Vice President JD Vance will travel to Italy this week to participate in Holy Week events and then to India with his wife Usha, the first Hindu American second lady, a Vance spokesperson told CBS News.
CBS News exclusively learned the seven-day visit will begin this Thursday where Vance will travel to Rome to meet with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni before meeting with the Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin to participate in ceremonies ahead of Easter Sunday.
The vice president is not expected to participate in talks with Iranian negotiators over Tehran’s nuclear program, which will also be taking place in Rome on Saturday, according to a Vance spokesperson. Steve Witkoff, the Trump administration’s special envoy to the Middle East, will continue to lead those negotiations with the Iranian government.
Vance, who converted to Catholicism six years ago, is the second Catholic to be elected Vice President. Former President Joe Biden was the first, and Biden was the second Catholic to be elected president after John F. Kennedy.
It’s unclear if the Vice President will meet with Pope Francis, who was recently hospitalized for 38 days to treat double pneumonia. Francis previously criticized the Trump administration’s immigration policies in a letter to the U.S. Catholic bishops earlier this year.
Vance is also expected to visit New Delhi with his wife, whose parents emigrated to the U.S. from India, early next week where he will participate in bilateral meetings with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Vance’s are expected to bring their three young children — Ewan, Vivek, and Mirabel — with them on the trip.
The second family will also travel to Jaipur and Agra, where they are expected to participate in cultural events. This will be the vice president’s first time visiting India, according to a spokesperson for Vance.
Within the first several months of this administration, Vance has taken a comfortable position on the world stage with this trip being his third international trip since taking office.
Vance visited Paris and Munich, Germany, in February to speak at several conferences where he criticized European allies for censorship on free speech and burden sharing for defense spending.
Vance visited Greenland in March with his wife and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz amid the fallout from the Signal group chat controversy, when Waltz mistakenly added journalist Jeffrey Goldberg to a group chat that included Vance and featured discussions of military action against Houthi rebels in Yemen.
The Trump administration has also expressed an interest in taking control of Greenland, a self-governing territory in the Kingdom of Denmark.
