New York Times Op-Ed:  Catholic Converts Like JD Vance Are Reshaping Republican Politics, by Matthew Schmitz (Founder & Editor, Compact):

Despite institutional decline and internal conflict, Catholicism retains a surprising resonance in American life — especially in certain elite circles. It has emerged as the largest and perhaps the most vibrant religious group at many top universities. It claims six of the nine Supreme Court justices as adherents. It continues to win high-profile converts, and its social teaching exerts an influence (often unacknowledged) on public debates, inspiring political thinkers who seek to challenge both the cultural left and the laissez-faire right.

The Republican vice-presidential nominee JD Vance, who converted to Catholicism after attending Yale Law School, exemplifies this phenomenon. When he was baptized into the church in 2019, he joined an influential group of conservative converts, including the legal scholars Erika Bachiochi and Adrian Vermeule, the political scientist Darel Paul, the Times Opinion columnist Ross Douthat, the theologian R.R. Reno and the writer and editor Sohrab Ahmari, one of my colleagues at the online magazine Compact. (I am also a convert to Catholicism, and I work or have worked with many of these figures.)

Such thinkers disagree, sometimes sharply, on important matters, not least the value of populism and the merits of Donald Trump. But all share a combination of social conservatism and a willingness to question many of the free-market orthodoxies of the pre-Trump Republican Party. In doing so, they can claim justification from Catholic social teaching, a body of thought that insists on a traditional understanding of the family while embracing a living wage and trade unions as means of promoting “the common good.” See, for example, Mr. Vance in 2019: “My views on public policy and what the optimal state should look like are pretty aligned with Catholic social teaching.”

This group’s economic thinking distinguishes its members from an earlier cohort of conservative Catholic intellectuals such as William F. Buckley Jr. and Michael Novak. Those men laid a stress on free markets, in part because the threat of Soviet Communism had led Catholic thinkers to emphasize the relative virtues of a liberal and capitalist system that had long been subject to Catholic critique.

By contrast, for Mr. Vance and others like him, Catholicism seems to be a resource for pushing back against the excesses of cultural and economic liberalism. As for so many converts before them, the church represents an alternative to the dominant ethos of the age. … Many of today’s converts look to resist the left-right fusion of libertarian cultural attitudes and free-market economics that has reshaped Western society over the past three or four decades. But rather than precipitating a radical overhaul of society, as some fear and others hope, they have exerted a subtler influence that is nonetheless significant: altering how the Republican Party approaches policy, and in some cases helping build a new consensus across party lines. …

In the absence of a robust Catholic culture, Catholic social teaching can seem strangely weak — like a voice raised in an empty field rather than before a full house. It may still inspire influential actors like Mr. Vance, but they will be constrained by an unchurched public’s limited appetite for Catholic ideas.

Indeed, many worry that the church itself has lost the will to resist the grimmest aspects of modern society. Some have warned that efforts to adjust the church’s sexual teaching to contemporary mores are only the latest expression of what Henri de Lubac, the Jesuit theologian, called “an endeavor that wants to dissolve the church into the world.”

Such challenges, along with recurring instances of scandal and hypocrisy, should be enough to cure even the most enthusiastic Catholic convert of triumphalism. Yet those inclined to faith may still marvel that such an imperfect institution continues to attract those like Mr. Vance who seek an alternative to much of contemporary society, and to offer intimations of how it might be improved.

New York Times Op-Ed:  How JD Vance Found His Way to the Catholic Church, by Elizabeth Dias:

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.

Much has been made of Mr. Vance’s very public conversion to Trumpism, and his seemingly mutable political stances. But his quieter, private conversion to Catholicism, occurring over a similar stretch of years, reveals some core values at the heart of his personal and political philosophy and their potential impact on the country.

Becoming Catholic for Mr. Vance, who was loosely raised as an evangelical, was a practical way to counter what he saw as elite values, especially secularism. He was drawn not just to the church’s theological ideas, but also to its teachings on family and social order and its desire to instill virtue in modern society.

That worldview served as a counterpoint to much of his messy childhood, and meshed with his own criticisms of contemporary America, from what he saw as the abandonment of workers to the unhappiness of “childless cat ladies.” It has also infused his politics, which seeks to advance a family-oriented, socially conservative future through economic populism and by standing with abortion opponents. …

This portrait of Mr. Vance’s Catholic conversion and beliefs is drawn from dozens of his public remarks and writings, and interviews with Catholics in his religious and intellectual circles in Ohio and Washington. Mr. Vance declined to comment for this story, as did Father Stephan, and several other thinkers and converts close to the candidate.

“My views on public policy and what the optimal state should look like are pretty aligned with Catholic social teaching,” Mr. Vance said in an interview with Rod Dreher, a conservative writer and Orthodox Christian who attended his baptism. “I saw a real overlap between what I would like to see and what the Catholic Church would like to see.” …

On [a] 2021 podcast, he described his pull toward the church. Riding a train to Washington, missing his wife and young son, he listened to a beloved recording of a priest chanting an old psalm in Aramaic during Pope Francis’ visit to Georgia in 2016. He went to the Dominican House to meet a priest for midday prayers — and heard the same psalm.

“‘The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. Corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity: there is none that doeth good,’” the psalm reads, according to a translation from Mr. Dreher. It felt, he wrote, like a “touch from God.”

After his conversion, he had planned to write a second book to be called “A Relevant Faith: Searching for a Meaningful American Christianity.” But after he won his Senate primary, his publisher announced that the deal would not proceed.

Instead, he is raising his three children in the Roman Catholic Church, and bringing his views directly to the American political stage.

J.D. Vance, How I Joined the Resistance:

As I advanced through our educational hierarchy—moving on from Ohio State to Yale Law School—I began to worry that my assimilation into elite culture came at a high cost. My sister once told me that the song that made her think of me was “Simple Man” by Lynyrd Skynyrd. Though I had fallen in love, I found that the emotional demons of my childhood made it hard to be the type of partner I’d always wanted to be. My Randian arrogance about my own ability melted away when confronted with the realization that an obsession with achievement would fail to produce the achievement that mattered most to me for so much of my life: a happy, thriving family.

I had immersed myself in the logic of the meritocracy and found it deeply unsatisfying. And I began to wonder: were all these worldly markers of success actually making me a better person? I had traded virtue for achievement and found the latter wanting. But the woman I wanted to marry cared little whether I obtained a Supreme Court clerkship. She just wanted me to be a good person.

It’s possible, of course, to overstate our own inadequacies. I never cheated on my would-be spouse. I never became violent with her. But there was a voice in my head that demanded better of me: that I put her interests above my own; that I master my temper for her sake as much as for mine. And I began to realize that this voice, wherever it came from, was not the same one that compelled me to climb as high as I could up our ladder of meritocracy. It came from somewhere more ancient, and more grounded—it required reflection about where I came from rather than cultural divorce from it. …

I attended a talk at our law school with Peter Thiel. This was 2011, and Thiel was a well-known venture capitalist but hardly a household name. He would later blurb my book and become a good friend, but I had no idea what to expect at the time. He spoke first in personal terms: arguing that we were increasingly tracked into cutthroat professional competitions. We would compete for appellate clerkships, and then Supreme Court clerkships. We would compete for jobs at elite law firms, and then for partnerships at those same places. At each juncture, he said, our jobs would offer longer work hours, social alienation from our peers, and work whose prestige would fail  to make up for its meaninglessness. He also argued that his own world of Silicon Valley spent too little time on the technological breakthroughs that made life better—those in biology, energy, and transportation—and too much on things like software and mobile phones. Everyone could now tweet at each other, or post photos on Facebook, but it took longer to travel to Europe, we had no cure for cognitive decline and dementia, and our energy use increasingly dirtied the planet.  He saw these two trends—elite professionals trapped in hyper-competitive jobs, and the technological stagnation of society—as connected. If technological innovation were actually driving real prosperity, our elites wouldn’t feel increasingly competitive with one another over a dwindling number of prestigious outcomes.

Peter’s talk remains the most significant moment of my time at Yale Law School. He articulated a feeling that had until then remained unformed: that I was obsessed with achievement in se—not as an end to something meaningful, but to win a social competition. My worry that I had prioritized striving over character took on a heightened significance: striving for what? I didn’t even know why I cared about the things I cared about. I fancied myself educated, enlightened, and especially wise about the ways of the world—at least compared with most of the people from my hometown. Yet I was obsessed with obtaining professional credentials—a clerkship with a federal judge and then an associate position at a prestigious firm—that I didn’t understand. I hated my limited exposure to legal practice. I looked to the future, and realized that I’d been running a desperate race where the first prize was a job I hated.

I began immediately planning for a career outside the law, which is why I spent less than two years after graduation as a practicing attorney. But Peter left me with one more thing: he was possibly the smartest person I’d ever met, but he was also a Christian. He defied the social template I had constructed—that dumb people were Christians and smart ones atheists. I began to wonder where his religious belief came from …

[I]t 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 Christanity: 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. …

I try to keep a little humility about how little I know, and how inadequate a Christian I really am. I am most comfortable engaging with people around ideas. If you can’t read something and debate it, I’ve always been a little less interested. But the Church isn’t just about ideas and Saint Augustine, whom I chose as my patron. It’s about the heart, as well, and the community of believers. It’s about going to Mass and receiving the Sacraments, even when it’s difficult or awkward to do so. It’s about so many things that I’m ignorant of, and the process of becoming less ignorant over time.

My wife has said that the business of converting to Catholicism—studying and thinking about it—was “good for you.” And I came, eventually, to see that she was right, at least in some cosmic sense. I realized that there was a part of me—the best part—that took its cues from Catholicism. It was the part of me that demanded that I treat my son with patience, and made me feel terrible when I failed. That demanded that I moderate my temper with everyone, but especially my family. That demanded that I care more about how I rated as a husband and father than as an income earner. That demanded that I sacrifice professional prestige for the interests of family. That demanded that I let go of grudges, and forgive even those who wronged me. As Saint Paul says in his Epistle to the Phillipians: “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.” It was the Catholic part of my heart and mind that demanded that I think on the things that actually mattered. And if I wanted that part of me to be nurtured and to grow, I needed to do more than read the occasional book of theology or reflect on my own shortcomings. I needed to pray more, to participate in the sacramental life of the Church, to confess and to repent publicly, no matter how awkward that might be. And I needed grace. I needed, in other words, to become Catholic, not merely to think about it.

• The American Conservative, J.D. Vance Becomes Catholic
• Catholic News Agency, 13 Things to Know About J.D. Vance’s Catholic Journey
• National Catholic Register, JD Vance Is a Catholic ‘Post-Liberal’: Here’s What That Means — And Why It Matters
• The Christian Post, JD Vance Shares His Journey From Atheist Law Student to Practicing Christian 
• New York Times, JD Vance’s Conversion to Catholicism
• The New Yorker, J.D. Vance’s Radical Religion
• Religion Unplugged, How JD Vance’s Catholic Faith Influenced His Politics
• Aaron Renn, How J.D. Vance Rejected Evangelicalism
• Slate, J.D. Vance Used to Be an Atheist. What He Believes Now Is Telling.
• Washington Post, JD Vance’s Catholic Conversion Is Part of Young Conservative Movement

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