Pope Leo XIV's meets Vice President JD Vance after the formal inauguration of his pontificate in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Sunday, May 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)2025-05-19T06:45:40Z ROME (AP) Two high-profile Catholics, Pope Leo XIV and U.S. Vice President JD Vance, met Monday ahead of a flurry of U.S.-led diplomatic efforts to make progress on a ceasefire in Russias war in Ukraine.Vances motorcade was seen entering Vatican City just after 7:30 a.m. Vance, a Catholic convert, had led the U.S. delegation to the formal Mass opening the pontificate of the first American pope. Joining Vance at the Vatican was Secretary of State Marco Rubio, also a Catholic, Vance spokesperson Luke Schroeder said.The Vatican listed Vances delegation as the first of several private audiences Leo was having Monday with people who had come to Rome for his inaugural Mass, including other Christian leaders and a group of faithful from his old diocese in Chiclayo, Peru.The Vatican, which was largely sidelined during the first three years of Russias war, has offered to host any peace talks while continuing humanitarian efforts to facilitate prisoner swaps and reunite Ukrainian children taken by Russia. After greeting Leo briefly at the end of Sundays Mass, Vance spent the rest of the day in separate meetings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Leo, the former Cardinal Robert Prevost, is a Chicago-born Augustinian missionary who spent the bulk of his ministry in Chiclayo, a commercial city of around 800,000 on Perus northern Pacific coast. In the days since his May 8 election, Leo has vowed every effort to help bring peace to Ukraine. He also has emphasized his continuity with Pope Francis, who made caring for migrants and the poor a priority of his pontificate. Before his election, Prevost shared news articles on X that were critical of the Trump administrations plans for mass deportations of migrants.Vance was one of the last foreign officials to meet with Francis before the Argentine popes April 21 death. The two had tangled over migration, with Francis publicly rebuking the Trump administrations deportation plan and correcting Vances theological justification for it. Later Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump has planned separate phone calls with Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr, as well as calls to NATO leaders.___Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the APs collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. NICOLE WINFIELD Winfield has been on the Vatican beat since 2001, covering the papacies of St. John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI and the Francis pontificate and traveling the world with them. JACQUELYN MARTIN Martin photographs politics at the White House and Congress and has circumnavigated the globe as a pool photographer covering every Secretary of State since 2010. She is known for her multidisciplinary enterprise feature packages and is fluent in Spanish. twitter instagram RSShttps://feedx.net https://feedx.site