Crux

As the United States prepares for the second term of President Donald Trump, the city of Washington, DC, is preparing to welcome its new archbishop, Cardinal Robert W. McElroy. Many observers thought Pope Francis would appoint a more centrist bishop to the post, but the pontiff placed a cardinal considered a leading figure of the Catholic Church’s liberal wing in the United States. Although many in Catholic media – and some in the secular media – are looking forward to the expected clash between the two over issues such as the rights of immigrants, the ownership and use of firearms, and even the treatment of the transgender population (McElroy has been more conciliatory on LGBTQ issues than most of the Catholic clergy) – the real question emerging from Monday’s inauguration is different: What is the future of Vatican-U.S. relations? Trump’s unique rise to power makes things interesting. First of all, he is only second person to serve a non-consecutive term since Grover Cleveland in the late 1800s, and the only one to do so after the office was limited to two terms. That means Trump enters the office as a lame duck. Campaigning for the 2028 presidential election will unofficially begin in the next year, especially since Trump will be 79 in less than six months. Trump’s vice president is JD Vance, the 40-year-old U.S. Senator from Ohio. Barring a bad showing in office, he will be the presumed candidate for the Republicans in 2028. If he does get the nod from the party, and if he does go on to win, he will be the third Catholic president in U.S. history. Vance converted to Catholicism in 2019 and has said he is highly influenced by the writings of St. Augustine of Hippo. “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,” Vance told Rod Dreher in a 2019 interview with The American Conservative. He said one of the subtexts about his return to Christianity was that he had come “from a world that wasn’t super-intellectual about the Christian faith.” “I spend a lot of my time these days among a lot of intellectual people who aren’t Christian. Augustine gave me a way to understand Christian faith in a strongly intellectual way,” Vance said. Like most adult Catholic converts, the new vice president has thought much about Jesus and the meaning of faith. Writing about the reasons of his conversion in a 2020 edition of The Lamp Magazine, Vance said he rarely attended his Protestant church as a child, but as he became an adult, he began to sense the Catholic Church “possessed a historical continuity with the Church Fathers — indeed, with Christ Himself — that the unchurched religion of my upbringing couldn’t match.” “In Christ, we see our efforts to shift blame and our own inadequacies onto a victim for what they are: A moral failing, projected violently upon someone else. Christ is the scapegoat who reveals our imperfections, and forces us to look at our own flaws rather than blame our society’s chosen victims,” he wrote. “People come to truth in different ways, and I’m sure some will find this account unsatisfying. But in 2013, it captured so well the psychology of my generation, especially its most privileged inhabitants,” he continued. “Mired in the swamp of social media, we identified a scapegoat and digitally pounced. We were keyboard warriors, unloading on people via Facebook and Twitter, blind to our own problems. We fought over jobs we didn’t actually want while pretending we didn’t fight for them at all. And the end result for me, at least, was that I had lost the language of virtue. I felt more shame over failing in a law school exam than I did about losing my temper with my girlfriend,” Vance said. “That all had to change. It was time to stop scapegoating and focus on what I could do to improve things.” The new vice president is a politician, and has strongly supported the new president in his campaign. Like President Joe Biden, he faces criticism from bishops on some issues, such as capital punishment and immigration, but is supporting the Church on abortion and religious freedom. Also like Biden, he will be questioned on his religious beliefs by Catholic members of his opposing party, bringing the same religious aspect to the new administration as the outgoing one, although along different lines. However, Vance speaks about his faith in a very different way than the former president: Like an intellectually influenced convert, albeit a fairly conservative one. He often says his faith influences his beliefs. If he follows Trump as president, he may be happy knowing McElroy will be reaching retirement age soon after Trump’s presidency ends – the cardinal is already 70 and must submit his resignation at 75. (Although the pope will not be required to accept it.) And by then, things in the Church might be different. Francis himself is 88, and when the cardinals meet these days, the topic of his successor is always in the air. There are reasons Catholic eyes might want to focus on the new vice president, as opposed to the new – and former – president. In all likelihood, January 2029 will have a much different landscape than January 2025. Follow Charles Collins on X: @CharlesinRome

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