Conservative pundit Ann Coulter appeared to link the visit of Vice President JD Vance’s Easter Sunday visit to the Vatican with the death of Pope Francis.
“Good work, JD,” Coulter posted on X on April 21.
The 88-year-old pontiff, largely viewed as more liberal than his predecessors, died the morning of April 21. He’d been hospitalized in poor health with pneumonia and bronchitis weeks before his meeting with Vance. The Vatican said the pope’s cause of death was irreversible heart failure following a cerebral stroke.
The vice president said he’d received news of the pope’s death and was grieving along with Catholics worldwide.
“I was happy to see him yesterday, though he was obviously very ill,” Vance said April 21.
Vance was raised a Christian and converted to Catholicism in 2019. He’s credited his faith for shaping his worldview.
Coulter has been largely critical of the Argentinian pope, whom she accused in 2015 of holding antiquated opinions.
“THIS Pope’s philosophy of worshiping the poor, blaming the rich leads to Latin American poverty,” she posted on social media. “American Catholicism leads to success.”
Coulter joked in her 2007 book If Democrats Had Any Brains, They’d Be Republicans that she’s a “Christian first and a mean-spirited, bigoted conservative second,” according to an excerpt on Goodreads.com.
She wasn’t alone in connecting Vance’s visit to Pope Francis’ death on social media.
Jack Schlossberg, the outspoken grandson of Catholic US President John F. Kennedy, praised Francis for making the church “more DIVERSE EQUITABLE AND INCLUSIVE” in an Instagram post claiming “JD killed the Pope.”
—Brian Niemietz, New York Daily News (TNS)
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