Vice President JD Vance privately apologized to a prominent Catholic cardinal for publicly accusing American bishops of profiting from immigration, according to revelations that expose a stark divide between the vice president’s public rhetoric and his private admissions.
Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the former Archbishop of New York who delivered the invocation at both of President Donald Trump’s inaugurations, disclosed in an interview with EWTN News that Vance sought forgiveness for inflammatory comments he made shortly after taking office in January 2025.
“He and I had a little tete-a-tete,” Dolan said. “And he apologized. He said, ‘That was out of line and that’s not true.'”
The revelation comes more than a year after Vance made headlines by attacking the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for criticizing the Trump administration’s executive order allowing immigration raids at schools and churches. Invoking his 2019 conversion to Catholicism, Vance publicly questioned whether the church’s opposition stemmed from humanitarian concerns or financial interests.
Speaking on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Vance urged the bishops to “look in the mirror” and asked whether they were “worried about humanitarian concerns” or “actually worried about their bottom line” when they receive over $100 million to help resettle refugees.
Cardinal Dolan blasted the comments at the time as “scurrilous,” “very nasty,” and “inaccurate.” His latest interview reveals that Vance privately acknowledged his mistake, though he never issued a public retraction.
The private apology stands in sharp contrast to the vice president’s public posture on immigration enforcement and his willingness to challenge religious leaders who oppose administration policies. Vance, who describes himself as a “baby Catholic,” has positioned himself as a defender of traditional Catholic values on issues like family and life, while breaking with church leadership on immigration and refugee resettlement.
Despite the private reconciliation, Cardinal Dolan made clear in his EWTN interview that he remains deeply troubled by several Trump administration policies. The cardinal said he was “very upset” about the deportation agenda and accused ICE of “going into churches and harassing churches” during his tenure leading the New York archdiocese.
Dolan revealed that he used his position on Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission to address the problem of federal agents showing up at Sunday masses. Working with fellow commission member Franklin Graham, the evangelical pastor who heads the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, Dolan brought the issue directly to New York’s ICE field office.
According to Dolan, the local ICE director responded positively: “Thanks for bringing that to my attention. We’re not going to do that here.” The cardinal said he hasn’t heard from pastors about agents appearing outside churches since then.
The disclosure of Vance’s apology arrives as tensions between the Trump administration and Catholic leadership continue to simmer. Pope Leo XIV, who met with Vance in May 2025, has emerged as an outspoken critic of the administration’s deportation policies. Several prominent American cardinals, including Blase Cupich of Chicago, Joseph Tobin of Newark, and Robert McElroy of Washington, have publicly defended immigrants and questioned the morality of mass deportations.
In December, Pope Leo XIV replaced Cardinal Dolan as Archbishop of New York with Ronald Hicks, a relatively unknown Illinois-based bishop. Dolan, a prominent culture warrior who remains on Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission, told EWTN that despite his service to the administration, he doesn’t agree with all of the president’s policies.
The cardinal said he wasn’t “too happy” with Vance’s failure to support Ukraine and emphasized that while he considers the vice president a “very good guy” who shares his views on “the family,” “babies,” and “patriotism,” their disagreements on other issues remain significant.
The revelations expose a troubling gap between Vance’s public attacks on religious leaders and his private acknowledgment that those attacks were unfounded. Critics have increasingly accused the vice president of using his Catholic faith as a political prop rather than allowing it to inform his policy positions.
The National Catholic Reporter has published multiple opinion pieces condemning what one editor called Vance’s “cafeteria Catholicism,” arguing that his selective application of church teachings “must continue to be repudiated by people of faith.”
Neither the White House nor the Department of Homeland Security has commented on Cardinal Dolan’s revelations about the vice president’s private apology.