Vice President JD Vance’s new book, “Communion,” is not only his story of his conversion to Catholicism in 2019, it’s also his pitch to Republicans, especially religious ones, about why he has the mettle to be the party’s 2028 presidential candidate. Writing a book has become a prerequisite for a presidential run, but as a professor who has read some awful writing, I find that Vance’s new book ranks among the worst things I’ve read. As has been reported, there’s a United Methodist Church on the cover of this book about converting to Catholicism, and that choice of illustration serves as a metaphor for the ignorance and inauthenticity found within.
According to the Pew Research Center’s Religious Landscape Study, 35% of American adults were raised in a different religious tradition than the one they practice.
Vance’s account of his conversion from evangelism to atheism and then to Catholicism is familiar to those of us who study religious switching in America. According to the Pew Research Center’s 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study, 35% of American adults were raised in a different religious tradition than the one they practice.
But on his promotional book tour, Vance is proving himself to be woefully inept about his faith. For example, on his Tuesday appearance on ABC’s “The View,” he couldn’t answer questions about how he squares his recently found faith with the Trump administration’s policies. He seems confused about what Catholicism is and doesn’t seem to understand that Christian beliefs aren’t the same as a list of conservative talking points.
Thus, in “Communion” we get his disjointed story about how he was attracted to the Catholic Church despite his divergent views from its teachings. If nothing else, “Communion” confirms what was already obvious: Vance is not the theologian he thinks he is, and indeed, he knows very little about the Catholic faith. Despite his lack of knowledge, in his short time as vice president, he has had the temerity to question Pope Francis’ motivations for criticizing the Trump administration’s immigration policies and to lecture Pope Leo XIV on when war is morally justified.
The one clear teaching of the church he seems to enthusiastically embrace, perhaps as a holdover from his time as an evangelical, is its opposition to abortion. But what he writes about economics and immigration, among other topics, shows a limited knowledge of the theological underpinnings of the Catholic Church.
Vance appears to be bringing some of his evangelical upbringing and theology to his Catholic faith. This is not uncommon. For instance, Vance’s understanding of ordo amoris, a concept that places love of family above love of one’s neighbors and the rest of the world, prompted the letter from Francis to the U.S. bishops correcting Vance’s framing. (Notably, he leaves his rhapsodizing about ordo amoris out of “Communion,” but he writes about Saints Augustine and Aquinas as though he knows their works well.)
That’s why, despite his conversion to Catholicism, Vance still comes across like an evangelical. His willingness to argue Catholic theology, despite his limited knowledge, speaks to his Protestant upbringing, including the doctrine of the “priesthood of all believers,” which gives more value to the voices of Christians who are not in positions of leadership.
Despite his conversion to Catholicism, Vance still comes across like an evangelical.
A person reading “Communion” will find it all the more laughable that Vance, a convert of fewer than seven years, warned in April that Leo, the leader of the 1.4 billion-member Catholic Church, should be careful talking about theology. “Communion” itself evinces no clear understanding of it. Moreover, Vance throws around Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum and Augustine’s name in the book as though he understands them when he clearly doesn’t.
In his account of an advance meeting with Vatican officials before he visited Francis, Vance writes that “our meeting with Vatican diplomats was much most substantive than I expected.” At the same time, he called the meeting “unsettling” because, he says, the Vatican acknowledged that “The United States has the right to control its borders, but they also encouraged us to treat migrants humanely.” The vice president then writes incredulously, “What did they take issue with, exactly?”
Vance is pretending to be confused. You don’t need to be a Catholic theologian to know that the church demands the humane treatment of migrants. At the same time, the United States’ actions toward them have been atrocious. Vance should have known better, as a convert and former evangelical, that “loving the stranger among you” is scriptural and that the Vatican was calling out the Trump administration for doing the opposite of that.
In short, “Communion” is a show of hubris from a recent convert who had a bespoke conversion experience with a bishop and is promoting himself as a moral, thoughtful Catholic. Many converts to Catholicism are attracted to the smells, bells and communal experience of the church, but it takes time to learn Catholic theology and beliefs. Although Vance quotes Augustine and C.S. Lewis, it’s the Catholicism of Peter Thiel, the PayPal founder and Republican megadonor who has recently been lecturing on the antichrist, that appears to attract him most. “Possibly the smartest person I’d ever met,” Vance writes of Thiel, “he openly identified as a Christian. He defied the simple social template I had constructed — that dumb people were religious and smart people were atheists.”
Vance writes at one point that “if you believe that Jesus is the son of God and rose from the dead on the third day, you’re on the right track,” but despite that profession of faith, in “Communion,” Usha Vance is the vice president’s real savior. When he writes about meeting her, breaking up with the woman he was dating to pursue her and telling her he loved her very early on, he’s giving a conversion narrative that many people can identify with and understand. It is only when Vance expresses love for his wife that his book is compelling.
It is only when Vance expresses love for his wife that his book is compelling.
His obvious love for her makes it sad that JD Vance has publicly expressed the wish that Usha Vance would convert to Christianity. Her being Hindu didn’t stop him from falling in love with her and marrying her. He writes about his wife with warmth and praise for how she opened up his life. But her religion might make it next to impossible for him to secure a Republican presidential nomination, which makes one wonder if he wants his wife to convert for spiritual reasons or for political ones.
Readers have every reason to wonder if Vance thinks “Communion” will convince voters he’s a good Christian and a good Catholic, notwithstanding his support of mass deportations, violence and war. The pope’s opposition to those things is rooted in Catholic theology, but Vance, as President Donald Trump’s vice president, is co-signing them all.
Anthea Butler
Anthea Butler is a professor of religious studies and Africana studies at the University of Pennsylvania.