(LifeSiteNews) — Vice President JD Vance, while speaking at a Turning Point USA event at the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) hosted by Erika Kirk on Wednesday, asserted that Christian values are at the foundation of the United States and defended the fruits of Christianity as being the “most moral” and “most just.”
Vance was responding to a question from an unidentified man who was concerned that the Trump-Vance administration planned to force prayer and Christian values in public schools, which he claimed violated freedom of religion. The Catholic vice president replied that the administration has no plans to force school children to believe anything but emphasized his belief that the country was founded on Christian values, which the administration will continue to promote.
Vance also stressed that those skeptical of the Christian faith should look at its fruits, which brought an end to pagan child sacrifice and slavery. The entire exchange is viewable in the video below from 1:15:31-1:22:14:
“There’s a liberal idea out there … that liberalism is the source of freedom of religion,” the vice president said. “And actually if you go back to the original founding documents of the United States of America … to the Anglo legal tradition well before there was ever a United States of America, what you’ll find is that freedom of religion is actually a Christian concept.”
“The reason it’s a Christian concept … (is) because Christianity … (promotes) the idea that we are all made in the image of our Creator, (which) means we must respect the free will of every single person,” he added. “Having free will doesn’t mean that you’re not allowed to encourage somebody, that you’re not allowed to talk to somebody about your faith, that you’re not allowed to talk about certain values in school.”
READ: Removing God from the classroom: a Masonic plan to shape the minds of American children
Vance continued:
When our founders talked about freedom of religion, they didn’t mean you’re not allowed to say a Christian prayer in a public school or that you weren’t allowed to talk about Jesus Christ in a public forum; they just meant that nobody could force you to profess the Christian faith, that had to come from your own free will.
The vice president further underscored that upholding Christian values means respecting human dignity, which is what led to the abolition of slavery in Britain and the U.S. as well as the Christian settlers of this continent ending the child sacrifice of several pagan civilizations.
“What did the Christian settlers find when they came to the New World? They found a lot of civilizations that were murdering babies in weird religious rituals,” Vance said. “It was Christianity that said, ‘We don’t kill children just because they’re somehow inconvenient to people.’”
READ: JD Vance compares abortion to child sacrifice: ‘We should be trying to protect every unborn life’
Vance, citing Sacred Scripture, added that skeptics of the Christian faith could simply look at its fruits, since “by their fruits you shall know them.”
“The fruits of the Christian faith are the most moral, the most just, and the most prosperous civilization in history,” he said. “I make no apologies for believing that Christianity is the pathway to God, I make no apologies for thinking that Christian values are an important foundation of this country.”
Vance converted to Catholicism in 2019 when he was baptized at St. Gertrude’s Priory in Cincinnati, Ohio. His wife, Usha, is Hindu; however, the couple agreed to raise their children Catholic and allowed them to “choose the moment that they want to ultimately become baptized.” Earlier this year, while addressing the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast, he said that his son’s decision to be baptized was “more exciting” than being elected vice president last November.
READ: JD Vance: My son’s decision to be baptized was ‘more exciting’ than winning 2024 election
On the other hand, Vance has broken with Catholic teaching by expressing support for access to abortion pills, defending the GOP’s support of IVF, and saying that the Trump-Vance administration would not support a federal abortion ban.
