Posted on 04/21/2025 7:49:22 AM PDT by MtnClimber
The last dignitary Pope Francis met in his mortal life was JD Vance, the U.S. vice president, Catholic convert, and critic of the pontiff’s liberal views on mass migration. There is something powerfully symbolic about that. The scene of the two men, separated by 48 years and scarcely more than a meter, stands for the passing of one kind of Catholicism, and the rise of another.
When he became pope in 2013, progressive Catholics expressed hope for a “Francis effect” that would liberalize Catholic doctrine and practice, and draw back to the Church millions disaffected by what they regarded as Rome’s intransigent conservatism, as well as newcomers eager to become a part of a more “inclusive” church. Though a disappointment to the more radical reformers, Francis unmistakably steered the barque of Peter on a more portside (that is, leftward) path, especially in his callous treatment of traditionalist Catholics, who he frequently insulted in public remarks.
Yet there has been no Francis effect, in the sense of a widespread renewal, including a surge in progressive vocations. In the United States, for example, progressive seminarians in the Vatican II model favored by Francis have ceased to exist in seminary under his pontificate. As the pontiff sounded an uncertain doctrinal trumpet over the years, and caused chaos within the Church’s governance, many younger people embraced Catholicism not because of him, but in spite of him.
JD Vance is one of that cohort. To be clear, there is no evidence that the vice president factored Francis’s papacy into his deliberations to convert to Catholicism in 2019. I can tell you, though, that when my friend Vance first told me of his intention to become a Catholic, it had a lot to do with the fact that many of the American public intellectuals he admired the most were Catholics. Not only that, but they were conservative Catholics–that is to say, men and women who might or might not be politically on the Right, but who were nevertheless solidly behind authoritative Catholic theological teaching.
In a 2020 essay in The Lamp magazine, Vance explained why he became Catholic. Raised in an “unchurched” folk Protestantism (that, like Mamaw, his beloved grandmother, was reflexively anti-Catholic), Vance grew up to join the U.S. Marines and become one of the so-called “New Atheists” so popular in the first decade of this century.
Over time, he began to doubt. He met people who made him think there might be more to Christianity than he had considered. Eventually, Vance read City Of God, the early fifth-century masterpiece of theological and political thought authored by Augustine of Hippo, the greatest saint of the Western church. Vance found that Augustine “articulat[ed] a truth I had felt for a long time but hadn’t spoken.”
The Augustinian truth that struck Vance is this: that we spend far too much time caring about consumption and pleasure, and far too little time focusing on duty and virtue. Writes Vance, “It was the best criticism of our modern age I’d ever read.” He continues:
And indeed it was this insight, more than any other, that ultimately led not just to Christianity, but to Catholicism. Despite my Mamaw’s unfamiliarity with the liturgy, the Roman and Italian cultural influences, and the foreign pope, I slowly began to see Catholicism as the closest expression of her kind of Christianity: 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 loved unconditionally and forgives easily.
Though not a Catholic, I introduced my friend to a young Dominican priest I knew to be doctrinally sound, as the East Coast members of that order have the reputation of being. A year later, JD invited me to be present in Cincinnati, where he lived, for his formal reception into the Catholic Church. It was a privilege to bear witness to this momentous moment in the life of a friend–and should he one day win the U.S. presidency, in the life of my country and indeed the world.
This photo was taken by Rod Dreher on August 11th, 2019, of JD Vance’s first communion as a Catholic.
Note well that in that 2020 essay, Vance wrote of his “growing view … that too many American Catholics have failed to show proper deference to the papacy, treating the pope as a political figure to be criticized or praised according to their whims.” Earlier this year, Pope Francis took a clear rhetorical shot at the Catholic vice president, who had defended the Trump administration’s migration policies.
Vance received the criticism humbly–he called himself a “baby Catholic,” indicating his inexperience in the faith–but did not back off his views. Earlier he had earlier justified with reference to Catholic teaching about the Latin term “ordo amoris,” or the proper ordering of our loves. This is the Augustinian view that virtue is the ordering of our affections according to the degree of love appropriate to it. Vance contended that though Christians do have a moral duty of charity to all, we have a greater duty to those closest to us – our families, our neighbors, and our countrymen. This, he said, is why states have a duty to limit migration for the common good.
This contrasts vividly to Francis’s sentimental humanitarianism, which seemed to ask nothing of migrants themselves, and everything of those whose countries are filling with them. Beyond the particular issue of migration, we see in the contrast of the pope and this Catholic politician a marked difference between the Catholicism of an earlier era – one in which a pro-abortion, pro-LGBT, open-borders politician like Joe Biden could be deemed a “good Catholic” by Francis – and the one now emerging.
Vance is not a Latin mass traditionalist, and to my knowledge has not involved himself in theological controversies within Catholicism. But he is a Millennial convert drawn to Catholicism by its mind as well as its heart, and by its deep intellectual roots. It was not the fathers of Vatican II that pulled Vance into the boat, but the Bishop of Hippo and his enduring wisdom. It turns out that trying to “update” the Catholic Church to make it agree with the views of the modern world makes it unattractive to seekers begging to be saved from drowning in what sociologist Zygmunt Bauman calls “liquid modernity.”
This Easter season, Catholic conversions have been dramatically up in Western countries. The annual three-day pilgrimage march from Paris to Chartres, which in the past has drawn up to 18,000 young Catholic traditionalists, this year had to temporarily suspend its online registration, which had been overwhelmed with aspiring pilgrims.
Something is happening. Something big is happening. The future of Catholicism, at least in the old countries of Western Christendom, is going to look at lot more like that of J.D. Vance, and a lot less like that of Jorge Bergoglio. Still, both men remain brothers in a shared confession of faith–and that is something that continues across the boundaries of mortality. When the vice president learned of Francis’s passing, he tweeted:...SNIP
We are going to get a Chinese puppet/ yes man as pope if the Vatican doesn’t delay the crap out of this/is destroyed. Remember the prophecy of Arnold win/Malachy
I wasn’t I pressed with Bergogolio either. He ruined the mass by changing the words. Yuk. I still say it the way I was taught through twelve years of Catholic school.
No doubt, it's a slow motion train wreck. The Albany NY church (capital of NY) is in bankruptcy, selling properties to hang on a few more years, the end is inevitable without significant change.
The similarities between the College of Cardinals and Church Magisterium and secular institutions like Supreme Courts, Senates, House of Lords, can be striking. And that includes politics and conflicts over political / ideological views.
The Pope appoints Cardinals, and they go on to choose his successor. Since Benedict was removed in a quiet coup, I believe that the Vatican has been radically transformed by Neo-Marxism.
Not the African Cardinals. They are VERY conservative.
One of them is Robert Cardinal Sarah from Guinea, but he is 80 years old.
I hope one of them—younger, but as strongly faithful—is made the new Pope!
What Biden did to the USA is identical to what Francis has done to the Church.
It is and saddens me. I really loved being Catholic as a kid. Felt so special, but today? I’m of course still Catholic, but it has ruined my love for it.
No, the liberals are too entrenched in the church. If a conservative is chosen he won’t last long.
That is how I read it too.
It is going to take decades to undo the damage
Well, you could also argue that Trump appointed Gorsuch, Kavanagh and Coney Barrett to the SCOTUS, too.
I think just the opposite - but I hope I’m wrong.
Never forget: the cardinals elect the pope,
And Pope Francis has appointed most of the currently active cardinals.
Being a leftist, I’m sure the ones he appointed align with his views.
According to the Express.co.uk (Sorry, I don’t HTML) the top six contenders sor the papacy are:
Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle
Cardinal Pietro Parolin
Cardinal Wim Eijk
Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu
Cardinal Peter Erdo
Cardinal Raymond Burke: An arch-conservative American
There are certain similarities in that. One feature is not so much an analogue but more an identity. That is the progressive attacks on Christianity.
“As of April 2025, approximately 80% of the cardinals eligible to vote in a papal conclave were appointed by Pope Francis
Wikipedia”
So the next one will almost certainly be worse.
“I still say it the way I was taught through twelve years of Catholic school.”
Dropping Latin was a travesty.
Will the RCC do the same? I hope so. But I fear beliefs like papal supremacy and apostolic secession make it harder for the good minded Catholics to tell their worldly pushing leaders to pound sand.
We want to paint everything with an either liberal or conservative paint brush because it makes it easier to fit into our world views but it is lazy thinking.
In the Christian realm there are heresies
A heresy is a belief or doctrine that is considered to be false or erroneous by one or more Christian denominations, i.e. what is believed to be contrary to the teaching of Christianity.
In every generation since Christ, there have been many heresies. Most are just the same old same old repackaged.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_heresies
Truth
What about all those thousands and thousands of simple illiterate peasants who made up so much of the Catholic Church over the centuries? They don't count. Anyone drawn to their piety and simplicity is out of luck, because all the potential converts will here from their conversion attempts is rationalism, intellectualism, and philosophy.
As Pascal said, the "gxd" of Catholicism is the "gxd" of the philosophers, not the G-d of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
I believe Vance is a "theistic evolutionist" as well. That's kinda the first requirement.
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