Vice President JD Vance says years spent chasing academic credentials, professional status, and financial gain ultimately failed to make him a better person.
Vance made the remarks to Fox News Digital in conjunction with the release of his new memoir, “Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith,” which hit bookshelves this week.
“I was really worried about where I went to school and what kind of job I had and what kind of money that I made,” Vance said, explaining that material success felt hollow compared to the lives of Christians around him.
“But I felt like that wasn’t making me a good person, whereas the Christians in my life seem to have it figured out,” he continued, describing what drew him toward the faith.
Vance noted that the quality he observed in those Christians transcended background, wealth, or education, saying they were “much more gracious and much more kind” regardless of their circumstances.
The memoir traces Vance’s path from a Protestant upbringing through a period of atheism and ultimately to his conversion to Catholicism, the faith he practices today.
“There have been so many people who have been very good to me, but I just felt at home in the churches that I was going to with my Catholic friends and that’s a big part of why I converted,” Vance told Fox News Digital.
He described how formative relationships with Catholics shaped his spiritual direction, saying “sometimes God puts people in front of you” and that he would attend church with them and discuss matters weighing on his mind.
Vance’s reflections arrive as he is increasingly viewed as one of the Republican Party’s strongest potential presidential candidates for the 2028 election cycle.
The vice president also addressed his wife Usha Vance’s Hindu faith, a subject that drew significant public attention in October when he expressed hope that she might one day convert to Catholicism.
“Do I hope eventually that she is somehow moved by the same thing that I was moved by in church? Yeah, I honestly do wish that,” Vance said at the time.
In his book, Vance acknowledges that it is Usha who helps shepherd their children to Sunday Mass despite not practicing Catholicism herself, describing her as his closest companion.
“Usha and I talk about everything. She really is my best friend, and she’s the most interesting person,” said Vance.
The couple has three children, Ewan, 8, Vivek, 5, and Mirabel, 4, and are expecting a fourth child in July.
Illinois Democratic Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, who is Indian-American, was among those who pushed back on Vance’s earlier comments about his wife’s faith.
“At a time when Hindu and Indian-American communities are confronting a climate of rising prejudice, talk of mass deportations, and growing anti-Hindu sentiment — even against members of his own party — it’s deeply disappointing that the Vice President would add to that climate through his recent comments while remaining silent in the face of hate,” Krishnamoorthi wrote on X.
Vance said he was surprised by the backlash, arguing that wanting loved ones to share your faith is “common sense,” and emphasized that their family life remains deeply centered on faith regardless of denomination.
“Even though she’s not a Christian, she’s been very much a part of my faith journey in ways big and small,” Vance said of Usha.
