Pope Francis, 88, Dies 7 Hours After Meeting Alleged Antichrist JD Vance

Vance seemed eager to get ahead of online theories that he killed the Pope—or something like that—given the timing. In a statement, he said Francis was "obviously very ill" during their meeting.

By Kylie Cheung  |  April 21, 2025 | 12:31pm
Photo: Getty Images LatestPolitics
Pope Francis, 88, Dies 7 Hours After Meeting Alleged Antichrist JD Vance

Rest in Peace: Pope Francis, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Argentina in 1936, died early Monday at 88 years old—incidentally, mere hours after meeting Vice President JD Vance. I’m sure that’s just a coincidence and not, like, a sign from God or something.

In the final year of his life, Francis advocated tirelessly for a ceasefire in Gaza, condemning Israel’s genocide against Palestinians and calling for peace—as recently, in fact, as his final public remarks on Easter Sunday. He also gathered the strength to ride through the Easter crowd that had gathered outside the Vatican.

Vance, who is famously addicted to social media, seemed eager to get ahead of online narratives that he killed the Pope, or that meeting with him drained Francis of his will to live, or something like that, given the timing of everything. “I just learned of the passing of Pope Francis. My heart goes out to the millions of Christians all over the world who loved him,” Vance wrote in a Monday morning tweet. Then, the tweet gets interesting: “I was happy to see him yesterday, though he was obviously very ill.” I just think it’s interesting how much Vance wants us to know that Francis was already sick and dying before their Sunday meeting…

While that’s surely true, it’s not lost on me or anyone that Vance and the Pope had some, err, history. Before meeting with Vance on Sunday, the Pope arranged for Vance to meet with his second-in-command, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, and the Vatican’s foreign minister, Archbishop Paul Gallagher. The two reportedly pressed Vance on the Trump administration’s horrific human rights abuses against immigrants and prisoners, as the administration revs up its efforts to ship hundreds of immigrant men to a high-security, brutal Salvadoran prison without due process. The Holy See described the meeting between Vance, Parolin, and Gallagher as “an exchange of opinions on the international situation, especially regarding countries affected by war, political tensions and difficult humanitarian situations, with particular attention to migrants, refugees, and prisoners.” 

Also, prior to his meeting with Vance, Francis gave an Easter Sunday sermon criticizing “how much contempt is stirred up at times towards the vulnerable, the marginalized and migrants,” in an obvious, well-deserved critique of the Trump administration. Francis has been openly critical of Trump and his anti-immigrant policies since the president’s first term. In 2017, Trump called Francis’ critiques of him “disgraceful,” though he still met with Francis at the Vatican and called his visit “the honor of a lifetime.” Since the start of Trump’s second term, even in the throes of numerous health scares, Francis has still found it in him to criticize both Trump and Vance, calling Trump’s mass deportation campaign “a disgrace” and “not the way to solve things.”

In February, the Pope wrote a letter that appeared to personally call out Vance’s appropriation of the Catholic concept “ordo amoris,” or the “order of love,” which Vance has disgustingly used to justify the Trump administration’s mass deportation apparatus. Francis explicitly refuted this: “Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups,” he wrote. “The true ordo amoris that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the ‘Good Samaritan,’ that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception.” In response, all Vance could do was concede that as an adult Catholic convert, he is but a smol bean, “baby Catholic” who will make mistakes (there are “things about the faith that I don’t know,” he conceded)—like, say, the shipment of hundreds of men to a foreign torture camp and baselessly smearing some of them as terrorists.

Like all world leaders, Pope Francis, who was elected Pope in 2013 as a compromise candidate, was by no means faultless. (See: his recent, repeated comments saying there’s “too much f-ggotry” among men training to be priests in seminaries, or, say, his mishandling of systematic sexual abuse within the Church, which included standing by Church figures known to have engaged in cover-ups of this abuse.) He was, however, a consistent, vocal voice against Israel’s genocide in Gaza and an advocate for Palestinian human rights, even personally calling the Holy Family Church in Gaza every single day amid heavy bombing from Israel. Francis has also been a relentless advocate for the human rights of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. and around the world during a period of rising anti-immigrant sentiment. 

Tellingly, one of his last moves as Pope appears to have been advocating for immigrants to the Trump administration. 

On Sunday afternoon, Vance shared photos of his meeting with Francis on social media and wrote, “I am grateful for his invitation to meet, and I pray for his good health.” Looks like God decidedly did not answer Vance’s prayers. That’s certainly one of many, many online takeaways from all of this on Monday.

Some, first, shared fond memories of the late Pope and his way with words:

Others related to the Pope and his, err, circumstances:

Some shared the interesting ways they learned about Francis’ death:

Then, some shared theories:

jd vance killing the pope is just like when liz truss killed the queen. vibes so rancid they murk fragile world leaders on contact

— devon giehl🐀ratmaker (@devongiehl.bsky.social) April 21, 2025 at 11:48 AM

Others mused about what will happen at the next event on Vance’s schedule:

Others weighed how Vance, a practicing Catholic, should proceed:

I, personally, have been hearing a lot of this—something to consider, perhaps:

Dance with Death, by Hieronymus Hess, 1841, 📸 via Vatican Media Pool

[image or embed]

— ArtButMakeItSports (@artbutmakeitsports.bsky.social) April 21, 2025 at 11:53 AM

Look, I’m not saying JD Vance killed the Pope. I don’t think any of us can say that, definitively, just yet. But I am asking, and think it’s very fair to ask: Did JD Vance kill the Pope? We’ll just have to wait for more information to come to light. Until then, thanks to the popularity of recent Best Picture nominee Conclave (2024), we’re in for what will probably be the most watched and anticipated conclave in… ever, maybe???

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