How JD Vance’s Catholic Faith Influenced His Politics
Former President Donald Trump announced Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance to be his running mate, joining him on the Republican presidential ticket in a bid to regain the White House this fall.
“After lengthy deliberation and thought, and considering the tremendous talents of many others, I have decided that the person best suited to assume the position of Vice President of the United States is Senator J.D. Vance of the Great State of Ohio,” Trump said in a Monday post on his Truth Social platform as the Republican National Convention was getting underway in Milwaukee.
In accepting the invitation to be Trump’s running mate, Vance, 39, becomes the first millennial to be named to a a major party ticket.
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In addition, Vance could become the nation’s second Catholic vice president, after Joe Biden, should Trump win the election this November. Vance is also only the second Catholic GOP veep nominee after Barry Goldwater chose William Miller in 1964.
Vance’s upbringing and ‘Hillbilly Elegy’
Vance grew up in Jackson in rural Kentucky, and later Middletown, a blue-collar town in Ohio. Vance’s 2016 memoir about his upbringing, “Hillbilly Elegy,” became a New York Times bestseller and was later turned into a movie. In it, Vance also championed working class Americans.
The book also delved into his upbringing in Appalachia and growing up with a mother who struggled with drug addiction. As a result, he was raised by his grandmother Bonnie, whom he called Mamaw. The book’s success prompted The Washington Post to call Vance “the voice of the Rust Belt.”
Trump, in making his veep announcement, emphasized that Vance, on the campaign trail “will be strongly focused on the people he fought so brilliantly for, the American Workers and Farmers in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Minnesota, and far beyond.”
After graduating from high school, Vance joined the military and enlisted in the Marine Corps. He later served in Iraq as a public affairs officer. Vance attended the Ohio State University, where he graduated in 2009 with a B.A. in political science and philosophy.
“I was very bugged by this question of why there weren’t more kids like me at places like Yale. ... Why isn’t there more upward mobility in the United States?” Vance told The Associated Press in 2016.
Vance, who became a successful lawyer and Silicon Valley venture capitalist, was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2022.
Vance is married to Usha Chilukuri, a lawyer whom he met when the two were students at Yale Law School. Chilukuri, who grew up in California the daughter of Indian immigrants, is Hindu. Chilukuri clerked for Supreme Court Justice John Roberts and later Brett Kavanaugh, both practicing Catholics.
Vance and Chilukuri wed in 2014, a year after graduating from the school. The couple held two weddng ceremonies — one of them included being blessed by a Hindu pandit. They have three children: Ewan, Vivek and Mirabel.
Photo via J.D. Vance/Instagram
Conversion to Catholicism
Religion was not a big part of Vance’s upbringing. His father became a practicing Pentecostal, but only after he left Vance’s mother. While he did go to church with his father, few people around him were pious. Nonetheless, Vance has noted that “the Christian faith stood at the center of our lives.”
Vance grew up in evangelical Christian, but later in life was “not an active participant” in any faith tradition. By the time he went to law school, Vance said he was in atheist.
But things slowly changed as he grew older, Vance recalled, and religion became a much bigger part of his thinking, especially after reading St. Augustine and French historian and philosopher Rene Girard.
In August 2019, Vance became a Catholic. In doing so, Vance said he “became persuaded over time that Catholicism was true … and Augustine gave me a way to understand Christian faith in a strongly intellectual way.”
“My views on public policy and what the optimal state should look like are pretty aligned with Catholic social teaching,” Vance told The American Conservative in 2019.
Vance is a follower of Catholic integralism, a movement that, experts say, prefers a soft power approach to exerting influence over society.
Wikipedia Commons photo
From ‘Never Trumper’ to the ‘New Right’
Vance, who initially opposed Trump, came around during his senatorial run. As a result, he secured Trump’s endorsement and won the Republican primary before winning the open seat in a state that has become increasingly pro-GOP in recent election cycles.
“Look, I was wrong about Donald Trump. I didn't think he was going to be a good president,” Vance told Fox News last month. “He was a great president, and it's one of the reasons why I'm working so hard to make sure he gets a second term.”
Politically, Vance is part of what’s known as the “New Right.” It’s a brand of conservatism that injects with it populism and rejects traditional Republican views. For example, Vance opposes U.S. intervention in foreign conflicts — such as in Ukraine — and has spoken against cuts to Social Security.
Vance is a staunch opponent of abortion. In fact, he has endorsed policies that would allow the government to encourage people to have more children. He even praised Hungarian leader Viktor Orban for encouraging couples to have children.
Vance even initially endorsed a 15-week federal ban on all abortions. However, following the rollback of Roe v. Wade and a series of statewide referendums that failed to ban abortion, Vance has said states should decide the issue. He has also voiced support for abortion pills, something that drew the ire of anti-abortion groups.
“I am pro-life,” he said. “I’ve always been pro-life.”
In addition, Vance has proposed a bill that would make sex changes for minors a federal felony and would block taxpayer funds from being used for it.
Vance also supports Trump’s immigration policy and has called for the construction of a border wall along Mexico. In 2023, Vance also proposed a bill that would make English the U.S. official language.
Some of Vance’s beliefs have put him at odds with Catholic teaching and what some in the U.S. church believe.
“At a fundamental level, being in public life is in part a popularity contest,” Vance said. “When you are trying to do things that make you liked by as many people as possible, you’re not likely to do things that are consistent with the teachings of the Catholic Church. I’m a Christian, and a conservative, and a Republican, so I have definite views about what that means. But you have to be humble and realize that politics are essentially a temporal game.”
Clemente Lisi is the executive editor of Religion Unplugged. He previously served as deputy head of news at the New York Daily News and a longtime reporter at The New York Post. Follow him on X @ClementeLisi.