How JD Vance Found His Way to the Catholic Church

The New York Times ^ | Aug. 25, 2024, 3:00 a.m. ET | Elizabeth Dias

[E. Pluribus Unum]

From his new home in Cincinnati, JD Vance would go to St. Gertrude to meet the friar.

It was a fitting place for the millennial aspiring politician, who was drawn to the Roman Catholic Church’s ancient ways. For years he had flirted with joining the church. Now he wanted to explore the desire in earnest.

St. Gertrude Church was led by the Dominican Friars from the Province of St. Joseph, part of a religious order founded in 1216. Its sanctuary smelled of incense but felt modern, its concrete walls pierced with bright stained-glass rectangles in reds and blues.

Mr. Vance would meet with Father Henry Stephan. For months, they read works of theology, mysticism, and political and moral philosophy. Sometimes they went to coffee or lunch. It was bespoke private instruction, a hallmark of Dominicans who are known for their lives of intellect and study.

Then, one summer day in 2019, Mr. Vance, then 35, returned to St. Gertrude, this time to be baptized and receive his first communion in the Dominicans’ private chapel. The friars hosted a celebratory reception for his family with doughnuts. He chose as his patron Saint Augustine, the political theologian whose fifth-century treatise “City of God” challenged Rome’s ruling class and drew Mr. Vance to the faith.

“It was the best criticism of our modern age I’d ever read,” Mr. Vance later explained in a Catholic literary journal. “A society oriented entirely towards consumption and pleasure, spurning duty and virtue.”

[Larry Lucido]

I suggest he at least consider the Latvian Orthodox Church. The hats convey that solemn religious look you want in a faith.

[Larry Lucido]

“The friars hosted a celebratory reception for his family with doughnuts.”

Yeah, doughnuts over hats any day. :-)

[TomEd]

Looked like a great article. Pity it’s behind a paywall.

[Southside_Chicago_Republican]

Good article. He sounds like a man who is intentional and serious about his faith. I have known adults who discovered and converted to the Orthodox Church for similar reasons. Both Catholicism and Orthdoxy provide a rich intellectual,devotional and liturgical framework for living out the Christian life.

[CaptainK]

Here you go..

web.archive.org/web/20240825090445/https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/25/us/jd-vance-catholic-church-conversion.html

[Biblebelter]

I wonder after Trump gets elected and Vance becomes a VP if he can get an audience with Pope Frankie like Pelosi and Joey.

I think Vance may be too much of a Catholic for Pope Frankie.

[Liz]

bkmk

[Zathras]

Last time I checked...Freedom of Religion is protected.
Unless you work for the NYT

[irishjuggler]

Of course the subtext of any NYT piece on JD is going to be “Is this guy weird, or what?” A number of folks expressed befuddlement at Walz’s digs at JD’s Yale education. On one level it’s utterly bizarre coming from a party littered with prominent bigwigs (Obamas, Clintons, et al.) with Ivy League degrees. On another level, though it’s not so weird. What Walz is really doing is attacking JD’s intellectualism. There’s an anti-intellectual current in much of America, where there’s a suspicion of people who read too many books and have original ideas. And the Dems are attempting to play into that.

Kamala Harris likely hasn’t cracked open a book in the last 35 years. No one mistakes her for any sort intellectual. Like other Dem grandees (Hills Clinton & Mooch Obama come to mind), she’s a bar-exam repeater. She’s a know-nothing whose aides complain she won’t read their briefings and then bitches when she’s unprepared (which is always). Similarly, Tim Walz is one of those dumber-than-a-box-of-rocks gym coach kinda guys with a big mouth that we all remember from school.

[JimmyTheFish]

“Seinfeld” . . . when comedy was funny

[Larry Lucido]

:)

[vladimir998]

“I suggest he at least consider the Latvian Orthodox Church. The hats convey that solemn religious look you want in a faith.”

Although the butt of jokes on Seinfeld in the 1990s, the Latvian Orthodox Church is an actual Church. It’s founder (at least he secured recognition for it) - Arch. John Pommers - was murdered by Soviet agents in 1934.

[Larry Lucido]

Interesting. Thanks.

[Bigg Red]

mark