US Vice President JD Vance describes his 2019 conversion to Catholicism as \u201cjoining the resistance.\u201d<\/p>\n
He recalls having constant conversations about religion with his grandmother\u2014and that the old woman he called \u201cMamaw\u201d harbored a deep hatred for \u201corganized religion.\u201d Thus, he wonders what she would have said had she learned that the boy grew up to become a Catholic.<\/p>\n
In his memoir\u00a0Hillbilly Elegy<\/em>, which became a bestseller following its publication in 2016, Vance diagnosed the maladies of American society,\u00a0believing<\/a><\/span> he had finally found what he was looking for:<\/p>\n \u201cI felt a desperate need for a worldview that understood our bad behavior as both social and individual, structural and moral; that recognized we are products of our environment; that we have a responsibility to change that environment, but that we are still moral beings with individual duties.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n We must concede that he found\u2014or at least believed he had found\u2014a socio-political response of the very same nature to a socio-political problem. When one embraces Catholicism as an antidote to what has gone awry in American society, one inherently embraces a\u00a0particular strain<\/em>\u00a0of Catholicism. By way of an imperfect analogy, we might also call it \u201cpolitical Catholicism.\u201d(1)<\/p>\n Yet it already bears a name, and one that Vance himself champions: postliberalism. Postliberals share certain familiar conservative positions, such as opposition to abortion and LGBT rights. In this regard, their kinship with mainstream American religious thought is unmistakable.<\/p>\n However, there is a fundamental departure: whereas American Catholic conservatives previously viewed the expansion of the state as a problem, postliberals demand a strong state.<\/p>\n Their divergence from the liberal conception of the state lies, first and foremost, in declaring the notion of the \u201cneutral state\u201d to be a \u201cmyth.\u201d Postliberals believe the state should not be neutral; rather, it must actively contribute to the realization of social salvation.(2)<\/p>\n This movement, of which Vance proudly professes to be a part, pursues a \u201ccounter-revolution\u201d wherein they intend to capture the state bureaucracy and institutions such as universities from within, replace establishment elites with their own, and govern according to their vision of the \u201ccommon good.\u201d<\/p>\n Patrick Deneen, one of the movement\u2019s foremost figures, spoke in his 2023 book\u00a0Regime Change<\/em>\u00a0of the need for the \u201cpeaceful but vigorous overthrow of a corrupt and corrupting liberal ruling class.\u201d The formula for political alliance Deneen proposed was \u201caristopopulism,\u201d in which those at the very top and those at the very bottom would mobilize against the \u201cestablishment.\u201d(3)<\/p>\n Nevertheless, I must point out that the crucial crux of this elite substitution hinges upon the premise that establishment elites are \u201cnot elite enough.\u201d Moreover, it is worth recalling that postliberalism\u2014and in our present case, Vance himself\u2014equates this eliteness with IQ scores. In his polemic with Rory Stewart, whom we shall mention below, Vance questioned his adversary\u2019s intelligence, stating: \u201cI\u2019ve said it before and I\u2019ll say it again: the problem with Rory and his ilk is that they have an IQ of 110 and think they have an IQ of 130. That misplaced arrogance is the root cause of so many elite failures over the last 40 years.\u201d<\/p>\n In last year\u2019s series of articles, I\u00a0pointed out<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>that Silicon Valley ideologues approached biological hierarchies and IQ scores (\u201cneurocastes\u201d) with genuine zeal. In the case of Vance, we see once more how facile the leap from the culturalist arguments that flared up during the Trump years to biological structures truly is. Furthermore, while the\u00a0aristokratia<\/em>\u00a0in \u201caristopopulism\u201d is thrust directly into our faces, the\u00a0populus<\/em>\u00a0once again quietly vanishes from view.<\/p>\n Ordo amoris<\/em>: The Popes Against JD Vance<\/strong><\/p>\n In an\u00a0interview<\/a><\/span>\u00a0with\u00a0Fox News<\/em>\u00a0on January 30, 2025, Vance invoked a curious reference to defend the Trump administration\u2019s crackdown on \u201cillegal\u201d immigrants:<\/p>\n \u201cAs an American leader, but also just as an American citizen, your compassion has to go first to your fellow citizens. That doesn’t mean you hate people outside of your borders. But there’s an old-fashioned [concept]\u2014by the way, I think it’s a very Christian concept\u2014you love your family first, then you love your neighbor, then you love your community, then you love your fellow citizens, and only after that do you focus on and prioritize the rest of the world. So much of the far left has completely inverted this. They seem to hate their fellow citizens and care more about people outside their borders. You cannot run a society that way.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Feeling compelled to respond, former British Member of Parliament and Jackson Institute professor at Yale University Rory Stewart linked Vance\u2019s commentary to a \u201ctribal\u201d and \u201cun-Christian\u201d form of religiosity, noting: \u201cBizarre take on John 15:12\u201313\u2014closer to pagan tribalism than Christianity. We should start worrying when politicians turn theologian, dare to speak for Jesus, and begin telling us whom to love in what order.\u201d<\/p>\n Vance\u2019s retort opened with the words: \u201cGoogle ordo amoris.\u201d<\/p>\n Arguing that the idea of there being no hierarchy among obligations runs \u201ccontrary to basic common sense,\u201d Vance asked: \u201cDoes Rory really think his moral obligations to his own children are the same as his obligations to a stranger living thousands of miles away? Does anyone really believe that?\u201d<\/p>\n Deriving from Augustine,\u00a0ordo amoris<\/em>\u00a0is interpreted in\u00a0The City of God<\/em>\u00a0as \u201crightly ordered love\u201d and serves as the very definition of \u201cvirtue.\u201d Its literal rendering is the \u201corder of love.\u201d What Vance understands by this order is a hierarchy among the objects toward which love is directed.<\/p>\n Recall from the first\u00a0article\u00a0<\/a>that Peter Thiel had written, half-jestingly, that Pope Francis might be the Antichrist. It was this very Francis who, shortly before his death, leveled sharp criticisms at Vance\u2019s conception of\u00a0ordo amoris<\/em>\u00a0in a letter addressed to US bishops concerning immigration. Rejecting the claim that Christian love is \u201ca concentric expansion of interests that gradually extends to other persons and groups,\u201d the late Pope underscored that man is not merely a relatively open-minded individual endowed with certain benevolent sentiments, continuing:<\/p>\n \u201cThe true ordo amoris to be promoted is that which we discover through continuous contemplation of the parable of the Good Samaritan\u2014that is, through contemplation of a love that establishes a fraternity open to all, without exception.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n An X account belonging to the current Pope Leo XIV, then Cardinal Robert Prevost, had reposted an article published in the\u00a0National Catholic Reporter<\/em>\u00a0titled \u201cJD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.\u201d<\/p>\n Coming to Vance\u2019s aid would be his reputed \u201cintellectual mentor,\u201d James Orr. Prior to joining the advisory staff of Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, Orr\u2014a theologian who led The Centre for a Better Britain (CFABB),(4) a project he described as \u201cpost-Brexit, pro-nation, pro-sovereignty, pro-Britain\u201d\u2014had become a prominent figure in the \u201cNational Conservatism\u201d movement and attended as a guest the gathering hosted by the US Vice President in the Cotswolds last summer.<\/p>\n In his published response, Orr dismissed Stewart\u2019s critique as the \u201cegalitarianism of secular liberalism,\u201d\u00a0arguing<\/a><\/span>\u00a0that \u201cto the cosmopolitan egalitarians of late liberalism, the \u2018hierarchies of the heart\u2019 are as suspect and objectionable as any other.\u201d<\/p>\n Divided Catholicism in the End Times<\/strong><\/p>\n This division is not confined strictly to the question of immigration. Otherwise, the new Pope Leo would not seize every available opportunity to assault Trumpian immigration policy. For instance, most recently at the Meeting for Friendship Amongst Peoples held in Rimini, Italy, Leo stated, \u201cBefore borders, definitions, and institutions, there are always human beings.\u201d Invoking his predecessor Francis\u2019s 2020 encyclical\u00a0Fratelli Tutti<\/em>\u00a0[All Brothers<\/em>], he remarked that social friendship is \u201cthe public, dynamic, and concrete expression of fraternity\u201d and that when we recognize one another as children of God, \u201cwe come into contact with what fundamentally unites people, beyond any difference, division, or conflict.\u201d Contrast this with the emphases in Vance\u2019s speech from last year. To his mind, America was a place \u201cin a particular geography, with a particular people, possessing a particular faith and a particular way of life.\u201d What defined the United States had to mean, above all, \u201csovereignty.\u201d American citizenship, then, meant belonging to a nation that protected the sovereignty of its people\u2014a sovereignty setting it apart, specifically, from \u201ca modern world determined to erase borders and national character.\u201d<\/p>\n Yet the theater of conflict spans far wider. From DEI and LGBT rights to the ordination of women and abortion, nearly all the familiar culture-war battlegrounds of American politics are bound up in this parcel, alongside the Palestinian question and interfaith dialogue. When the debates ignited by Pope Francis\u2019s reformist drives within the Church converged with the post-2008 search for a way out of catastrophe and the political ascent of Trump, all factions began securing open or covert allies across the political establishment.<\/p>\n Among the countries with which the Vatican has allied for its own agenda, the United Kingdom stands prominent. Last year, King Charles became the first British monarch since Henry VIII\u2019s rupture with Rome in the sixteenth century to\u00a0pray publicly alongside a pope<\/a><\/span>, praising \u201cthe Catholic Church and the Church of England joining hands.\u201d The Royal Household noted that the service \u201csymbolized the joining of hands between the Catholic Church and the Church of England.\u201d Meanwhile, the MAGA postliberals\u2014it goes without saying\u2014march in lockstep with the European New Right and right-wing religious Zionist circles.<\/p>\n Yet precisely at this juncture, a curious contradiction\u2014or rather, an entanglement\u2014surfaces. First, between the postliberals and their Silicon Valley allies: Matt Sleat, who has also\u00a0written<\/a><\/span>\u00a0a book on this movement, argues that on the plane of economic policy, postliberals\u2014contrary to the unyielding free-market fundamentalism of Reaganite conservatives\u2014maintain that neoliberalism has enabled massive corporations to reap unprecedented profits while inflicting harm on workers, devastating local communities, and degrading the environment. They contend that free trade has failed to raise living standards for all, particularly for the working class. Instead, they call for breaking up powerful monopolies, reindustrialization, family-supporting wages, the protection of workers (including the self-employed), and the robust support of trade unions and professional associations. Sleat unearths a historical parallel: rather than aligning with the free-market philosophy of the 1980s, postliberals appear far closer to the 1930s\u00a0New Deal<\/em>, wherein the state served as a countervailing force against capital. This \u201cstatist\u201d posture visibly parts ways with Vance\u2019s primary benefactor, Peter Thiel, and the deregulatory cohort surrounding him.<\/p>\n The entanglement becomes even more telling. For instance, Pope Francis, whom postliberals abhor, advanced an economic vision throughout his pontificate that called for a radical transformation to ensure capitalism served people rather than profit: honest leadership, human-centered focus, ethical responsibility, and contributing to the shaping of a world that serves and uplifts humanity rather than exploiting it. It was this same Francis who\u00a0decried<\/span>\u00a0<\/a>the excesses of globalization, \u201cpredatory capitalism,\u201d and an \u201ceconomy that kills\u201d:<\/p>\n \u201cFrancis traced the roots of the 2008\u201309 global financial crisis to a profound anthropological crisis that, in his own words, \u2018creates new idols.\u2019 In his view, the ancient biblical \u2018worship of the golden calf\u2019 had resurfaced, albeit in a modern guise. We were now confronted with the \u2018fetishism of money\u2019 and the \u2018dictatorship of an economy\u2019 that failed to serve the people.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Indeed, in his encyclical\u00a0Laudato si’<\/em>, Francis emphasized the potential of business to serve the \u201ccommon good,\u201d\u00a0writing<\/a><\/span>: \u201cBusiness is a noble vocation, directed to producing wealth and improving our world\u2026 especially if it sees the creation of jobs as an essential part of its service to the common good!\u201d<\/p>\n Rerum Novarum<\/em>, penned by Leo XIII\u2014whom the current Pope regards himself as following\u2014primarily against ascendant socialism, yet concurrently against \u201cunfettered capitalism,\u201d is regarded as the cornerstone of Catholic Social Teaching. Leo XIII is also remembered as the \u201csocial Pope\u201d and the \u201cPope of the workers.\u201d One might say he produced the first systematic publication of Catholic social doctrine regarding the \u201csocial question\u201d that defined the second half of the nineteenth century. It was likewise the inception of the Catholic Church\u2019s international theorization of what came to be known as the \u201cthird way\u201d: an ethical-political reformist movement would flourish by drawing upon\u00a0Rerum Novarum<\/em>\u00a0against those \u201cwarring brethren,\u201d liberalism and socialism. The workers and the impoverished, cast into ruin by the Industrial Revolution, were to be redeemed through the ideal of \u201cjustice\u201d and a just wage (a \u201cliving wage\u201d); in an era where all social bonds were reduced to the cold calculus of economics, a remedy for the misery wrought by the social question would be forged through the Christian organization of workers and employers alike.<\/p>\n Indeed, upon his election, Pope Robert Francis Prevost (Leo XIV)\u00a0explained<\/a><\/span>\u00a0the principal rationale for adopting the name Leo during his inaugural address before the College of Cardinals:<\/p>\n \u201cFeeling within myself the call to continue along this path, I resolved to take the name Leo XIV. There are various reasons for this, but the principal one is that Pope Leo XIII, in his historic encyclical Rerum Novarum, addressed the social question within the context of the first major industrial revolution. Today, the Church offers the treasury of her social teaching to all people in response to another industrial revolution and to advancements in artificial intelligence, which present new challenges for the defense of human dignity, justice, and labor.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Consequently, the landscape grows increasingly tangled: on one side stands Leo, who in his\u00a0encyclical<\/a><\/span>(5)\u00a0Magnifica Humanitas<\/em>\u00a0warns of the perils of artificial intelligence and calls for its regulation, evoking an apocalyptic specter by referencing the \u201cTower of Babel\u201d; on the other side are conservative Catholics whose\u00a0presence<\/a><\/span>\u00a0deems the Pope\u2019s call for sanctions against AI insufficient. Hostility toward neoliberalism\u2014or, at the very least, the conviction that it has been \u201csurpassed\u201d\u2014is present on both sides of the divide.<\/p>\n Theologian David Congdon approaches postliberalism as an \u201capocalyptic politics.\u201d Drawing upon figures such as Patrick Deneen, he illustrates how postliberal intellectuals construct a narrative of \u201ccultural catastrophe.\u201d According to this narrative, liberalism has not merely failed; it has precipitated the outright collapse of Western civilization.<\/p>\n In this context, the idea of the apocalypse binds these Catholic factions together, however divergent their paths may be. For apocalyptic propaganda performs an insidious political function: through a narrative of existential civilizational crisis, both the postliberals and their opponents legitimize extraordinary measures that would otherwise be unthinkable\u2014or at the very least, ensure that the rumor of crisis is no longer perceived as worse than the reality itself.<\/p>\n Yet does such a crisis not exist? In the next article, we shall examine the death throes of capitalism and attempt to disentangle eschatology from the rigorous, scientific analysis of crisis.<\/p>\n (1)\u00a0Writing<\/a><\/span>\u00a0on postliberalism at the\u00a0Centre de recherches internationales<\/em>\u00a0(CERI), Nadia Marzouki employs the term \u201cpolitical Christianity\u201d to describe these types of Christian movements in the United States.<\/p>\n (2) Another postliberal, Harvard law professor Adrian Vermeule, advocates through what he terms \u201cintegralism\u201d that church and state must be integrated for the sake of the \u201ccommon good.\u201d Vermeule argues that the Church ought to be accorded its rightful authority to guide the state and government in spiritual and moral affairs.<\/p>\n
\n