The paper's April 18 account of the Vance-and-pope sequence read Tuesday through Saturday as three acts. Sunday's lead on Leo in Angola covers the full Muxima homily. This brief tracks the political half-step.

On April 14 at a Turning Point USA rally at the University of Georgia, Vice President JD Vance — a 2019 Catholic convert — told the audience that Pope Leo XIV should "be careful when he talks about matters of theology." [1] He argued the pope's Palm Sunday line that a disciple of Christ "is never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs" ignored World War II and the liberation of Nazi camps. "Was God on the side of the Americans who liberated France from the Nazis?" Vance asked. "I certainly think the answer is yes." [2]

Aboard the papal plane from Yaoundé to Luanda on Saturday, Leo spoke to reporters. "It was looked at as if I was trying to debate again the president, which is not in my interest at all," he said, pointing to a prayer-meeting address in Cameroon that was written two weeks before Trump attacked him online. [3] Leo said he would continue preaching the Gospel message of peace but would not enter the debate. The sentence was careful — it pulled the proper noun while preserving the structural argument about peace, poverty, and the idolatry of power. [3]

Vance has not responded through Sunday. US Catholic bishops have stayed quiet. The measurement is the silence: if the administration had wanted the fight, Leo's Saturday remark gave it a fresh target to miss. [4]

-- ANNA WEBER, Berlin