Vice President JD Vance shuffled between presidents and prime ministers this week, tending to complicated relationships with US allies and puzzling over two wars, NBC News reports.

But it was his meeting Monday with newly installed Pope Leo XIV that could prove to be most consequential on the world stage, Vance said in an interview with NBC News.

As his SUV limo sped to the airport here at the end of a three-day trip centered around the first U.S.-born pontiff’s inaugural Mass, Vance spoke of Leo as a key potential partner in President Donald Trump’s efforts to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine and in other conflict areas.

“We talked a lot about what’s going on in Israel and Gaza. We talked a lot about the Russia-Ukraine situation,” Vance said of the nearly hourlong audience he and Secretary of State Marco Rubio had with Leo. “It’s hard to predict the future, but I do think that not just the pope, but the entire Vatican, has expressed a desire to be really helpful and to work together on facilitating, hopefully, a peace deal coming together in Russia and Ukraine."

Vance, who is Catholic, said he found the pope to be “extremely sweet." He described their conversation as substantive — a promising sign given how Leo had, in his previous service as a cardinal, signaled disapproval of Trump administration immigration policies. Hours after the audience, Trump issued a social media post suggesting Leo could be helpful in the Russia-Ukraine talks.

"We have an American pope of the world’s largest single religion — a guy who doesn’t have an army, but who I think has an incredible amount of capacity to convene and to influence, not just Europe, but, really, the entire world,” said Vance.

“I hope it’s the beginning of a very good relationship, because I think he does care a lot about peace,” he added. “If there is a single most productive thing [from the trip], my hope is that it will be that the relationship between us and the Vatican leads to a lot fewer people getting killed and a lot less humanitarian disaster.”