JD Vance Says The Pope Should Stick to Moral Issues. That's Because Vance Has None.

JD Vance continues his asinine, nonsensical crusade against Pope Leo for the Pontiff’s opposition to Trump’s wasteful war in Iran, the barbarism of ICE, and the continual weaponizing of Christianity by this Administration.Vance actually had the stratospheric gall to say with a straight face that the Pope “should stick to issues of morality.”This is an unintentional confession by the Vice President that shows just how useless his religion is, how oblivious he is to the teachings of Jesus, and how little morality matters to him.Now, let’s set aside the fact that Vance spends his waking days emotional pleasuring, genuflecting before, and joyfully doing the bidding of a man he himself not long ago compared to Hitler: a court-adjudicated rapist and 34-count felon indicted several times for high crimes; a man whose racism, misogyny, and contempt for humanity are boundless. The theological gymnastics he needs to do, and the self-delusion required to reconcile his subservience to Trump with his profession of faith, aren’t things we have time to unpack right now.I’m not sure exactly what moral issues he believes the Pope should keep himself to; exactly what specific lane he’s suggesting he stay in, but the Vice President seems to believe there’s a whole lot that doesn’t make the cut.To Vance:The intentional bombing of school children isn’t a moral issue.Fully partnering in a genocide isn’t a moral issue.Destroying one of the world’s oldest cultures to distract from a single serial predator’s sexual crimes isn’t a moral issue.Dragging the entire planet into the existential chaos of a deadly, unprovoked, unnecessary war isn’t a moral issue.But that’s not all…The list of what lies outside the bounds of the Vice President’s morality is expansive and ever-growing:- the violent invasion of foreign countries for oil, real estate, and the benefit of billionaires.- the cutting of power to an entire country in an effort to strong-arm them into submission by starving their people.- the deployment of masked, Gestapo-esque thugs, ravaging the streets and preying upon people with brown skin.- the beating, kidnapping, imprisonment, and deportation of people without due process or just cause.- the wiping out of billions of dollars in aid for the hungry, the sick, the disabled, the vulnerable.Which all begs the questions: Just what the hell is JD Vance’s working morality, anyway? How exactly does that Catholicism he never shuts up about show up in his life, his choices, his work?What did he think Jesus was actually doing 2,000 years ago?Any professed Christian with even a mustard seed of integrity understands what the Pope understands: if our personal faith convictions don’t compel us to feed the hungry, care for the poor, defend the vulnerable, confront racism, oppose bloodshed, and stand up to corrupt power—they’re crap.Jesus spent his life and ministry showing his followers that everything was spiritual; that the greatest commandment to love one’s neighbor meant that nothing was off the table. This means that healthcare, education, war, the environment, human rights, body autonomy, and food scarcity are precisely the places where our personal morality needs to show up, because people’s health and safety and survival are moral issues. Vance, as well as Franklin Graham, Paula White, Sean Hannity, and the sprawling cadre of Christian cosplayers who clutch their pearls at the Pope supposedly meddling in politics, don’t see the irony of engaging in these performative lamentations while dragging the U.S. into a full-blown white Christian Nationalist Theocracy.They have no issue presiding over this twisted shotgun wedding between Church and State, legislating their perverted, supremacist theology for the rest of us, and brutalizing the poor, sick, foreign, and vulnerable in the name of a Jesus they frankly don’t give a s**t about.JD Vance doesn’t want the Pope to stick to moral issues; he wants the Pope to stop reminding the world that JD Vance and his party have no morality to speak of, no working theology of benevolence, no desire whatsoever to love their neighbors.They want a Christianity without Jesus, so they can destroy everything he spent his life saving.The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit johnpavlovitz.substack.com/subscribe