What JD Vance and Harrison Butker have in common

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on July 23, 2024.

The most disturbing truth we’re learning this week about Republican Vice Presidential candidate JD Vance isn’t his demonization of the poor in Appalachia, his words about staying in abusive marriages for the sake of the kids, his claim that becoming pregnant through rape is an inconvenience, or even his reversal from comparing Trump with Hitler to becoming his running mate. It’s about the one thing you’re not supposed to criticize, and the one thing that holds all of those other claims together — his religious faith.

While Donald Trump has attempted to distance himself from Project 2025 as more Americans are learning about the Religious Right’s plan for a theocracy, he chose as his running mate the poster child for Project 2025.

“There seems to be a real consensus emerging in our movement for what’s gone wrong in this country and how to push back against it,” Vance told the Catholic organization Napa Institute in 2023. “I believe, I really do, that the next 30 years in this country is going to be really exciting, really prosperous and really good for Christian virtue and the values that we care about.”

The Napa Institute is such an extremist organization that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops ended its affiliation with the group in part because:

• Event agendas include praying the Patriotic Rosary, a prayer invoking divine “continuance on our cause and our people” using the words of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, for a cause that was the perpetuation of slavery.
• Napa Institute’s founder has stated the minimum wage acts an “anti-market regulation that leads to unemployment” and does “great harm” to workers.
• A conference on “woke capitalism” hosted speakers questioning the authenticity of the Civil Rights movement.

Given that many are touting Vance to be the future of the MAGA movement, and his appearance at an institution touting white supremacist talking points, one wonders what Vance envisions by the next 30 years of our supposedly pluralistic society being good for “Christian virtue.”

But to understand what Vance’s plans are for our country, we have to take a step back and consider his religious faith journey to discover what the people influencing Vance have planned for our country as they promote his rise to power.

Republican vice presidential nominee U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) speaks at a campaign rally at Radford University on July 22, 2024 in Radford, Va. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

A more powerful Harrison Butker?

It doesn’t take long to discover that Vance’s faith journey has taken him into a sect of Catholicism that’s run by Christian nationalist extremists. It’s a version of Catholicism we were introduced to earlier this year through Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker when Butker claimed his wife’s life started after she met him, converted to his religion and became his homemaker.

Butker’s views of the family and of women’s roles in particular are informed by his “radical traditionalist” Catholic theology, often referred to as “Rad Trad.” This particular sect of Catholicism was born as a reaction to Pope John XXIII and the Second Vatican Council deciding in the 1960s to transition the Catholic Church from using the Traditional Latin Mass in their liturgies into using the language people understood. While most Catholics were enthusiastic about the change, a small group of extremists opposed the change and began spreading conspiracy theories about gay Freemasons controlling the church and about the devil being afraid of Latin.

Harrison Butker as an altar server at Traditional Latin Mass. ( Screenshot from EWTN YouTube video)

During the past half century, this group of radicals have become increasingly militaristic. In fact, Timothy McVeigh met with one of their priests from a fringe group known as the Society of St. Pius X the night before the Oklahoma City bombing.

Over the decades, TLM Catholics have continued promoting antisemitic propaganda, opposing Civil Rights, spreading QAnon conspiracy theories and equipping seminaries and churches with rifle ranges as training grounds for using weapons.

Their obsession with violence and public weapons training became so extreme that it led to an FBI investigation that was stopped by U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio and insurrectionist Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri based on “freedom of religion.”

While most Americans would be horrified to read about this group, men like Butker and Vance find it quite attractive.

“I attend the TLM because I believe, just as the God of the Old Testament was pretty particular in how he wanted to be worshipped, the same holds true for us today,” Butker explained. “It is through the TLM that I encountered order and began to pursue it in my own life.”

Of course, Vance’s wife is still Hindu. So not everything about Butker’s story parallels to Vance. But they’re both being indoctrinated by Rad Trad and so-called neocon Catholics.

Trump and Vance’s opposition to Pope Francis

One of the defining characteristics of the TLM today is opposition to Pope Francis. Trump has been especially opposed to Francis since Francis objected to his building the wall and had a less than enthusiastic meeting with him compared to the meeting he previously had with President Barack Obama. Since then, Steve Bannon, a TLM Catholic who was working in the White House, has been influential in promoting TLM Catholics who oppose Francis and support Trump.

JD Vance receives first Communion as a convert to Catholicism in 2019. (Photo: Catholic Citizens)

So it makes sense that Trump’s new vice presidential candidate would also be somehow associated with TLM and neocon Catholicism.

In his 2021 conversation with Napa Institute, Vance noted: “One of the things that I’m just not totally sure how to deal with as a public figure who sometimes does agree, disagree, and agree to with the Holy Father on some core issues is what is my role especially as a new Catholic that has some public voice. Like what should I do when, for example, the pope issues an order on the Latin Mass that I think is not the right order for the church?”

Of course, he attempted to cover his tracks by adding, “Even though I’m not a big Latin Mass guy.”

A number of scholars familiar with Catholicism and the Napa Institute have said this may be due to the fact the Napa Institute attracts radical Catholic speakers and rich financial donors. So a line has to be walked in that gathering of saying what many radicals there want to say while still maintaining an image in an attempt to woo the rich.

But of all the issues he could have disagreed with Pope Francis on as a member of Congress — including topics like climate change, immigration policy or the treatment of LGBTQ people — why was the issue at the top of his mind the Latin Mass if he’s supposedly “not a big Latin Mass guy”?

It seems reasonable to consider that statement as a sign he’s more invested into TLM Catholicism and Catholic nationalism movements than he wants to let on.

Continue reading at Baptist News Global.