Perhaps not for J.D. Vance
Though he’s an outspoken atheist, British author Ian McEwan is something of an expert on guilt and regret. His 2001 novel, “Atonement,” gives us both in spades through a young girl who wrongly accuses a housekeeper’s son of assaulting her sister. The girl spends her life trying to make amends, something she can’t quite ever do.
McEwan may have something to teach Vice President J.D. Vance. Recall that Vance, a seemingly devoted convert to Roman Catholicism, has long been carrying water for his conscience-free White House master. At his boss’s command, he has battled the pope and U.S. leaders of the Church, particularly over immigration.
In the wake of Pope Francis’s death on Easter Monday – barely a day after the Church’s top leader briefly met with the vice president – it’s easy to think of the McEwan character, Briony Tallis, whose awful error prompted a lifetime of regret. One must wonder: will the pope’s sudden passing spawn such sentiments in the vice president, for whom Francis was in theory an infallible confessor? Will Vance have second thoughts now about his actions and arguments?
On Easter Sunday, Vance visited the pontiff in Rome. Ever gracious, the pope gave him chocolate eggs for his children.
But the day before that, on Saturday, Church officials gave the vice president reason to ponder whether the horrific policies he and his president have carried out on migrants are misguided – as Francis long contended. Vance met with a pair of the pope’s deputies, Cardinal Pietro Parolin and Archbishop Paul Gallagher, who seem to have given him an earful.
“There was an exchange of opinions on the international situation, especially regarding countries affected by war, political tensions and difficult humanitarian situations, with particular attention to migrants, refugees, and prisoners,” a Vatican statement said. “Finally, hope was expressed for serene collaboration between the state and the Catholic Church in the United States, whose valuable service to the most vulnerable people was acknowledged.”
So, did this lead to a Damascus moment for Vance? Did he show any signs of reconsidering his anti-migrant efforts? Did he show any regret or guilt over the wrongful deportation and imprisonment in El Salvador of Kilmar Abrego Garcia and others like him?
It appears not. Indeed, Vance’s often-demonstrated arrogance and slavishness to Donald J. Trump seemed on display in the description of his meeting there by his office.
The vice president and Parolin “discussed their shared religious faith, Catholicism in the United States, the plight of persecuted Christian communities around the world, and President Trump’s commitment to restoring world peace,” Vance’s spokespeople said.
As the Associated Press reported, the Holy See has expressed alarm over the administration’s crackdown on migrants and cuts in international aid while insisting on peaceful resolutions to the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. The reference to “serene collaboration,” moreover, appeared to refer to Vance’s claim that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops was resettling “illegal immigrants” in order to get federal funding, an assertion Catholic leaders deny.
In a Feb. 10 letter the pope suggested he had been following the “major crisis” in the U.S. concerning the mass deportations program.
“The act of deporting people who in many cases have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution or serious deterioration of the environment, damages the dignity of many men and women, and of entire families, and places them in a state of particular vulnerability and defenselessness,” he wrote, as Axios reported.
Earlier, Vance had defended the administration’s actions by invoking on X the medieval Catholic theological concept of “ordo amoris.” The Yale-educated lawyer argued, legalistically, that this “order of love” idea meant responsibility to one’s family supersedes an obligation to a “stranger who lives thousands of miles away.”
“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 posted, according to AP.
But the pope set him straight. “Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups,” Francis responded. “The true ordo amoris that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating … on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception.”
That led another White House bully into the fray. Trump “border czar” Tom Homan, also a Catholic, weighed in against the pope, essentially telling his infallible church leader to butt out. Homan told reporters that Francis “ought to fix the Catholic Church and concentrate on his work and leave border enforcement to us,” The Hill reported.
The contretemps between the leaders of the Church and the lackeys in the White House almost certainly will have no impact on U.S. policy. After all, that is guided by a cruel monomaniac who seems to believe himself far more infallible than any mere pope. And, for his part, Vance is a reliable toady.
But one must wonder whether many American Catholics, especially in light of their leader’s death, will now question the White House approach. Certainly, Trump has given them ample reason — again — to question his mental stability and vindictiveness. Consider what the president had to say on Easter:
“Happy Easter to all, including the Radical Left Lunatics who are fighting and scheming so hard to bring Murderers, Drug Lords, Dangerous Prisoners, the Mentally Insane, and well known MS-13 Gang Members and Wife Beaters, back into our Country,” Trump wrote on social media. “Happy Easter also to the WEAK and INEFFECTIVE Judges and Law Enforcement Officials who are allowing this sinister attack on our Nation to continue, an attack so violent that it will never be forgotten!”
Unhinged? Vile? Why do otherwise bright people like Vance not see that?
The key to Vance’s apparent blindness may lie in his autobiography. The vice president, who detailed the string of men his drug-addicted mother brought into his life in his “Hillbilly Elegy” memoir, has long sought father figures. Trump, it appears, is the ultimate one.
Certainly, Francis — a kind, compassionate and thoughtful man — would have made for a better mentor, a father figure with a heart. But it may be that Vance’s Catholicism doesn’t run all that deep and his thoughtfulness is surprisingly shallow.
Long into her old age, the fictional Briony Tallis made up stories in which she atoned for her errors, though she failed in reality to do so. Perhaps Vance someday will develop enough self-reflection to succeed where Tallis didn’t. For now, however, he seems as oblivious as his master.