.jpeg)
On the day of the Republican National Convention, former President Donald Trump on July 15th selected Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, a Catholic convert, as his possible vice president for the Republican ticket in November.
“After lengthy deliberation and thought, and considering the tremendous talents of many others, I have decided that the person best suited to assume the position of Vice President of the United States is Senator J.D. Vance of the Great State of Ohio,” Trump wrote in a post on his social media platform Truth Social. “J.D. honorably served our Country in the Marine Corps, graduated from Ohio State University in two years, Summa Cum Laude, and is a Yale Law School Graduate, where he was Editor of The Yale Law Journal and President of the Yale Law Veterans Association.”
Vance, who authored a memoir entitled “Hillbilly Elegy,” was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2022 after a contentious primary election in the Buckeye State, in which he got Trump’s endorsement. Vance, who is a Catholic convert (2019), is married to Usha Vance, a lawyer, whose parents are Hindu immigrants from India. The couple has three young children: Ewan, Vivek and Mirabel.
Vance converted to Catholicism in August of 2019, when he was baptized and confirmed at St. Gertrude Priory in Cincinnati, Ohio, by the Rev. Henry Stephan, a Dominican friar. According to an interview with American expatriate and writer Rod Dreher, who was present at the baptism, Vance chose St. Augustine as his patron saint.
Trump said Vance “will be strongly focused on the people he fought so brilliantly for, the American Workers and Farmers in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Minnesota, and far beyond.”
“Congratulations to Senator J.D. Vance, his wife, Usha, who also graduated from Yale Law School, and their three beautiful children,” he said. “MAGA2024!”
Vance, was at one time, a vocal critic of Trump, but became a closer supporter of him on issues such as foreign policy.
Vance recently moderated his position on abortion. On July 7, Vance said he supported access to mifepristone, a pill often used for abortion.
In a statement, Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, called Vance “an exceptional selection as President Trump’s running mate.”
If elected, Vance would be the second Catholic vice president in U.S. history, preceded only by Joe Biden, who was vice president for two terms before his own election to the White House. On the first day of the Republican National Convention, former President Donald Trump has announced Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance will be his running mate as he seeks reelection. Before his election to the Senate in 2022, Vance was a technology venture capitalist and the author of the bestselling memoir “Hillbilly Elegy” about his family history, upbringing in Middletown, Ohio.
Vance told Dreher that he’d converted because he “became persuaded over time that Catholicism was true” and had observed that the people who meant the most to him were Catholic. Vance said his conversion would have happened sooner if not for the clergy sexual abuse crisis, which “forced me to process the church as a divine and a human institution, and what it would mean for my 2-year-old son.”
When he started law school, he “went through an angry atheist phase,” as he told Dreher.
According to a recent interview with Fox and Friends, Usha Chilukuri Vance, J.D. Vance’s wife, is “not Christian.” The couple met in Yale Law School and married shortly after graduation. Usha, a native Californian, was raised by Indian immigrants in a Hindu household but has said she was very supportive of Vance’s conversion to Catholicism.
“I did grow up in a religious household,” said Usha, who clerked for Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts as well as Brett Kavanaugh before he became a Supreme Court justice. Roberts and Kavanaugh are both Catholic. Usha continued, “My parents are Hindu. That is one of the reasons why they made such good parents. That made them very good people. And I think I have seen the power of that in my own life. And I knew that JD was searching for something. This just felt right for him.”
Before his conversion, he married Usha in 2014, they held two ceremonies, including one where they were blessed by a Hindu pundit, noted Politico.
In contrast to Vance's opinions on immigration, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, however, has called for a pathway to legal status and citizenship for the approximately 11 million immigrants who live in the U.S. without legal authorization, emphasizing the obligation in the Catholic Catechism to “welcome the foreigner.”
Concerning his conversion Vance wrote:
I realized that there was a part of me—the best part—that took its cues from Catholicism. It was the part of me that demanded that I treat my son with patience, and made me feel terrible when I failed. That demanded that I moderate my temper with everyone, but especially my family. That demanded that I care more about how I rated as a husband and father than as an income earner. That demanded that I sacrifice professional prestige for the interests of family. That demanded that I let go of grudges, and forgive even those who wronged me. As Saint Paul says in his Epistle to the Phillipians: “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.” It was the Catholic part of my heart and mind that demanded that I think on the things that actually mattered. And if I wanted that part of me to be nurtured and to grow, I needed to do more than read the occasional book of theology or reflect on my own shortcomings. I needed to pray more, to participate in the sacramental life of the Church, to confess and to repent publicly, no matter how awkward that might be. And I needed grace. I needed, in other words, to become Catholic, not merely to think about it.Edited from OSV News and RNS and excerpt from
https://thelampmagazine.com/blog/how-i-joined-the-resistance
Comments