United States: J.D. Vance, a Catholic convert running for Vice President

“Christian, husband, dad. U.S. Senator for Ohio.” In his brief introduction on the social network X, J.D. Vance revealed the most salient aspects of his journey, primarily through the lens of his faith. Officially named Donald Trump’s running mate July 15 at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the 39-year-old could become — if his political camp wins the November presidential election — the second Catholic vice president in U.S. history after Joe Biden, who served in that post under Barack Obama.

While religion now occupies a central place in his life, his spiritual journey has taken winding paths, which he has openly shared with the American press. Coming from a modest family—he was raised in a poor white community in the Appalachians, plagued by drug trafficking—he attended evangelical parishes as a child and teenager. “I lived in a pretty chaotic and hopeless world. Faith gave me the belief that there was somebody looking out for me,” he said in a 2016 interview with Utah-based religious media outlet Deseret News.

“Moral expectations”

“Going to church showed me a lot of really positive traits that I hadn’t seen before. I saw people of different races and classes worshipping together. I saw that there were certain moral expectations from my peers of what I should do,” he said. In his early twenties, his student years at the prestigious Yale University (Connecticut) were marked by a certain distancing from God. “I would have called myself an atheist,” he continued. Despite this, the young law school student recalled meeting Catholics and Mormons, whose religious convictions seemed to lift them up.

In 2015, he began attending religious services again before requesting baptism in the Catholic Church four years later, deciding to ignore the abuse scandals that had long kept him away from the institution. “When I looked at the people who meant the most to me, they were Catholic,” he explained in a 2019 interview with The American Conservative, emphasizing Catholicism’s “intellectual” appeal. “The hope of the Christian faith is not rooted in any short-term conquest of the material world, but in the fact that it is true, and over the long term, with various fits and starts, things will work out,” said the former military man and author of the bestseller “Hillbilly Elegy,” about his past in de-industrialized America.

‘Popular among the clergy’

To what extent does his faith influence his political activism? “As he has often said himself, his commitment is motivated by the social doctrine of the church, particularly by Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum Novarum on economic issues, later specified by Pope Pius XI,” explained Marie Gayte, a lecturer in American civilization at the University of Toulon (Var). “It is in the name of his Catholicism that Vance claims to help disenfranchised American workers,” she added. According to Gayte, the former Silicon Valley venture capitalist fits into the landscape of “post-liberal intellectuals, including many Catholics, who today try to redefine conservatism by moving away from the liberal consensus.”

Since taking the oath as Ohio senator in January 2023, this controversial figure in the American political arena—for notably supporting Capitol insurgents contesting Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential victory—has been viewed differently among his fellow believers. His hardline stance on immigration and climate skepticism appear at odds with Pope Francis’ pontificate.

In a country extremely polarized on issues of sexual morality, his firm positions favoring a ban on abortion—without exceptions for rape and incest—divide, with more than six in ten Catholics (61%) supporting the legalization of abortion in the U.S., according to the Pew Research Center survey from April 11, 2024.

On this thorny issue, Vance paradoxically also angered a faction of conservative Catholics after expressing his support behind Trump for access to abortion pills in early July. “Vance has no principles, at least none that aren’t for sale—and the asking price is low,” quipped C.J. Doyle, the executive director of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts.

“Nevertheless, Vance seems quite popular among the increasingly conservative young American clergy, who seem to overlook this latest controversy,” Gayte observed, adding that she was convinced his recent nomination “delights a far-right faction within the country’s episcopate.”