The Convert in the White House

The United States has had its share of prominent Catholic statesmen, but never one like Vice President JD Vance. As a relative newcomer to the faith, the Millennial convert strikes a sharp contrast to the Boomer cradle Catholic politicians who up to now have been the most visible Catholics in national politics. 

Some commentators regard Vance’s convert status as a weakness and grounds to dismiss his Catholic credentials, particularly after Pope Francis appeared to criticize the vice president’s usage of the ordo amoris. Vance himself acknowledged his “baby Catholic” status at last month’s National Catholic Prayer Breakfast, where he also urged his fellow Catholics to let him know when he gets things wrong.

But while Vance’s convert status might explain possible missteps he’s made as a Catholic statesman thus far, I’d contend that it has the potential to be his greatest strength. 

Vance is an intellectual convert, and his entry into the Church is inseparable from his interest in Catholic political thought. As he details in his 2020 Lamp essay (“How I Joined the Resistance”), he was drawn to the Catholic Church in large part because of the truth he found in the social implications of its doctrine, and has cited St. Augustine’s critique of the ruling elite’s promotion of vice as particularly influential. In a 2019 interview with Rod Dreher conducted after his conversion, he said that his own vision of the “optimal state” is “pretty aligned with Catholic social teaching.” 

Vance’s apparent interest in the Church’s political vision distinguishes him from the Joe Bidens and Nancy Pelosis of American Catholicism. Biden always had a rosary close at hand and Catholic maxims on his lips, but his faith ceased to be a dynamic force that shaped his political engagement; and Pelosi not only casually dismissed Catholic teachings on the sanctity of life, but, more fundamentally, the very authority of the Church’s magisterium.

Vance has also demonstrated his interest in the ongoing intra-Catholic debates about Church teaching and its bearing on the political sphere. In 2022, he took time off the campaign trail to speak to a crowd of Catholic post-liberals at Franciscan University. 

He also seemingly keeps tabs on niche Catholic journalists who participate in these conversations, including myself: He replied to my tweet critiquing his “religious populist” credentials after he called for deregulating AI at an international summit in Paris. I didn’t tag his account in my post, and it had less than one thousand views when he responded, suggesting that he actively monitors intra-Catholic discourse (perhaps through an anonymous account). He’s clearly interested in the live arguments over how to apply Catholic political theory in a way that no American politician in living memory ever has been.

Given the importance of Catholic social teaching in Vance’s own religious journey, questioning the sincerity of his conversion or interest in Church doctrine is off-base. One can pick and pull from the Church’s theological corpus without vowing to abide by its authority. But Vance did make that vow when he became Catholic in 2019. And it’s not clear how becoming Catholic in the twenty-first century is supposed to boost one’s electoral prospects. 

Of course, the sincerity of Vance’s conversion is not a guarantee he’ll get everything right. Genuine Catholic or not, his endorsement of access to mifepristone for abortive purposes is at odds with his faith. And his unfounded claim that the U.S. bishops’ refugee resettlement efforts are motivated by concern for their “bottom line” was scandalous, and, as of yet, has not been rectified. 

And yet, Vance says he is committed to ongoing transformation and growth. As he said at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast, the effects of grace upon our habits, including our modes of thought, often require time and repetition to take hold. That kind of slow change is what he says he has experienced as a Catholic, and what he is committed to going forward.

Given this dynamism, Vance has the potential to be an entirely different kind of Catholic statesman than those who operate from a kind of crystallized, cultural Catholicism: not one who applies a veneer of Catholicism to his preferred policy conclusions, but one who embraces a proper relationship between the Church’s authority and his own political and social conclusions. 

That potential faces extraordinary challenges to actualization, not least of which is the difficulty Vance encounters in serving under a president as morally fraught and erratic as Donald Trump. And the general temptation to morally compromise faced by anyone with real political power may be exacerbated if Vance is, in fact, angling for his own bid at the presidency.

Therefore, fellow American Catholics should take up the vice president’s invitation to hold him accountable when necessary. We should be unrelenting in our scrutiny of his political actions according to the faith he professes—not because his convert status is an inherent limitation of his prospects as a Catholic statesman, but because it suggests unprecedented possibilities.