VP Vance shares special message to ailing Pope Francis amid breathing crisis

While speaking at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C., on Friday, Vance - a convert to Catholicism - said that although he disagrees with Francis and some Catholic bishops on certain stances, he and his children pray for the pope daily.

Francis wrote a letter to the U.S. bishops, in which he appeared to criticize Vance's religious argument in defense of the deportation policies.

Despite this, Vance shared a message of unity between Catholics and Christians, saying, "I don't think it's good for us as Christians to constantly fight with one another over every single controversy in the church."

"Sometimes we should let this stuff play out a little bit and try to live our faith as best we can, under the dictates of our faith and under the dictates of our spiritual leaders but not hold them to the standards of social media influencers because they're not," he added. "My goal is not to litigate when I'm right and when they're wrong or vice versa. My goal is to maybe articulate the way that I think about being a Christian in public life when you also have religious leaders in public life who have a spiritual duty to speak on the issues of the day."

The vice president even led attendees in a prayer for the pope.

"I believe that the pope is fundamentally a person who cares about the flock of Christians under his leadership, and he's a man who cares about the spiritual direction of the faith," said Vance. "Every day me and my children have said a prayer for the Holy Father, and we pray for his health, and we pray for his comfort as he deals with what appears to be a pretty serious health crisis."

Concluding, Vance said, "If the Holy Father can hear us, I hope he knows that there are thousands of faithful Catholics in this room and millions of faithful Catholics in this country who are praying for him as he weathers his particular storm."