I had heard that Vance was a convert to Catholicism but did not really think much of it since that could mean anything these days.  But I was pleasantly surprised when I read this article with more details: https://slate.com/life/2024/08/jd-vance-tim-walz-trump-kamala-religion.html  He has many ideas that I never expected to find in a modern politician.  (The article is apparently written from the perspective of a person who sees this as a bad thing.)

He began to feel drawn to Catholicism in particular after reading up on Catholic moral philosophers and discussing theology with conservative Dominican friars he knew.

he had come to Catholicism in part because of the writings of Saint Augustine. “Augustine gave me a way to understand Christian faith in a strongly intellectual way,” Vance said. “As someone who spent a lot of his life buying into the lie that you had to be stupid to be a Christian, Augustine really demonstrated in a moving way that that’s not true.”

“We have, I believe, a civilizational crisis in this country,” Vance said at the 2021 Napa Institute event. “Even among healthy, intact families, they’re not having enough kids such that we’re going to have a long-term future in this country.” For his Senate campaign, also in 2021, Vance praised Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán for policies that incentivized marriage and children. Orbán’s government had offered loans to married couples that were forgiven if the couple stayed together and had three children. (Orbán is not himself Catholic but has privileged Christianity in a country dominated by Catholicism.) “Why can’t we do that here?” Vance asked. “Why can’t we actually promote family formation?”

A set of young legislators, including Vance, Marco Rubio, Tom Cotton, and Josh Hawley...
aim to control women’s reproductive choices and individual freedoms concerning gender, sɛҳuąƖity, and identity; they prefer isolationist economic policies; they support unions and labor protections and oppose immigration; and they seek to elevate religious organizations’ place in their schools and civic institutions.

There’s a term for intellectual Catholics with a similar worldview: integralists. There’s no universally accepted platform uniting integralists; it’s more of an intellectual framework built around the idea that Catholic moral theology should govern society. Mat Schmalz, a religious studies professor at College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, defined it simply as the idea of “integrating spiritual and worldly, or integrating church and state.” In other words: church before state.

He hasn't explicitly identified as an integralist.  He calls himself "post-liberal right".  But, whatever the label, he is clearly critical of secularism and liberalism and thinks in terms of how to promote virtue.  I am pleased to see a person with these views getting into a position of power and influence.  Perhaps even the Trump-haters here would consider Vance a "silver lining".

No. Vance accepts sodomy.  Is his wife and children Catholic? Or Hindu? 

No. Vance accepts sodomy.  Is his wife and children Catholic? Or Hindu?

What I've read indicates that the wife is not a practicing Hindu although her parents are.  The Vance's children are being raised Catholic and she was supportive of his conversion to Catholicism.

I keep looking at these comments and it just amazes me how we are still in this lemming cloud of "left and right", "conservative and liberal" that the SOS would just love to have us stay in 

And how amazing, I just found out that another Trump Administration official is also Catholic, namely RFK Kennedy! Ah the sweet revenge of the Kennedy family. We have a Kennedy back in the White House Administration. Catholic Hero and martyred President John F Kennedy (rest in peace) must be smiling down from Heaven. Can't believe I didn't know this until now. We learn something new every day, huh. Here's the source.

"Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Talks Catholic Faith, Abortion, Title IX in Exclusive EWTN Interview

“The centerpiece of our lives [growing up] was Catholicism,” Kennedy told Arroyo.

“We said the Rosary at least once a day, oftentimes three times a day,” Kennedy said. “We prayed before and after every [meal]. We read the Bible every night. We read the lives of the saints. We went to church, sometimes twice a day. We would go to the 7 o’clock Mass and 8 o’clock Mass in the summers. It was our whole family, and it was really our whole community. It was part of me growing up ... At age 15, following his father’s assassination, Kennedy expressed that he struggled with his faith. He became addicted to drugs, including heroin, until he was 28 years old.
“During that period of time, I wouldn’t say I lost my faith, but when you’re living against conscience, which you have to do if you’re addicted to drugs, you push God out over the periphery of your horizon,” Kennedy said. “So the concept of God was, although it never was erased from me, it was just a distant concept that was not part of my day-to-day life.
He credits “a profound spiritual realignment” for his recovery from addiction in early adulthood, which he said has been “the centerpiece of my life ever since.” https://www.ncregister.com/cna/robert-f-kennedy-jr-talks-catholic-faith-abortion-title-ix-in-exclusive-ewtn-interview

People spoke of God averting President Trump's assassination as God averting the "timeline" where everything goes wrong. Those who've seen Heroes will knowwhat I'm talking about. But the original timeline where everything went wrong was Kennedy's death. Hopefully the new Kennedy in the White House team fixes things.

Biden and Peℓσѕι are fake. We know that. RFK expressed his openness to a federal ban at one point, and he was also very strong against the anti-life covid vaxxes. Not perfect, but a work in progress.

Biden and Peℓσѕι are fake. We know that. RFK expressed his openness to a federal ban at one point, and he was also very strong against the anti-life covid vaxxes. Not perfect, but a work in progress.

@ 8:54 a.m., you said RFK Jr. is Catholic. In what way exactly is he Catholic? (I'm not asking about his alleged position on abortion, so please don't try to scurry off with that argument.)

In what way exactly is his Catholicism different from Biden or Peℓσѕι? The latter two at least put on a public show for media consumption to trick the CINOs. But RFK Jr.? Find us some verifiable sources of his present-day identification with and/or adherence to the Faith.

I had heard that Vance was a convert to Catholicism but did not really think much of it since that could mean anything these days.  But I was pleasantly surprised when I read this article with more details: https://slate.com/life/2024/08/jd-vance-tim-walz-trump-kamala-religion.html  He has many ideas that I never expected to find in a modern politician.  (The article is apparently written from the perspective of a person who sees this as a bad thing.)

.As imperfect as Vance's conversion to Catholicism may be, at least it came from an intellectual place, rather than this gushy-gooey-Vatican-Two-ey "because there's so much luv and because these people care so much and are so nice" place from which the neo-modernist change agents want to see converts come.

This whole RCIA/OCIA/whatever thing strikes me as so much Newchurch groupthink.  My own reception into the Church, almost 50 years ago, was on a quiet Sunday afternoon with a few loved ones present, and that was it.  I understand that in larger parishes, there may have to be group classes (through which I did not go), but marching the catechumens through all of these "scrutinies" in front of the whole congregation, and sometimes leaving them unbaptized for years while all this plays out, is much an overwrought, sentimentalistic exercise in group dynamics as anything else.