Attacks from 2 Pope's suggest Vance's new book on Catholicism is not reliable reading

JD Vance at the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on July 15, 2024 (Maxim Elramsisy/ Shutterstock.com)

Pope Leo chronicler Christopher Hale says JD Vance is putting out a new book on Catholicism. But judging by how many Catholic popes have lined up to slam him for being wrong it might be best not to let the vice president lead your personal congregation.

Vance’s 304-page Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith, sounds like a diary of Vance’s conversion to Roman Catholicism during his ride from Appalachian poverty to the second-highest office in the country. But critics are already chewing it up as blatant opportunism, said Hale, with one critic demanding how Vance managed to write about faith while his administration “vaporized schoolgirls and lied about it.”

“Communion will be a campaign book dressed in a religious tapestry,” said Hale, who pointed out that the Catholic religion itself appears to be falling out of favor with Vance.

Usually, religion falls out of favor with people — not the other way around. But as it stands, a total of two popes have accused Vance of misrepresenting Catholic doctrine to justify the Trump administration’s immigration policies.

“When he invoked the concept of ordo amoris — an ‘old school Christian concept,’ as he put it — to argue that Americans should prioritize their own citizens over migrants, two popes corrected him,” said Hale. “Pope Leo XIV and the late Pope Francis both affirmed that the Church’s teaching on the dignity of immigrants is not a modern invention or a Franciscan novelty. St. Ambrose of Milan settled this question in the fourth century: the obligation to the stranger is not secondary to the obligation to the neighbor.

“Vance’s convenient Latin lesson was, in the judgment of the Church’s highest authority, flatly wrong,” said Hale.

But it wasn’t enough for Vance to get a smackdown from two popes. Vance — who has been a Catholic since 2019 — had the nerve to tell both popes they were wrong about their own religion.

“He suggested that Catholic leaders’ concern for migrants was a newer emphasis, particular to Pope Francis,” said Hale. “The Church’s own history refutes this: Catholic ministries in the United States have served immigrants for over a century, and every pope from Leo XIII to Leo XIV has affirmed the moral duty to welcome the stranger.”

“Vance lied,” said Hale, “and the record shows it.” He lied to not just one pope but two.

“JD Vance is the heir apparent to the MAGA movement,” said Hale, adding that his book will be “an attempt to sidestep the entire record — to present himself as a man of faith and conviction rather than what the evidence shows: a politician who treats Catholic doctrine as a buffet, taking what serves his ambition and ignoring what does not.”

“Catholics must do everything in our power to ensure JD Vance never holds elected office again,” said Hale.

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