Donald Trump and  J.D. Vance were elected with the overwhelming support of self-described evangelical Christians across the United States. Politically, most evangelicals are ardent and vocal supporters of the Republican Party. Most view Democrats as sinful surrogates of secularism who promote an agenda of abortion, same-sex marriage and the destruction of family values. Many evangelicals seek to promote the return fo explicitly Christian values to the public square; they believe that the King James version of the bible should be interpreted literally and that it is inerrant.

House Speaker  Mike Johnson is an exemplar of this kind of fundamentalist Protestant  worldview. As he told Fox News' Sean Hannity: "I am a Bible-believing Christian.” As the National Catholic Reporter observed in an  article by Michael Sean Winters, “Johnson is assuming the meaning of the Bible is uncontested, that his interpretation is the only available one. He is unalert to the subjectivism of his reading of any particular text and is claiming for what may be a personal and even idiosyncratic reading of the text and the full authority of the Scriptures.”

Many evangelicals subscribe to a doctrine known as "Dominionism," the defining characteristic of which is the idea that the world should be politically, socially, and religiously dominated by Christianity. Also known as Christian reconstructionists, they share  the views of former Congresswoman Michele Bachmann and reject religious pluralism and the well as concept of separation of church and state as a false notion championed by secular humanists.  

With the  support of evangelicals, right-wing politicians and lobbying groups have been extremely successful in their efforts to reshape the U.S. political system into one based upon a worldview that urges the creation of a Christian theocracy.

                                                                                                       ***                                                                                                      

In his inaugural address on January 20 2025, Donald Trump, with his customary lack of  lack of humility, described himself as  God’s chosen instrument to rescue America. He referred to the assassination attempt he survived the previous yea : “I was saved by God to make America great again.” 

Just a few minutes earlier, a fawning Franklin Graham—a minister, Trump sycophant, and admirer of autocrats such as Putin and Orbán  —emphasized the same point during his invocation.  “Father, when Donald Trump’s enemies thought he was down and out, you and you alone saved his life and raised him up with strength and power by your mighty hand.”

As Peter Werner observed in the Atlantic days later, Trump exercises a cult-like influence  over much of the evangelical movement. They will support him irrespective of his behavior, no matter how deplorable or contrary to  Christian precepts.  As Werner noted, “ Initially, they reconciled themselves to what he said. Then to how he acted. And now they have made their peace with policies and appointments that would have once caused a revolt.” 

Werner quoted Mike Huckabee, a former Baptist minister, right-wing apologist,  and  governor of Arkansas who has been nominated by Trump to be the American ambassador to Israel. Commenting on Trump’s victory, he stated,  “This wasn’t a comeback. It was a resurrection, and it was a powerful one. He might be called President Lazarus after this.”

On January 21, 2025, the day after his inauguration,  President Donald Trump attended the traditional post-inauguration prayer service at Washington’s National Cathedral. From the pulpit, Bishop Marian Edgar Budde delivered a sermon that clearly unnerved  Trump. At the end of her sermon, she alluded to Christ’s the Sermon on the Mount as recounted in Matthew 5:3-12, and pleaded with the president. 

“In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now,” Budde said. “There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in both Democratic, Republican and independent families who fear for their lives.”  to "have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now."

Trump’s response was typical. He dismissed Bishop Budde as a "so-called Bishop" and a "Radical Left hardline Trump hater." He called her "a Radical Left hard line Trump hater" who "brought her church into the World of politics in a very ungracious way. Later, his  Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, a Catholic and graduate of St. Anslem’s College, accused Budde of "weaponizing the pulpit." 

In an interview on Newsmax interview, Rev. Franklin Graham criticized Bishop Budde for her audacity in appealing to Trump for compassion. Graham described her as  her “a socialist activist” who favored LGBTQ inclusion. “She’s just wrong,” he said. “I don’t know why they (the Episcopal Church) have her there but it’s not just her it’s the others that are there. They’re all the same stripe and they share the same goals. So these are activists and no question they hate Trump. I don’t know why they hate Trump.”

If the good bishop’s invocation of the fifth beatitude was considered to be too radical by Graham and other sycophants, consider how much more unsettling the other seven beatitudes would have been had she chosen to bring them to Trump’s limited knowledge of Christian religious tradition: 

Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are they who mourn,
for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the land.

Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be satisfied.

[Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.]

Blessed are the clean in heart,
for they will see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.

Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

                                                                                  ***

 August 2019, J.D. Vance converted to Catholicism. He was baptized by a Dominican priest, Father Henry Stephan, at St. Gertrude Priory, which is attached to a Dominican parish in Cincinnati, where Vance lived prior to his election as Vice President.

Previously, in Washington, J.D. Vance was introduced to a fellow Yale Law alumnus who had become a priest at the Dominican House of Studies. Before joining the order, Father Dominic Legge clerked for Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Father Legge is a Dominican friar and a member of the Board of Directors of Napa Legal, a right-wing legal foundation whose chairman is Leonard Leo. 

Leo, who also served as a founder Vice-President of the Federalist Society, was largely responsible for having helped to stack a number of Federal Circuit Courts of Appeal and the U.S. Supreme Court with reactionary  jurists. A Roman Catholic, Leo informed Pro Publica in a October 2023 article that his primary objective is to “rid a nation plagued with ills: ‘wokism’ in education, ‘one-side” journalism, and ideas like environmental, social and governance, or ESG, policies sweeping corporate America”. Leo said that he intends to wage a broader cultural war against a “progressive Ku Klux Klan” and “vile and immoral current-day barbarians, secularists and bigots” who demonize people of faith and move society further from its “natural order.” 

 Since his conversion,  Vance has been closely identified with “Catholic integralism,” a right-wing ideology criticized by the Vatican officials which is closely affiliated with ‘Christian  nationalism. According to  Kevin Vallier, an associate professor of philosophy at Bowling Green State University and author of Kingdoms of the World: On Radical Religious Alternatives to Liberalism.  In a March, 2007 article in the National Catholic Reporter,  Vallier explained that “Integralism was operating before any self-understood Christian Nationalists were operating.” 

The movement, Vallier noted,  traces its origins to the fall of the Roman Empire, when the Catholic Church took on many of the functions of the state. For generations, popes argued that God ordained two powers: kings to rule “temporal” matters and promote “ordinary natural good,” and the church to promote spiritual “eternal goods.” In many cases, these two divinely authorized institutions will sort of clash,” Vallier observed. “The question is ‘Well, which is superior?’ The integralist says that the church is superior … and that means it can delegate to the state to help enforce its spiritual mission.”

According to Vallier, integralists prefer a "soft power" approach to exerting Christian influence over society. "There's the sense that the liberal order is so corrupt that elite Catholics have to find positions of influence and use them in a kind of noble and appropriate way," he said.

“What is needed … is regime change — the peaceful but vigorous overthrow of a corrupt and corrupting liberal ruling class and the creation of a post-liberal order,” wrote Patrick Deneen, a prominent author in the movement, in his 2023 book, Regime Change. Vance praised Deneen’s book at a 2023 panel discussion with the author, a professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame.

Vance has often expressed  his admiration for right-wing Catholic postliberalism. He urged that the next time the GOP gains control the presidency or Congress, “we really need to be really ruthless when it comes to the exercise of power” and said Republicans should seize institutions, including universities “to make them work for our people.”

At an Ohio conference featuring a who’s who of Catholic post-liberals in 2022, he told fellow speakers he has “admired a lot of you from afar” as “some of the people who I think are most interesting about what’s going on in this country.”

 James Patterson, professor of politics at Ave Maria University in Florida, stated, “Most ordinary American Catholics would not treat a childless single woman with cats with this kind of contempt,” Patterson said. Even if Vance is not steeped in the philosophy, Patterson added, “he is picking up on the postliberal vibe.” 

Postliberalism, Patterson explained in an August 2024 commentary in the online journal The Dispatch, “is an authoritarian ideology adapted from Catholic reactionary movements responding to the French Revolution and, later, World War I. Second, it is a loose international coalition of illiberal, right-wing parties and political actors. Third, it is a set of policy proposals for creating a welfare state for family formation, the government establishment of the Christian religion, and the movement from republican government to administrative despotism.” Patterson emphasized, ‘We’re talking about people that prefer right-wing authoritarian regimes.”

 On January 30, 2025, a week after he took his oath of allegiance to the U.S. Constitution,  J.D. Vance’s revisionist interpretation of Christianity emerged in full public view. He picked a fight with a British podcaster as a time when the nation had experienced the worst aviation disaster in almost a quarter of a century. The vice president was responding to criticism from Rory Stewart, a former British Conservative lawmaker who co-hosts “The Rest Is Politics” podcast. Stewart, who was also a tutor to Princes William and Harry and teaches at Yale, had trashed comments made in a Fox News interview that  Wednesday.

There’s this old school—and I think it’s a very Christian concept by the way—that you love your family and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country, and then after that, you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world,” Vance said in the interview. “A lot of the far left has completely inverted that.”

Commenting on Vance’s remarks on Twitter, Stewart said Vance had given a “bizarre take on John 15:12-13[This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that a person will lay down his life for his friends.] He described Vance’s interpretation “less Christian and more pagan tribal.”

“We should start worrying when politicians become theologians, assume to speak for Jesus, and tell us in which order to love,” Stewart continued.

“Just google ‘ordo amoris,’” Vance replied. “Aside from that, the idea that there isn’t a hierarchy of obligations violates basic common sense. Does Rory really think his moral duties to his own children are the same as his duties to a stranger who lives thousands of miles away? Does anyone?”

“I’ve said before and I’ll say it again: the problem with Rory and people like him is that he has an IQ of 110 and thinks he has an IQ of 130,” Vance added in a post update. “This false arrogance drives so much elite failure over the last 40 years.”

Alastair Campbell, a former aide to British prime minister Tony Blair and current co-host of Stewart’s podcast, said it was “very odd” the U.S. vice president “has nothing better to do than troll my podcast partner.”

Stewart himself replied to Vance’s jibe on Friday morning, saying it was an honor to “have my IQ questioned by you Mr VP.”

“But your attempts to speak for Christ are false and dangerous,” Stewart wrote. “Nowhere does Jesus suggest that love is to be prioritized in concentric circles. His love is universal.” He went on to argue that humanity is “selfish and tribal,” but “the last person we should be invoking to justify our selfishness is Christ.”

 On Sean Hannity’s Fox News show,  JD Vance defended what he called an “old-school, very Christian concept.” He stated, “You love your family, then you love your neighbor, then you love your community, then you love you fellow citizens in your own country, and then after that, you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world. A lot of the far left has completely inverted that. They seem to hate the citizens of their own country and care more about people outside their own borders. That is no way to run a society.”

After Vance’s Hannity appearance, Andrew Isker, a reformed preacher and co-author of the book Christian Nationalism: A Biblical Guide For Taking Dominion And Disciplining Nations, wrote on X, that people had called him “‘racist’ for speaking about the ancient, traditional Christian idea of ordered loves.” But now, “To see it articulated clearly by the Vice President of the United States shows that we are winning and the postwar liberal rejection of all unchosen bonds is on its last legs. Our fathers will be honored once again.”

“Any Christian who denies ‘hierarchy of loves’ has white men at the lowest level of their hierarchy of loves,” posted Stephen Wolfe, author of the 2022 book The Case for Christian Nationalism.

                                                                                                     ***

Despite the flirtation of J.D. Vance and other right-wing American Catholics with illiberal or authoritarian ideas, the policies upon which Trump and Vance campaigned upon-  and were elected-  were largely classical liberal -i.e. reactionary. They promised to drastically reduce the size of government, dismantle government overreach to unfetter the private sector, reduce government aide to those dependent upon it, and thereby somehow improve the material well-being of Americans Their proposals were punctuated with nativist and racist dog-whistles  that appealed to white working class grievances: to rid the culture of affirmative action programs and DEI,  deport millions of undocumented aliens and shore up the fortress America from its adversaries.

The policies espoused by Trump and Vance and their narrow view of the parameters of Christian love and the obligation of the faithful to bear Christian witness are inimical to traditional Catholic Social Teaching.  

In a press conference on Saturday, March 16, 2013, as reported by CNN, Pope Francis remarked that he hoped for a church that was both poor and “for the poor”. He explained that a fellow cardinal from Brazil told him, “Don’t forget the poor,” as it became clear that he had received a majority of the votes in the conclave. Pope Francis explained to the reporters present that this thought remained in his mind after he realized he had been chosen as the new pope.

“Right away, with regard to the poor, I thought of St. Francis of Assisi, then I thought of war,” he told the reporters. “Francis loved peace, and that is how the name came to me.” He said he also thought of St. Francis of Assisi’s concern for the natural environment and how St. Francis was a “poor man, a simple man, as we would like a poor church, for the poor.”

In his Apostolic Exhortation, Evangeli Gaudium, Pope Francis restated the historical essence of Catholic social philosophy and called upon people of goodwill everywhere, believers and non-believers alike, to work for a better, more just world. Consistent with that tradition, the pope proclaimed that “The great danger in today’s world, pervaded as it is by consumerism, is the desolation and anguish born of a complacent yet covetous heart, the feverish pursuit of frivolous pleasures, and a blunted conscience. Whenever our interior life becomes caught up in its own interests and concerns, there is no longer room for others, no place for the poor. God’s voice is no longer heard, the quiet joy of his love is no longer felt, and the desire to do good fades.”

In unequivocal terms, the pope condemned the free market liberal ideology that now dominates the post-modern world: “Just as the commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill’ sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say ‘thou shalt not’ to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills. How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points? This is a case of exclusion. Can we continue to stand by when food is thrown away while people are starving? This is a case of inequality. Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless. As a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape.”

The pope continued his lament that “Human beings are themselves considered consumer goods to be used and then discarded. We have created a ‘disposable’ culture which is now spreading. It is no longer simply about exploitation and oppression but something new. Exclusion ultimately has to do with what it means to be a part of the society in which we live; those excluded are no longer society’s underside or its fringes, or it is disenfranchised — they are no longer even a part of it. The excluded are not the ‘exploited’ but the outcast, the ‘leftovers.”

Pope Francis observed that “In this context, some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting. To sustain a lifestyle that excludes others or to sustain enthusiasm for that selfish ideal, a globalization of indifference has developed. Almost without being aware of it, we end up being incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor, weeping for other people’s pain, and feeling a need to help them, as though all this were someone else’s responsibility and not our own. The culture of prosperity deadens us; we are thrilled if the market offers us something new to purchase, and in the meantime, all those lives stunted for lack of opportunity seem a mere spectacle; they fail to move us.”

The new idolatry of money, the pope contended, was among the root causes of this phenomenon: “One cause of this situation is found in our relationship with money since we calmly accept its dominion over ourselves and our societies. The current financial crisis can make us overlook the fact that it originated in a profound human crisis: the denial of the primacy of the human person! We have created new idols. The worship of the ancient golden calf (cf. Ex 32:1-35) has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose. The worldwide crisis affecting finance and the economy lays bare their imbalances and, above all, their lack of real concern for human beings; man is reduced to one of his needs alone: consumption.”

The pope expressed his distress at the growing economic inequality, and he placed the blame squarely upon the ideological proponents of unbridled market capitalism: “While the earnings of a minority are growing exponentially, so too is the gap separating the majority from the prosperity enjoyed by those happy few. This imbalance is the result of ideologies that defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation. Consequently, they reject the right of states, charged with vigilance for the common good, to exercise any form of control. A new tyranny is thus born, invisible and often virtual, which unilaterally and relentlessly imposes its own laws and rules... In this system, which tends to devour everything which stands in the way of increased profits, whatever is fragile, like the environment, is defenseless before the interests of a deified market, which become the only rule.” As an antidote to the deification of the market economy, the pope encouraged financial experts and political leaders to ponder the words of St. John Chrysostom: “Not to share one’s wealth with the poor is to steal from them and to take away their livelihood. It is not our own goods which we hold, but theirs.”

Pope Francis presents a challenge not just to self-styled American Catholics who describe themselves as “conservatives” or as “postliberals” but to all other advocates of unfettered capitalism and its surrogates. In February of 2017, for example, the pope, while ostensibly rebuking Myanmar for its mistreatment of the minority Rohinga population, exhorted Christians “to not raise walls but bridges, to not respond to evil with evil, to overcome evil with good.” The pope continued, “A Christian can never say “I’ll make you pay for that’. Never! That is not a Christian gesture.”

Shortly thereafter, Pope Francis sent a letter of encouragement to the U.S. Regional World Meeting of Popular Movements in Modesto, California. In his letter, the pope reaffirmed the church’s commitment to social justice and deplored tyranny amid the “gutting of democracies”. He also condemned leaders who preyed upon “fear, insecurity, quarrels, and even justified indignation, in order to shift the responsibility for all these ills onto a ‘non-neighbor’.”

                                                                                               ***

Catholic social teaching stands in stark contrast to what often passes for the kind of conventional wisdom espoused by most American politicians and “free-market” advocates. That teaching, as reflected in the Evangeli Gaudium of Pope Francis, is part of a long, unbroken historical tradition that draws its inspiration from the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas, in turn, drew upon the writings of the Romans and Greeks, especially Aristotle and Cicero.

The ancient Greeks and Romans embraced concepts of society and the political community that are conceptually different and fundamentally at odds with the U.S. political tradition. Aristotle taught that “Man... is by nature a political animal, and a man that is by nature and not merely by fortune citiless is either low on the scale of humanity or above it...in as much as he resembles an isolated piece at draughts...” The classical conservative tradition emphasized obligation as a correlative of right and insisted that citizenship required a conscious and willing deliberation to participate in the political process. Hence, it was not uncommon that all of the male citizens of ancient Athens often spent days as members of the assembly deliberating issues of war and peace and the merits of proposed laws.

The fidelity of Catholic social teaching to the conservative tradition was again emphasized by Pope Francis, who endorsed the preference of the ancient Athenians for reasoned debate and participation in the political process as a civic duty. In a visit to Athens, Greece, in early December 2021 that received scant attention in the American news media — the pope decried the global retreat from democracy. “Here democracy was born. That cradle, thousands of years later, was to become a house, a great house of democratic peoples. I am speaking of the European Union and the dream of peace and fraternity that it represents for so many people,” the pope said. “Yet we cannot avoid noting with concern how today, and not only in Europe, we are witnessing a retreat from democracy.”

In a live-streamed address that invoked the Greek philosophers Socrates and Aristotle, the pope emphasized that democracy requires the participation of all citizens. “It is complex, whereas authoritarianism is peremptory, and populism’s easy answers appear attractive,” he noted. “In some societies, concerned for the security and dulled by consumerism, weariness, and malcontent can lead to a sort of skepticism about democracy. Yet universal participation is something essential, not simply to attain shared goals, but also because it corresponds to what we are: social beings, at once unique and interdependent.”

The pope observed that another manifestation of skepticism about democracy was the erosion of faith in institutions. “The remedy is not to be found in an obsessive quest for popularity, in a thirst for visibility, in a flurry of unrealistic promises, or in adherence to forms of ideological colonization, but in good politics. For politics is, and ought to be in practice, a good thing, as the supreme responsibility of citizens and as the art of the common good.” 

                                                                                            ***

 In his encyclical, Mater et Magister, Pope John XXIII emphasized the central role of the state in promoting social justice: “As for the State, its whole raison d’etre is the realization of the common good in the temporal order. It cannot, therefore, hold aloof from economic matters. On the contrary, it must do all in its power to promote the production of a sufficient supply of material goods, ‘the use of which is necessary for the practice of virtue’. It also has the duty to protect the rights of all its people, and particularly of its weaker members, the workers, women, and children. It can never be right for the State to shirk its obligation of working actively for the betterment of the condition of the working man.”

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, long before Jorge Mario Bergoglio became Pope, issued a guide entitled Sharing Catholic Social Teaching: Challenges and Directions. The bishops insisted that “...[T]he economy must serve people, not the other way around. All workers have a right to productive work, decent and fair wages, and safe working conditions. They also have a fundamental right to organize and join unions. People have a right to economic initiative and private property, but these rights have limits. No one is allowed to amass excessive wealth when others lack the basic necessities of life.”
                                                                                   ***

Catholic social thought is essentially communitarian. It insists that the state exists to serve the needs of civil society, not as libertarians and classical liberals would have it, to serve only the needs of the individual. As such, the state should not be viewed as a passive instrument designed merely to protect private property or  abstract  rights, but one that imposes reciprocal obligations upon each citizen as a member of a political community; it emphasizes that individuals realize their potential and humanity to the extent to which they participate as full members of a political society — as citizens. For that  reason, it is  also diametrically opposed to illiberal ideologies that would suppress democratic institutions  and deny basic human rights such as J.D. Vance’s  embrace of postliberlaism or Christian nationalism.

The ancients insisted that as citizens of a political community, we are obliged to seek the summum bonum — i.e., the highest good, the ultimate end — which is synonymous with justice as the primary object of all human aspiration, true justice is something that can be achieved only through the law acting as an instrument of the social order.

St. Thomas Aquinas, quoting Isodore, emphasized that “Laws are enacted for no private profit, but for the common benefit of citizens.” Further, “A law, properly speaking, regards first and foremost the order of the common good... Aquinas invokes Cicero to the effect that “The object of justice is to keep men together in society and mutual intercourse.” Now this implies the relationship of one man to another. Therefore justice is concerned only about our dealings with others.”

Aquinas taught that because God endowed each man in his own image and likeness, man has become the steward for the Earth and for all of its creatures and its bounty. It is for that reason that Catholic social philosophy to the present remains deeply skeptical about arguments for an unregulated market economy dominated by the profit motive and the accumulation of wealth. As he observed, “It is lawful for a man to hold private property,” but “man should not consider his outward possessions as his own, but as common to all, so as to share them without hesitation when others are in need ...”

Centuries earlier, Edmund Burke, a Catholic sympathizer, observed that political society exists as a historical project into which individuals enter and depart while sharing a common destiny: “... society is, indeed, a contract... It is to be looked at with reverence; because it is not a partnership in things... It is a partnership in all science, a partnership in all art, a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born...”

Jacques Maritain, the French Catholic philosopher who followed in the tradition of Thomas Aquinas, stated that “the primary reason for which men, united in political society, need the State, is the order of justice. On the other hand, social justice is a need of modern societies. As a result, the primary duty of the modern state is the enforcement of social justice.” 

. An article in USA Today by Liam Adams and Anna J. Frank quoted Massimo Faggioli, a Villanova University theologian. He observed “Catholicism has become more American in this country, meaning it’s become more Protestant, more evangelical, more libertarian, more focused on individual freedom.” To the extent that a number of American Catholics have embraced right-wing liberalism or post-liberal ideologies, they have divorced themselves from the Catholic Church’s historic moorings and ignored its teachings that describe the  obligations of good citizens, whether believers or not, about one’s duty to others.