(LifeSiteNews) — Vice President JD Vance says his Catholic faith shapes everything from his views on tariffs to family policy. But when it comes to the Vatican, he draws a firm line.
“I’m not there as JD Vance, a Catholic parishioner,” he told New York Times columnist Ross Douthat. “I’m there as the vice president of the United States.”
Vance discussed immigration, abortion, and supporting families – and explained why he wouldn’t kiss Leo XIV’s ring after attending his inaugural Mass.
“That’s against protocol for a vice president,” he said. “No disrespect, but I represent the country I serve.”
“The purpose of American politics,” he said, “should be to encourage our citizens to live a good life.”
On immigration, he defended border enforcement while affirming “the dignity of migrants” and acknowledging tensions with Church leaders. In February 2025, then-Cardinal Prevost shared an article criticizing Vance’s politics on the subject, titled “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.”
LOOK: Older brother of Pope Leo XIV meets with Trump, Vance in Oval Office
New Pope Leo XIV, formerly Robert Prevost, tweeted at the VP earlier this spring, quoting an NCR Online piece that is headlined: “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.” pic.twitter.com/MLZZ2kRNAI
— Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) May 8, 2025
LifeSiteNews has previously reported on Vance’s support for chemical abortion pills.
A Catholic convert since 2019, Vance said he would “make a prudential judgment” informed by the Church but added: “I don’t just do everything the Holy Father tells me to do.” Asked if he’d follow Vatican directives on policy, he replied: “That would be a violation of the U.S. Constitution.”
A false separation?
The sharp distinction, proposed by Vance, between “a Catholic parishioner” and a public official was condemned by Pope St. Pius X. Pius X denounced the claim that “the Catholic must be separated from the citizen,” and that the Church must not “prescribe for the citizen any line of action.”
More forcefully, Pope Boniface VIII taught that the temporal power must be subordinate to the spiritual, and infallibly declared in the Bull Unam Sanctam:
[I]t is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff.
Civil leaders are not exceptions to this. When it comes to “mixed” matters like marriage, morality or education – the pope’s authoritative teachings and judgments have more than a merely private or advisory role in a statesman’s conscience.
The same applies to the perennial teachings of the Church and the tenets of the natural moral law.
Mr. Theo Howard, of The Two Cities Podcast, told LifeSiteNews:
The dogma of separation of Church and State, that Vance no doubt believes he is simply following, leads, effectively to a separation of Church and State within Vance’s soul, demonstrating why the Church has always condemned it.
He is the Vice President representing his country yes, but he is also J.D. Vance the Catholic man. These are not two separate men. They are the office and the man who occupies it.
