Vice President JD Vance was praising God after the announcement of the high stakes deal between the US and Iran to end the current conflict. The Vice President made the remarks during a Thursday press briefing at the White House where he was asked about the Pope’s approval of the plan. “My response to that is, ‘Praise Jesus!’ I’m glad that the pope has positive things to say about our MOU. I think that the pope is fundamentally accurate, and it’s going to be good for the entire world, but we got to keep working at it to make sure that the Iranians honor the commitments that they’ve made,” he said.

Pope Leo XIV praised the announcement of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the United States and Iran. “I welcome with satisfaction the reaching of an agreement between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States of America, which will be signed on Friday, as an encouraging result of patient work of dialogue and negotiation,” he said. “I hope that this agreement may help strengthen mutual trust, security and stability in the Middle East, promoting paths of dialogue and cooperation among peoples.” The praise is notable as the Pope has been an outspoken critic at war, sometimes bringing the first American Pope at odds with President Trump. “There will still be several points to settle, but it is always better to do so through dialogue, through negotiations, and not by returning to war,” said the Pope. “I hope that it truly is a solution to the war, that the war really is over, and that we can move forward.” The Pope has openly questioned the idea of a “just war,” as outlined by old Catholic doctrine. “”The ‘just war’ theory which has all too often been used to justify any kind of war, is now outdated. Humanity possesses far more effective and capable tools for promoting human life and resolving conflicts, such as dialogue, diplomacy and forgiveness,” he wrote in the wrote Leo in “Magnifica Humanitas.”

The conflict has brought particular attention on the Vice President, who is Catholic. He has tried to downplay the image of the Vatican denouncing the United States. “Oftentimes, I find that when the media reports on him as an antagonist of Donald Trump, or somebody who just rejects wholesale everything that Donald Trump says, and then I’ll read what he actually says,” the Vice President recently told Glenn Beck. “And I realize the pope does sometimes have disagreements, but he’s actually much more nuanced, and much more subtle, than what the media gives him credit for.” For now, the Vice President is in Bürgenstock, Switzerland trying to finalize the deal between the two nations. So far, he has touted the talks’ “progress.” “Yes, there was a little bit of threatening, there was a little bit of whining, but at the end of the day, the talks continued, and we made great progress.”