The Catholicism of J.D. Vance

'Vance once had a robust pro-life position. Now he favors access to the abortion pill by which roughly half of all abortions are executed.'

From The Catholic Thing

By Fr Raymond J. de Souza

Vice-Presidential candidate J.D. Vance is a convert. To Catholicism in 2019. And to Trumpism sometime between his Never Trump position of 2016 and the 2021 launch of his campaign for the Senate. He is happy as a Catholic and tickled red to be Trump’s most devout, intelligent, and articulate apologist in the Senate.

Much has been written about the conversion to Trumpism, including a sympathetic 2022 account in the Washington Post Magazine. Vance has adopted not only Trump’s policies but also his style of politics. Within two hours of the assassination attempt, before the shooter was known, Vance tweeted that the Biden campaign’s “rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.” Less than 48 hours later, he was Trump’s vice-presidential nominee.

The speed and intensity of Vance’s conversion to Trump invites the conclusion that he is an unprincipled opportunist. But others have changed their views. Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush both changed their views on abortion, and Reagan himself switched from Democrat to Republican. Ted Kennedy and Joe Biden changed positions on abortion too, in the other direction. And Biden on same-sex marriage. So the mere fact of a political conversion does not necessarily demonstrate opportunism.

Vance’s Catholicism has drawn less attention, but he himself has written nearly 7,000 words explaining it in The Lamp under the curious title “How I Joined the Resistance.” Resistance to what? Chesterton would have said to sin. Vance agrees with that, but the reader suspects that “resistance” also includes a political dimension.

“My friend Oren Cass published a book arguing that American policymakers have focused far too much on promoting consumption as opposed to productivity, or some other measure of wellbeing,” wrote Vance. “And indeed, it was this insight, more than any other, that ultimately led not just to Christianity, but to Catholicism.”

“I slowly began to see Catholicism as the closest expression of [my grandmother’s kind] of Christianity,” Vance continued. “Obsessed with virtue, but cognizant of the fact that virtue is formed in the context of a broader community; sympathetic with the meek and poor of the world without treating them primarily as victims; protective of children and families and with the things necessary to ensure they thrive. And above all: a faith centered around a Christ who demands perfection of us even as He loves unconditionally and forgives easily.”

Souls start down the path to the Catholic Church from varied departure points. For the superlative theological mind of Avery Dulles, it was actually contemplating a new bud on a tree. For Vance it was a public policy insight that per capita GDP was not the only measure of the common good.

Catholic promoters of economic liberty – Michael Novak comes to mind – agreed with that too. Vance argues that Catholic social teaching points to a politics that is willing to intervene in the economy to promote the economic and social well-being of the working class.

“There’s an entire Christian moral and economic worldview that is completely cut out of modern American politics, and I think it’s important to try to bring that back,” Vance told Matthew Schmitz for a First Things profile. “The core Christian insight into politics is that life is inherently dignified and valuable. If you actually believe that, you want certain legal protections for the most vulnerable people in your society, but you also want to ensure that workers get a fair wage when they do a fair job.”

Vance argues, on Catholic grounds, for a progressive economic policy that has deep roots in American Catholicism, perhaps exemplified best by Msgr. John A. Ryan in the first half of the twentieth century.

“Vance has become one of the leading political avatars of an emergent populist-intellectual persuasion that tacks right on culture and left on economics,” said that Washington Post profile. “Known as national conservatism or sometimes ‘post-liberalism,’ it is – in broad strokes – heavily Catholic, definitely anti-woke, skeptical of big business, nationalist about trade and borders, and flirty with Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban.”

But Vance’s “right on culture” is not as clear as his being left on economics. In his speech to the Republican National Convention, introducing himself to America, there was time to fondly recall the nineteen loaded handguns in his late Mamaw’s house, but not a single jot or tittle about the sanctity of life. RNC presidential and vice-presidential speeches have included for decades at least a perfunctory pro-life sentence.

That same May 2024 issue of First Things in which Schmitz advised religious believers “to look to leaders like J.D. Vance” included another essay, “Against the Abortion Pill.” Vance once had a robust pro-life position. Now he favors access to the abortion pill by which roughly half of all abortions are executed. That’s not his Catholic conversion at the fore, but his Trumpist one.

Vance’s RNC speech was flat, but cheerful and endearing. He evidently could not quite believe that at thirty-nine he was on a national ticket. There was nothing though of the subtle thinker about culture and economics, politics, and religion. There were plenty of Trump slogans. And he used another slogan, perhaps unwittingly – or perhaps deliberately.

“Good jobs at good wages,” was Michael Dukakis’ slogan in 1988 when he was running against George H.W. Bush at the end of the Reagan administration. Vance used it too. Fittingly, because Vance is also running against George Bush – both of them – inveighing against free trade and the 2003 Iraq War. He is running against Reagan too, with his view that Ukraine should be cut off and left to fight Russia on its own, and that the NATO alliance is not worth America’s engagement.

It’s a Catholic approach – if it’s a Catholic approach – to politics that has not been seen in a very long time.

There have been seven Catholics who have appeared on a Republican or Democratic ticket for vice president: William Miller (R) in 1964; Ed Muskie (D) in 1968; Sargent Shriver (D) in 1972; Geraldine Ferraro (D) in 1984; Joe Biden (D) in 2008; Paul Ryan (R) in 2012, and Tim Kaine (D) in 2016. Now Vance (R) is the eighth.

There is also Mike Pence (R) in 2016, who was Catholic but converted to Protestantism.

Not all are figures of enduring significance, but Ferraro, Shriver, Ryan, and Vance provide an interesting set of contrasts. Shriver, who courageously remained pro-life into his elderly years even as the Democrats became increasingly extreme on abortion, was a Catholic of the old John Ryan consensus – culturally conservative and economically progressive.

Twelve years later the Democrats nominated Ferraro, a cultural liberal and economic progressive. Biden was in the same mold.

In 2012, Ryan was both culturally and economically conservative. Indeed, Ryan’s economic views prompted much commentary on whether libertarianism could fit into the Catholic social tradition.

Now comes Vance, an economic progressive who combines redistributive policies and tariffs with an enthusiasm for guns and the mass deportation of illegal immigrants. He mutes his pro-life witness. Is that being culturally conservative or simply cultish Trumpism?

And consider the contrast with Pence, who was unswervingly loyal to Trump until January 6. He resisted Trump’s invitation to subvert his constitutional duty in certifying the election. In his memoir, So Help Me God, Pence makes it clear that keeping his constitutional oath was rooted in his Christian faith. Vance, in contrast, came to embrace Trump at the same time as Pence was leaving him.

Despite his RNC speech, Vance is not exhausted by slogans. He will give us lengthy essays and long interviews, as he did with Ross Douthat recently. Will he articulate a new Catholic synthesis, different from the vice-presidential options in 2012, Biden and Ryan? Will he propose a different option than was available to young Catholic conservatives who grew up in the 1980s, and were guided by Reagan and St. John Paul the Great? Vance was born in the 1980s, and burst upon the political scene in the time of Trump and Pope Francis. Does Vance offer a Trump-Francis option for Catholics, rather than Reagan-John Paul?

Like the Holy Father, Vance has a “white flag” policy on Ukraine and is a fierce critic of financial interests. Neither is he “obsessed” with abortion. Both are close to those who at the margins, ground down by economic and political forces, and afflicted too by a toxic culture. There is of course a critical difference on immigration and climate policy, but in the Reagan-John Paul days there were disagreements too.

J.D. Vance is the most interesting of the four major party nominees in 2024. He poses the most interesting questions for Catholic engagement with politics. The answers he gives will be worthy of great scrutiny.