeared to choke up ahead of his homily when the two potent symbols of the papacy were placed on him – the pallium wool stole over his shoulders and the fisherman’s ring on his finger – as if the weight of responsibility had just sunk in.

He turned his hand to look at the ring and seal and then clasped his hands in front of him in prayer.

The crowd cheered and plenty of Peruvian, American and Holy See flags mixed with flags of other nations and banners.

At the end of the Mass, Leo expressed hope for negotiations to bring a ‘just and lasting peace’ in Ukraine and offered prayers for the people of Gaza, children, families and elderly who are ‘reduced to hunger’, he said.

Leo made no mention of hostages taken by Hamas from southern Israel on October 7, 2023, as Francis usually did when praying for Gaza.

Princess Charlene of Monaco and Spain‘s King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia were among the royals in attendance. 

Buckingham Palace announced last week King Charles would not be at the inauguration mass and instead sent the Duke of Edinburgh Prince Edward to represent him.

While most wore black, the handful of Catholic queens and princesses – Princess Charlene Queen and Letizia among others – wore white in a special privilege allowed them. 

People had streamed into the square in the Vatican City ahead of celebrating history’s first American pope with a formal installation ceremony.

Civil protection crews in neon uniforms had earlier funnelled pilgrims into quadrants in the piazza while priests and patriarchs hurried into St Peter’s Basilica to get ready for the Mass. 

Leo started the day by taking his first tour through the piazza in the popemobile. The open-topped vehicle has become synonymous with the papacy’s global reach and mediatic draw, used at home and abroad to bring popes close to their flock.

The bells of St Peter’s Basilica rang as Leo waved from the back of the vehicle that looped slowly through the square as the crowd waved flags and cheered ‘Viva il Papa!’. 

Born in Chicago, the pontiff spent many years as a missionary in Peru and also has Peruvian citizenship, meaning he is also the first pontiff tied to that South American nation.

One person in the crowd shouted out ‘White Sox, White Sox,’ referring to the Chicago baseball team at the bottom of the American League standings

It was here that Francis took his last popemobile ride on Easter Sunday, and it was on the back of a popemobile that Francis’ casket was brought across Rome last month to its final resting place.

Leo, an Augustinian missionary elected May 8 after a 24-hour conclave, seems a bit more timid than Francis. 

But all eyes will be on how he manages the throngs of pilgrims, tourists and curiosity-seekers, and the babies who will inevitably be passed up to him for him to bless. 

After the festive public tour in the square, Leo will head into the basilica to begin the solemn ceremony to inaugurate his ministry in a series of rites that emphasise the service that he’s called to perform in leading the Catholic Church. 

He prays first at the tomb of St. Peter, considered to be the first pope, under the basilica’s main altar and then processes out into the piazza for the Mass.

Strict diplomatic protocol dictates the seating arrangements, with both the United States and Peru getting front-row seats thanks to Leo’s dual citizenship. 

Vance, a Catholic convert who tangled with Francis over the Trump administration’s mass migrant deportation plans, is being joined by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who arrived in Rome ahead of time to try to advance Russia-Ukraine peace talks.

Peruvian President Dina Boluarte is one of around a dozen heads of state attending.

US seminarian Ethan Menning, 21, from Omaha, Nebraska, wrapped himself in an American flag, purchased at a truck stop in Iowa, to celebrate.

‘Rome always felt like home for a Catholic, but now coming here and seeing one of our own on the throne of Peter … it almost makes Jesus himself more accessible,’ he said.

Kalen Hill, a pilgrim from the US, got to St. Peter’s soon after the gates opened Sunday morning and said he never expected an American would lead the 1.4 billion strong church.

‘I would say all the Americans are emotional about it,’ he said. ‘It is really powerful for American Catholics who sometimes feel separated from the world church to be brought in and included in this community through Pope Leo.’

During the Mass, Leo will receive the two potent symbols of the papacy: the lambswool stole, known as a pallium, and the fisherman’s ring. 

The pallium, draped across his shoulders, symbolizes the pastor carrying his flock as the pope carries the faithful. 

The ring, which becomes Leo’s official seal, harks back to Jesus’ call to the apostle Peter to cast his fishing nets.

The other symbolically important moment of the Mass is the representational rite of obedience to Leo: Whereas in the past all cardinals would vow obedience to the new pope, more recent papal installations involve representatives of cardinals, bishops, priests, deacons, nuns, married couples and young people participating in the rite.

Another change from the past is that Sunday’s Mass isn’t a coronation ceremony, which used to involve the pope receiving a tiara, but is merely known as a ‘Eucharistic Celebration for the start of the Petrine ministry of the Bishop of Rome’.

In the days since his historic election, Leo has already sketched out some of his key priorities as pope. 

In his first foreign policy address, he said the Holy See’s three pillars of diplomacy were peace, justice and truth. 

In his first major economics address, he emphasized the Catholic Church’s social doctrine and the search for truth. 

It’s not known if he’ll use his installation homily as a mission statement as some of his predecessors did.

In his Oct. 22, 1978 installation homily, St. John Paul II uttered a phrase that became something of a refrain of his pontificate and the ones that followed: ‘Be not afraid! Open wide the doors to Christ!’

Pope Benedict XVI quoted his predecessor during his installation homily, on April 25, 2005, and offered a meditation on the symbols of church unity represented by the pallium and fisherman’s ring. 

Francis’ installation homily, on March 19, 2013, focused on the need to protect the environment, an early hint of what would become one of the priorities of his pontificate. 

Leo has vowed all efforts to find peaceful ends to the wars in Ukraine, Gaza and elsewhere. 

But as a priority, he has also identified the challenges to humanity posed by artificial intelligence, making the parallel to the challenges to human dignity posed by the industrial revolution that were confronted by his namesake, Pope Leo XIII, who was pope from 1878-1903.

After the homily and at the end of the Mass, Leo will offer a final blessing and then go into the basilica to greet the heads of the more than 150 official delegations attending.

Security was tight, as it was for Francis’ funeral on April 26, which drew an estimated 250,000 people. Rome authorities are planning for another 250,000 on Sunday. 

The piazza and main boulevard leading to it, and two nearby piazzas were set up with giant television screens, and dozens of portable toilets have been erected in a nearby park.