Will JD Vance's religious background sway Catholic voters? What experts say.

WASHINGTON — Five years ago, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, former President Donald Trump’s newly minted running mate, was baptized into the Catholic Church.

His journey to Catholicism is a complicated one, as he describes in a 2020 blog post titled “How I Joined the Resistance.” His grandmother, he says, “was a woman of deep, but completely de-institutionalized, faith” who rarely attended church.

Though his father was part of a large Pentecostal congregation, he turned to atheism by the time he left the Marines in 2007, saying there was a lack of “church or anything to anchor me to the faith of my youth.” 

The writings of French philosopher René Girard, along with his personal reflections, are what led him to Catholicism in more recent years, he wrote.

Now, Vance will campaign side by side with Trump, who has increasingly used Christian-centric rhetoric to appeal to evangelical supporters. If elected, Vance would be the second Catholic vice president in U.S. history, following President Joe Biden’s tenure in the position during Barack Obama’s presidency. 

But religion experts told USA TODAY it is unlikely Vance’s religious background will sway Catholic voters as he seeks to shore up support for the Republican ticket.

“People are already pretty committed to their positions. And JD Vance being Catholic or not Catholic is really, I don't think going to change anything,” said Cristina Traina, the Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J. Chair of Catholic Theology at Fordham University. 

No evidence Catholic VP pick swayed Catholic voters in the past, researcher says 

Vance’s selection as Trump’s running mate was unsurprising to Chris Devine, a political science professor at the University of Dayton, a Catholic university in Vance’s home state of Ohio. But it’s because of Vance’s loyalty to Trump, not his religion, that Devine believed he was added to the ticket. 

For instance, contrary to former Vice President Mike Pence, Vance has said he would not have certified the 2020 presidential election results.  

Vance is also unafraid of bold – even if unsubstantiated – public statements, such as his claim that Biden campaign messaging directly led to the assassination attempt against Trump on July 13. 

“That seems to be the kind of thing Trump likes — someone who is a warrior, someone who will double down rather than back down,” he said. “That is who JD Vance has shown himself to be.” 

Devine co-authored the 2020 book, “Do Running Mates Matter? The Influence of Vice Presidential Candidates in Presidential Elections” alongside Kyle Kopko. The duo’s research suggested Catholic vice presidential nominees did not move the needle among Catholic voters in past elections.

That includes the 2012 nominations of Republican Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan and Biden as the incumbent vice president, as well as Democratic Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine in 2016.

“In those cases we saw no shift in voting preferences following the selection of those Catholic candidates,” he said.

Biden, Vance showcase political diversity within Catholic Church 

Susan Reynolds, a Catholic studies professor at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology, is also skeptical that Vance’s religious background will sway independent Catholic voters toward the Republican ticket. 

After all, Biden is also a practicing Catholic. He regularly attends Mass and referenced the Catholic hymn “On Eagle’s Wings” in his victory speech as president-elect in 2020.  But the presence of two Catholics on the 2024 ballot does showcase the nation’s departure from widespread anti-Catholic sentiment seen in earlier centuries, she said. 

Such prejudice stemmed from concern that Catholic leaders would be more responsive to the Vatican than the American public, Reynolds said. 

“It wasn’t like people were suspicious of Kennedy for thinking the Eucharist was the true presence of Christ,” she said. “It was about, where do Catholics in American culture and politics place their primary loyalties?” 

Catholics “perennially feel like political misfits,” said Reynolds. That’s contributed to tension within the church, showcased by Vance and Biden’s dueling versions of Catholicism. 

“These two men are lightyears apart politically and are a demonstration both of how diverse Catholics are, in terms of political attitudes and social attitudes, and also how polarized the American Catholic Church is at the present moment,” she said.

Traina agreed, noting there are different groups within Catholicism, including conservatives and progressives, that already have an established set of political beliefs.

“They're not going to be kind of convertible because they already have very strong political opinions. And so… the progressives don't vote for Biden because he's Catholic. They vote for Biden because his policies are in line with social justice teachings of the church,” she said.

“The conservatives vote for Trump because he seems to be anti abortion,” she said. “And also, there are conservative Catholics that are very much in line with keeping the government out of business.”

But Vance is different from both Biden and Trump in that he’s a conservative who hasn’t embroiled himself in scandals or criminal trials, said Emily Crews, the executive director of the Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.

“Christians who are looking to vote for someone who regularly invokes his religious identity, but who has a more polite veneer and more pragmatic perspective on politics than Trump, could find Vance really compelling,” she said.

Who is JD Vance's patron saint?

Vance chose St. Augustine as his patron saint when he converted to Catholicism in 2019, he told The American Conservative. 

He told the outlet he was affected by the theologian's fourth century autobiographical work “Confessions,” and that “The City of God,” a fifth century writing in response to the sack of Rome in 410,  is “incredibly relevant now that I’m thinking about policy.” 

The latter work defends Christianity's place in society and argues that it spared Rome from complete obliteration. 

A certain interpretation of Augustine’s writings can therefore be “very, very functional” to the modern GOP, according to Massimo Faggioli, a theology and religious studies professor at Villanova University. 

An array of Republican politicians cited divine intervention as the means through which Trump survived a July 13 assassination attempt, for example, and Trump has said “no one will be touching the cross of Christ under the Trump administration.”

Just as Augustine wrote of the decline of an empire, so too has Trump warned of the end of the American experiment under a second Biden presidency. And that’s where Vance’s self-description as a fighter for Christianity could come into play for Trump. 

“I believe the calculus is to offer a ticket that is unapologetic for a more Christian America,” Faggioli said. 

Augustine is, however, a multi-dimensional figure invoked by leaders across the political spectrum. Biden referenced Augustine in his 2021 inaugural address to support a call for national unity, and Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-California, has said he “(highlights) our duty as public servants to fight for justice.” 

Vance will strengthen religious discourse

Vance will likely use religious rhetoric and defend faith-based values on the campaign trail as he’s done previously.

When he was running for Ohio Senate in 2021, Vance told the Christian Broadcasting Network he sensed a concern about censorship from faithful voters.

“They're really worried, whether at their workplaces or on social media, can they actually speak their mind? Can they actually speak about Christian values without being shut down?" Vance said.

He added that "we need to allow conservatives and Christians to actually live their values, to pass those values onto their children.”

Vance also spoke about Christian faith guiding American identity last year with American Moment, a conservative group that says on its website that it seeks to identify young Americans "who will implement public policy that supports strong families, a sovereign nation, and prosperity for all."

“We’re a multicultural, multiethnic, multireligious democracy that’s heavily exposed to the economic forces of globalization, and I think that we have not yet figured out how to harmonize that with some basic sense of what it means to be an American in the 21st century," he said. "I happen to think that the Christian faith is a good way of helping provide an answer to that question."