On Vance, Catholicism, and the Childless Cat Ladies

Let’s talk politics again. Specifically, our old friend J. D. Vance.

This week has been characterized by Joe Biden making a laudable if cliche-filled speech explaining that he’s stepping down from candidacy for a second term for America’s sake, and then Jill Biden treating everyone to ice cream on the White House lawn. It was also characterized by Kamala Harris building a great deal of momentum in her run for president, though she’s still in a dead heat with Trump in the polls. It was characterized by Trump making his remark about “the late great Hannibal Lecter” for the hundredth time this year.  And then we have the vice presidential candidate for the Republicans, Ohio’s own J. D. Vance.

J. D. Vance is not a personable fellow. I already knew that. But it’s remarkable how his odious misogynistic comments are so over the top that he’s managed to steal the spotlight from Joe, Jill, Kamala, Donald and that ice cream.  I have not heard a single person defending his boorishness. People who laud Donald Trump as a messiah don’t seem to like Vance. And no, I’m not going to mention sofas.

Vance has come under fire for his acrid remarks about “childless cat ladies,” for suggesting that childless people ought to pay extra taxes for their transgression, and for suggesting that people with children are more invested in our future and should have more votes. Today, he said that the “cat ladies” comment was sarcastic and added that he doesn’t really hate cats. He certainly didn’t walk back the “ladies” part. He then went on to protest that he’s only defending families. People are bringing up the fact that Vance is a Catholic to explain this rank misogyny, even using the term “extremist Catholic.”

It’s certainly not my idea of Catholicism.

What’s bizarre to me about all this, is that Vance only has three children himself. He’s been married since 2014, but he only found the time to father three children. That’s not a lot. That’s not a great big vibrant Catholic Humanae Vitae family. There’s plenty of room between babies there– whole years. If his family had gone to my parish in Columbus growing up, the nebby ladies would have started a vicious rumor that Usha was committing the sin of birth control. Even sinful liberal Catholic Joe Biden had four.

Did I offend you by that last paragraph? Good. You ought to be offended.

That’s my whole point. It’s obscene and immoral to criticize families for the number of babies they manage to make. It’s nobody’s business. Three babies in ten years is fine. Ten in fourteen years is beautiful if that’s what ends up happening. Two or one or zero after twenty years of trying every fertility treatment imaginable is a heavy cross to bear, but not the mom’s fault in any way. None because you had a different vocation is perfectly fine and none of our business. One baby because that’s all you could possibly handle with all the other things God threw at you in the course of your life is fine and none of our business. Caring for stepchildren as your own is beautiful. Being the nice old maiden lady who is always hospitable to the neighborhood urchins and reads to children at the Rec Center on Wednesdays is sweet. The most glorious person who ever lived except for Jesus, was a teenage virgin who agreed to get pregnant exactly once without consulting her fiancé first. There isn’t a rule for how many babies is the correct number.

The actual rule of the Catholic Church, regarding whether to have babies and how many, is that married couples should be open to life, not contracept, and be willing to have babies unless they have a just reason not to. One of the fruits that can arise from that is the vocation of a beautiful great big family. Big families are wonderful. Some of the best people I know are from a giant family or have giant families of their own. I always wanted a big family of my own, but my poly-cystic ovary syndrome spoiled my plans. But you don’t HAVE to have a large family. And nobody ought to deride you for having a small family or no offspring at all in the name of Catholicism.

After all, the Catholic Church also praises the sanctity of women who eschewed being a wife and mother to do something else. In fact, historically, the Church has held the choice of virginity in more esteem than the choice to get married. Marriage was considered the easy and pleasurable way out. Nowadays we’re a little less stuffy about that, thanks to John Paul the Second and some others. But we still have a whole category of female saint known as “Virgin.” Virgin saints like Catherine of Sienna and Clare of Assisi are lauded specifically because they defied their families and the social conventions of their day to keep from getting married. Catherine cut her hair off and suffered severe abuse from her mother to thwart plans for a marriage; Clare ran away, also got rid of her hair, and started a convent. There are dozens of saints like that. And there’s also a whole category of saint called “Virgin Martyr” who specifically refused to accept a marriage even though they were tortured and murdered for it. That’s how the Church began.

And if you want to object to the Church’s teaching on birth control and family planning, or to Catholic views on virginity, fine. Be my guest. We can have that discussion and we probably should. But we have to tell the truth. We can’t just make things up. Vance is not representing the Catholic position on women’s vocations. His position sounds remarkably like the position of the Roman empire before Christianity. It sounds like something the Nazis would expect of healthy athletic Aryan women. But there’s no Catholic dogma or doctrine in it, at all.

And it’s gross.

It’s not pro-life or pro-family to treat women as if they have no more dignity than breeding animals.

I don’t have a problem with zealous Catholic converts, and not even with zealous Catholic converts running for office on a ticket I can’t stand. I have a very serious problem with zealous misogynistic dudebro Catholic converts who bring their eugenic views right into their Catholicism and act like they’re one and the same. Women aren’t broodmares. Women are in the image and likeness of God no less than men are.

I hope the political news will calm down next week, but somehow I doubt it.