US vice-president JD Vance has worn his religion on his sleeve since converting to the Catholicism in 2019. He recently published a book, Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith, and memorably met the late Pope Francis at the Vatican on Easter Sunday in 2025, a day before the pontiff died. But his religious identity could take on new weight as he positions himself for a presidential run in 2028, in which a successful campaign would make him only the third Catholic president in US history.
Vance’s winding spiritual path – combined with his avowed evangelical roots – have the potential to stymie him, as he seeks to retain the Christian nationalist voters that have sustained Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again (Maga) movement while wooing fellow Catholics. His presidential ambitions and religious convictions were both on show in a keynote speech to the Republicans’ midterm convention in Dallas on Thursday evening, where he invoked scripture and the Apostle Paul in paying homage to the rightwing activist Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated last year. He is trying to put together a coalition that will support him, and he wants the white Christian nationalists to be a key part of that.” One impediment to that, some religious analysts say, is his conversion to Catholicism – something they believe could leave him with an identity crisis that alienates both evangelicals and Catholic voters.
Vance expounded on his beliefs and the evangelical influences that shaped his upbringing in a recent interview with Bryce Crawford, a 22-year-old Christian podcaster with 929,000 subscribers on YouTube. Commentators say his dilemma was crystallized when Crawford asked for his views on “end times”, an event signifying the second coming of Christ that is much discussed in evangelicalism, but much less so in Catholicism. Vance expressed a long-held fascination with “end times” beliefs – saying that he had owned a John Hagee bible, which emphasizes end times teachings – before subtly trying to sidestep the issue.
He said: “What I’m trying to focus on is doing as much of God’s work as possible right now, and if that leads to the end times, OK. And if that leads to, you know, us building a better world that thrives and survives for a very long time after I’m gone, that’s great too. In fact, they are coming.
It’s just a question of whether they’re coming thousands of years down the road, or a few months down the road, and we’ve got a lot of work to do right now. I‘ve got to try to do the work I can right now.” The response showed Vance trying to “have things both ways”, suggested Robert Jones, president and founder of the Public Religion Research Institute. The exchange followed an earlier difference of opinion with Pope Francis, in February 2025, when Vance invoked the medieval Christian concept of “ordo amoris” – which translates from Latin as order of love – to justify the Trump administration’s hardline policy of detaining and expelling undocumented people.
Daniel Hummel, director of the Lumen Center, a Christian research group in Madison, Wisconsin, said Vance’s public statements highlighted potential pitfalls as he tries to win over both evangelicals and Catholics. That, in itself, could be sufficient to antagonize even conservative Catholics, warned Hummel.
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