US Vice President JD Vance has been mocked in a flurry of dark memes after meeting with Pope Francis just hours before his death.
The Republican was once again besieged with countless memes at his expense following the death of Pope Francis, 88. Vatican officials confirmed the pontiff died following a stroke that caused heart failure. Dedicated to his office even in his final hours, Pope Francis made his last public appearance on Easter Sunday where he blessed the crowd at St Peter’s Square. He also met with Vance just hours before his death on Monday.
“I just learned of the passing of Pope Francis,” Vance said in a post shared to X/Twitter. “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. 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.”
But, as always, the internet did not pass up on the opportunity to mock the vice president. Under his X/Twitter post, people shared grim memes comparing the Vice President to the Grim Reaper.
University of South Florida assistant professor of instruction at the School of Interdisciplinary Global Studies Dr Rob Mellen Jr, told The Mirror how Vance likely fell victim on account of his own love of spreading conspiracy theories.
“The Pope’s death just hours after the meeting resulted in the perpetuation of numerous conspiracy theories and memes, probably due to Vance’s own penchant for spreading conspiracy theories and unfounded information such as the allegation about immigrants eating pets in Ohio last fall,” he said.
X/Twitter user Julie Fredrickson shared several AI generated images of Vance posing as the Grim Reaper in the Vatican, and added: “You were the last to pray with him. May his soul rest in peace and the memes last for an eternity.” The post was seen at least 124,300 times on the social media app.
In a post viewed some 672,000 times, X/Twitter account Simplified US History posted a satirical account of the meeting between the Vice President and pontiff. The post was captioned “JD Vance’s aura kills Pope Francis (2025).
It continued to show an image of Vance shaking the Pope’s hand, with text next to the photo reading: “Mr Pope, sir I have always admired your work and I’m a good little Catholic boy fighting for Jesus in America. Happy Easter.” Another image of the Pope around from the time of his ascension to the office included the text: “Just kill me now.”
One post shared by account 679Enthusiast included a dysmophed image of Mr Vance with the text: “Claims to be pro-life. Kills the Pope.” In an even more cruel twist for Vance, his meeting with the pontiff was compared to ex-Prime Minister Liz Truss who met with Queen Elizabeth II two days before the 96-year-old monarch died in 2022.
Vance converted to Catholicism in 2019 and was granted a lightning audience with the Pope, who he publicly disagreed with over migration. In February, Pope Francis, who championed the cause of migrants, hit out at the administration of Donald Trump over its policies of mass deportations.
Vance acknowledged the Pope’s criticism of the Republican government but said he would defend his views. Despite the public disagreement, Vance was present for the Easter mass service in St Paul Outside the Walls, a pontifical basilica in Rome.
Dr Mellen added: “Vance’s conversion to Catholicism was a process that took several years to complete. While he was nominally an evangelical before that, his experience growing up in the industrial Midwest, as detailed in his book Hillbilly Elegy, he lived through a period of rapid change that resulted in the collapse of the nuclear family, the values instilled by his grandparents, and the devastation of a way of life.
“His search for structure and meaning in life, such as social order, moral values, traditions, a more intellectual theology (faith) led him to the Dominicans. In some ways, they were a natural fit for his socially conservative views. Add to that the focus of many Catholic thinkers on restoring virtue to civil society by integrating faith with public life, the embracing of a more theological understanding of Constitutional Law by the Supreme Court (especially by Sam Alito and Amy Coney Barrett), what we might call Neo-Gelasianism, which sees the civil authority as subordinate to church authority, though Vance wouldn’t take it that far.
“Summing up, I would say Vance is similar to many Americans who have become disillusioned with secularist ideas, the failure of the ruling elites, and the rise of economic insecurity. His worldview postulates that connecting social and moral values to economic populism is the path out of the wilderness America finds itself in today. That’s also what makes Trumpism so attractive to him today versus 10 years ago when he was a ‘never-Trump’ guy. He believes that for the values he holds to prevail, all out war against the neo-liberal elites is necessary.”
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