Secretary of State Marco Rubio is expected to travel to Italy this week and meet Pope Leo XIV on Thursday, a Vatican source told Reuters, a solo diplomatic audience that notably excludes Vice President JD Vance, who has had his own rocky exchanges with the new pontiff over the past year.

The meeting comes almost exactly a year after Rubio and Vance stood side by side at the Vatican on May 19, 2025, when they jointly represented the United States at Leo's inaugural events. That trip was all smiles and handshakes. This time, Rubio goes alone.

Neither the State Department nor the office of the vice president immediately responded to requests for comment, The Daily Beast reported. But the contrast between the two men's diplomatic trajectories, and the Vatican's apparent preference, raises hard questions about where Vance stands in the administration's foreign-policy hierarchy and in the broader 2028 conversation.

From joint delegation to solo audience

The backdrop matters. When Vance and Rubio traveled to Rome together last May, the visit carried real weight. The two men led the official U.S. delegation to Pope Leo XIV's inaugural Mass in St. Peter's Square. Vance delivered a letter from President Trump and extended an invitation for the pope to visit the White House.

The Holy See, for its part, described the encounter warmly. National Review reported that the Vatican announced the talks were "cordial" and that "satisfaction was once again expressed at the existing good bilateral relations." Vance himself said at the time that it was "an honor to join so many of the faithful at the inaugural Mass of Pope Leo XIV."

That goodwill did not last.

Pope Leo, born Robert Francis Prevost on the South Side of Chicago, a White Sox fan turned leader of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics, soon began making comments about "tyrants" and "warmongers" that were widely read as veiled references to the Trump administration. The remarks drew a sharp response from President Trump, who posted a 334-word message on Truth Social claiming the pontiff "wouldn't be in the Vatican" without him and accusing Leo of "hurting the Catholic Church!"

Vance's shifting tone

Vance, a Catholic convert, initially pushed back on the pope's comments. Speaking at a Turning Point USA event in Georgia, he said plainly:

"I think it's very, very important for the pope to be careful when he talks about matters of theology."

That line carried an unmistakable edge, a vice president telling the pope to watch his words. It was not the kind of diplomatic language that smooths the path to a follow-up meeting at the Vatican.

Vance later softened his tone, praising Leo for "preaching the gospel, as he should," and asking for prayers. But the damage to the relationship appears to have been done. Pope Leo has so far declined Vance's invitation to visit the White House, a quiet but unmistakable signal.

Now, instead of the vice president, it is the secretary of state who gets the audience. The Vatican's choice of interlocutor speaks for itself.

The 2028 shadow

The Rubio-Vance dynamic carries weight beyond any single papal meeting. President Trump has named both men as potential successors, and both have long been viewed as contenders for the 2028 Republican presidential nomination. Recent CPAC straw polling showed Rubio surging from 3 percent to 35 percent, even as Vance maintained a lead, a sign that the secretary of state's stock is rising fast inside the party's activist base.

Rubio's faith biography also gives him a natural lane for Vatican diplomacy. Born into a Catholic family, he attended the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints during his time in Utah before returning to the Catholic Church later in life. His comfort with religious engagement at the highest levels is well established.

Vance's poll numbers, meanwhile, tell a different story. CNN's chief data analyst Harry Enten described Vance as "historically the least popular vice president at this point in their vice presidency," citing a net approval rating of negative 18 points. Those numbers don't disqualify anyone from anything. But they form the backdrop against which every perceived slight, including a Vatican meeting he wasn't invited to, gets read.

Trump reportedly asked aides to "rank" Vance's performance, a detail that suggests the president is paying close attention to how his number two is measuring up. Usha Vance has described herself as a trusted adviser to her husband, but the question is whether Vance's advisory circle is preparing him for the kind of high-level relationship management that papal diplomacy demands, or whether that portfolio has quietly migrated to Foggy Bottom.

Competing calendars

The optics of recent weeks have not helped Vance's case. While the vice president was working on ceasefire negotiations in Pakistan last month, serious, substantive work, Rubio was spotted at a UFC event alongside President Trump. That image, whatever its substance, sent a clear signal about proximity to the president in the moments that matter socially and politically.

Vance's involvement in Iran-related war talks last month also drew attention, though the results were described in terms that suggested limited progress. The vice president has been busy. But busy and visible are not the same thing, and in Washington, proximity to the principal often matters more than the quality of the work being done in the field.

The Vatican's decision to receive Rubio, and apparently not Vance, fits a pattern. Political chatter about leadership reshuffling is never far from the surface in any second-term administration, and the Rubio-Vance jockeying gives that chatter a concrete, recurring scoreboard.

What the Vatican is saying without saying it

Diplomatic protocol is a language of its own. When the Vatican invites one senior American official and not another, it is making a choice, about relationships, about trust, and about who it believes can deliver results.

Pope Leo's decision to meet Rubio solo does not necessarily mean the Holy See has written off Vance. But it does mean the Vatican is comfortable sending a signal that Rubio is the preferred channel. For a pope who has already tangled publicly with the Trump administration, that preference carries meaning.

Rubio, for his part, did not immediately respond to requests for comment through the State Department. He doesn't need to. The meeting itself is the statement.

Vance and his family have faced persistent criticism from the left, much of it petty and personal. But this isn't a social-media pile-on. This is the Vatican, one of the oldest diplomatic institutions on earth, choosing its counterpart. And it chose the secretary of state.

The open questions are straightforward. Did the White House sign off on a Rubio-only meeting, or did the Vatican make the call? Is Vance being sidelined on religious diplomacy specifically, or is this part of a broader rebalancing of foreign-policy portfolios? And does any of it matter for 2028?

In politics, as in diplomacy, the guest list tells you everything the host won't say out loud.