On J. D. Vance, Just War Doctrine, and the Pope

I want to address a few misconceptions about Catholicism that I’ve seen all around social media lately, in response to President Trump and Vice President J. D. Vance and their current feud with Pope Leo XIV.

I’ve been writing about this feud as it’s progressed and gotten sillier and sillier. I’ve heard both pro-MAGA and anti-MAGA talking points on this issue that are driving me mad, because the facts they presume about Catholicism are objectively mistaken. Some people trying to defend the Pope are mistaken, just as people maligning him are mistaken. Same with some of the things that are being said about J. D. Vance after his shocking rant about the Pope. I’ve even heard quite a few Catholics misstate Catholic doctrine. So I need to jump in and clarify a couple of things.

First of all: yes, J. D. Vance is a real Catholic.

People calling him a “fake Catholic” because of his and Trump’s feud with the Pope don’t understand how Catholicism works. Everyone who receives the sacraments of initiation is a real Catholic. The Catholic Church isn’t like some other religions, where people are only considered to be a member if they follow the rules and assent to the teaching of the religion. We consider Catholicism to be more like a permanent change to the nature of that person’s soul, and that change can’t be reversed. A person who is baptized in the Catholic Church, or converts to Catholicism and receives Catholic confirmation, is a Catholic. If you were baptized at Saint Patrick’s Church to please your Irish granny when you were a week old and then never went to church again in your life, you’re Catholic. If you were raised Catholic and then decided to become a Methodist, the Church still considers you a Catholic. If you received the sacraments of initiation for some kind of cynical reason so that you could be a showoff and not because you had a real change of heart, you’re still Catholic. If you commit a mortal sin and go to hell, you’ll still be Catholic in hell. Vance and all the MAGA Catholics are Catholic, just as a liberal weirdo like me is a Catholic. We’re stuck with each other.

I’m not saying you have to like that teaching (though I do).  But J. D. Vance is Catholic.

Secondly: yes, a Catholic is allowed to disagree with a Pope, and we don’t even have to like the Pope either.

“Papal infallibility” is a dogma of Catholicism, but the Pope is considered to be speaking infallibly quite rarely. Most of the time, when he’s preaching a sermon or speaking off the cuff, it doesn’t carry that kind of weight. All kinds of disagreement and debate about our doctrines and how we evolve and apply them are normal, and quite frankly I think there ought to be MORE lively debate. And nobody is required to have happy feelings about a Pope or think of him as part of the family. A Catholic who doesn’t really think about the Pope very much or who feels like they wouldn’t be friends if they knew the Pope personally,  isn’t doing anything wrong. It’s a religion, not a fan club or a personality cult. The Pope’s role is very important and his office is something we ought to respect. I don’t think you should mock, calumniate or threaten a Pope. And we do assent to the dogma of infallibility. But our God is Jesus, not the Pope.

Now, about Just War Doctrine: it exists, it’s very important, and the Pope is right and Vance and his cronies are wrong.

Doctrine, in the Catholic Church, is a thing that evolves. That just means that we’re constantly refining and evolving the way we express a truth and apply it to what we learn about the world around us. The truths of our faith and the things God expects of us don’t actually change; we change when we realize we’ve been expressing the truth or acting in accordance with it in the wrong way. One of the truths that always applies, is that killing is wrong. I realize that the Church has rarely lived up to that simple truth, but it’s still the truth. We’re never supposed to directly kill anyone. The Church also acknowledges that sometimes, you’re trapped in a no-win situation where you have to defend yourself and others with deadly force. For all the centuries there has been a Catholic  Church, we’ve been trying to articulate how a person can do that without directly killing. Some of the ways we’ve tried to do it are terrible ways. One of the ways we’ve come up with, is Just War Doctrine. You’re allowed to say that Just War Doctrine as it’s currently articulated isn’t the very best way of talking about our law against killing and propose a better one. But it’s definitely wrong to announce “killing is good, actually.” Killing is bad.

War is hell. War is always a defeat for humanity. When war is being waged, it is always because somebody somewhere is committing a mortal sin. But in this sinful world, it’s often the case that people find themselves in a war whether they like it or not. Those people aren’t required to lie down and die. They can put up their dukes and defend their country and themselves, always with the goal of ending the war as quickly as possible with as little violence as is absolutely necessary. Just War Doctrine provides a list of criteria, not only for whether you can participate in a war in the first place, but which must be applied to every single action you take in the war. If you manage to meet all of those criteria, then you’re acting in defense of yourself and your country instead of committing the mortal sin of killing. But Just War Doctrine is NOT a way of saying that some wars are good. It’s a way of saying that sometimes, fighting in a war you didn’t start and want to end as quickly as possible, can be justified.

The Pope was correct when he said, in rather flowery language, that God “rejects” the prayers of those who wage war, because war is a mortal sin and if you are in mortal sin, God expects you to get your house in order rather than treating Him like a vending machine. That doesn’t mean that Just War Doctrine doesn’t apply. It presumes the first premise of Just War Doctrine: war is a sin.

It is the consensus, not just of the Pope but of just about every bishop I’ve seen as well, that the war Trump is waging on and off again in Iran does NOT meet the criteria for a just war. You can say that this is a free country and tell them to butt out, but they are articulating the Catholic position on that issue. You can say that Just War Doctrine is silly, but you can’t announce “there’s a thing called Just War Doctrine,” as if that disproves what the Pope said. The reason the Pope is against the war, is that it doesn’t meet the criteria of a just war in the first place. J. D. Vance doesn’t know his catechism better than the Pope.

J. D. Vance is a Catholic. He’s acting like a horrible Catholic right now, but he’s Catholic.

Catholics don’t have to be lovey dovey about the Pope or agree with him on absolutely every point, though they should respect him.

There is a thing called “Just War Doctrine.” That’s not a loophole which makes “Thou Shalt Not Kill” no longer a rule. It’s a way of helping us to follow the rule.

From the Catholic viewpoint, the war in Iran is unjust.

And now you can all go back to squabbling.