Amid the outpouring of emotion following the death of Pope Francis, it’s not surprising that another news story was almost overlooked: The meeting of JD Vance with the Pontiff on Easter. Their encounter tells us something we should already have known about Pope Francis and a good deal more about the vice president. 

 

We’re told that Vance converted to Roman Catholicism in 2019. And, like Newt Gingrich before him, he did so enthusiastically. His almost simultaneous conversion to right-wing politics complemented his newfound religious identity. He could speak out more forcefully about the evil of abortion and know that the church backed him up. He could rail against the dangers of being soft on LGBTQ issues since the church — but not the pope — had turned its back on such people. It put him in the company of other powerful Roman Catholics like Bill Barr, Clarence Thomas, and Leonard Leo. (If you’re not familiar with Leonard Leo, look him up. News accounts suggest he influenced all of Trump’s Supreme Court picks.) These right-wing Roman Catholic heavyweights shouldn’t be confused with so-called Christian Nationalists, who are largely evangelical Protestants. The two share many of the same goals, but the heavies are more erudite and measured in their public pronouncements. They use the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society to apply a veneer of respectability and gravitas to their activities; to wit, the 2025 Project. Vance is quickly becoming the loudest voice for what I call the Roman Catholic Right. They often opposed Pope Francis during his papacy. 

 

For the vast majority of Roman Catholics, a papal audience like the one Vance received is a dream far out of reach. You have a much better chance if, like Vance, you hold a high office for a world power. But you have to be pretty tone deaf and presumptuous to seek an audience on Easter with a pope whose life is hanging by a thread. Let me give some perspective. Holy Week, starting on Palm Sunday and continuing through Easter, is the busiest time of the church year. Anyone remotely connected to the life of a parish knows Holy Week is not the time to ask the priest to schedule time for a chat. I wouldn’t presume to ask any priest (or deacon for that matter) to set aside time in Holy Week for anything unrelated to pressing liturgical responsibilities. I was shocked that Vance had the gall and bad manners to seek an audience with the gravely ill pope during Holy Week. That he would insert himself into the Pope’s Easter schedule is deeply offensive. It tells me a lot about him. 

 

Pope Francis, on the other hand, believed it was part of his job to meet with world leaders. He belatedly agreed to meet with Vance on the last day of his life. The Holy Father had been highly critical of the Trump administration’s cruel mass deportations. The Vatican Secretary of State had made that clear ahead of the audience. The last thing Francis needed on his last day on earth was small talk with someone who has wholeheartedly supported cruelty to migrants and who, during the 2024 campaign, repeated vile lies about legal Haitian residents. Yet the pope dutifully agreed to the meeting. 

 

Francis spent his life exemplifying the sort of love for the poor and marginalized that Jesus lived and preached. And it earned him their love and devotion. But he was not shy about criticizing capitalist excess and countries, like ours, that championed it. Here are two quotes from Francis on the subject:

 

“As long as the problems of the poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation and by attacking the structural causes of inequality, no solution will be found for the world’s problems or, for that matter, to any problems. Inequality is the root of social ills.”

 

“Just as the commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill’ sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say ‘thou shalt not’ to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills. How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses 2 points?” 

 

Vance, as a convert to Roman Catholicism, is meant to believe in papal infallibility. But he has proven by his actions that he is what’s called a cafeteria Catholic. He picks and chooses which papal pronouncements he’ll follow. Apparently he believes the Pope is fallible when it comes to how to treat refugees and migrants. When the pope opposes the kind of capitalism afflicting the US, Vance is free to ignore him. When the pope opposes capital punishment — something that most Republican officeholders are all for — Vance simply ignores him. When the Pope calls on governments to do more to protect the environment, as he did in his second encyclical, Laudito Si, our cafeteria Catholic VP is free to actively support dismantling our country’s meager efforts to combat climate change. 

 

Does Vance’s faith start and stop at the door of the church? Is attending Mass regularly all it means to follow Jesus?  The martyred German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer certainly didn’t think so. In his 1937 book The Cost of Discipleship, he coined the term “cheap grace.” He wrote,  “Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ.” Can Vance really convince himself that discipleship permits him to select a few of the Church’s teachings and ignore the rest? Well, perhaps his buddies from the US branch of the Roman Catholic right wing —  like Barr, Gingrich, Thomas, or Leo — can come up with some fancy pseudo doctrine that permits it.

 

Vance’s visit to the dying Francis was not only the Trump administration’s latest blunder on the world stage but also a huge disservice to Christianity at large. It confirmed the misperception that millions of people already have about the Christian church. That is, that it’s largely a platform for displaying hypocrisy. Whether it’s photos of Vance with Francis or pictures showing a gaggle of evangelical pastors beaming adoringly at Trump in the Oval Office, the effect is the same. Such images send the message that Trump, Vance and others in their malignant administration have Christianity’s tacit blessing, which causes people who might otherwise become active Christians to turn away from the church. Among the many destructive actions that the MAGA government is taking daily, the demeaning of religion as a subject worthy of serious thought is yet another foul byproduct of the cult of Trump. Thank you Republicans. 

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