There’s a common saying among secular Israeli Jews: “The synagogue I don’t attend is Orthodox.” It reflects the fact that Orthodox Judaism is the spiritual home for Israeli Jews, even secular Jews who do not actually practice Judaism.
As a mostly secular American Jew, I don’t attend church. But the church I don’t attend is Catholic. No other faith has the same synthesis of social conservatism and select progressive values. And no other faith is better positioned to maybe, just maybe, bridge the awful divisions in our country.
The Catholic Church as Rock and Bridge
The Catholic Church’s social conservatism is, of course, linked to its reverence for the whole and natural human person. This is why Catholic thought champions the value of human life from conception to natural death. It’s why the Catholic Church opposes abortion, euthanasia, and even developments like artificial contraception that hijack natural human rhythms. I don’t fully adopt these moral principles (my wife and I cheerfully used contraception after our kids were born), but you have to admire a whole-life ethic that has persevered even in the face of fierce cultural headwinds.
The Catholic Church is also unafraid to let this same ethic lead into more progressive causes. For example, devout Catholics were some of the first to sound the alarm at the Trump administration’s reckless and chaotic cuts to lifesaving foreign aid. Many conservative Catholic thinkers have also taken pro-climate positions, as have recent popes from Benedict to the current Leo. This is no coincidence: the same Catholic ethic that values the whole and natural human person also values the natural world and human life in foreign countries.
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Sign up and get our daily essays sent straight to your inbox.Moreover, because it offers a coherent synthesis of social conservatism and progressivism, Catholicism is uniquely positioned to bridge our partisan divides. If there is any force powerful enough to bring together partisan tribes who are careening apart, it is the shared heritage and common language of Christianity. And within the Christian ecosystem, the largest faith that can credibly speak to conservatives and progressives alike is Catholicism.
This fact offers powerful lessons for the Church and its adherents. As for the Church, it should continue to champion its principles even in the face of cultural liberalism from the left and political pressure from the MAGA right. A Church that abandons its sexual ethics in the face of liberal pressure will disillusion conservatives. A Church that abandons its stances on creation care or worldwide human dignity in the face of MAGA pressure will disillusion progressives. And a Church that abandons its principles in either direction will disillusion Catholics and non-Catholics alike, who look to the Rock of Peter as one of the few principled institutions in today’s fallen world.
A Catholic Presidency?
As it goes for the Church, so it goes for the brilliant and devout Catholic who sits one heartbeat away from the presidency. It is hardly fanciful to think that J. D. Vance may someday become president. And if he does, he will have a momentous choice to make. He can adopt a truly Catholic policy package that aligns with the MAGA right on certain issues while breaking with them on others. Or he can continue with Trump’s MAGA policy package, regardless of whether it aligns with Catholic social teaching. One can only hope Vance makes the former choice. (One might also hope Vance’s self-interest will push him toward the former choice, as Trump’s MAGA agenda has resulted in an approval rating that is more than ten points underwater).
It’s not too early to sketch out what a Catholic Vance presidency might look like, if only to clarify the table stakes. Consider the following possibilities.
Favoring Social Conservatives over Barstool Sports Conservatives
For example, a Vance administration might push for nationwide age filters for online pornography or address the Wild West of AI porn. It might rein in online sports betting that is draining the coffers and harming the futures of young men. It might put limits on crypto speculation, given the number of scammy memecoins that prey on the weak, naive, and vulnerable. The Trump administration did not take any of these steps, given its courting of “Barstool Sports conservatives:” young, secular, libertine-ish men who are more than a little crude and just want to have a good time. They enjoy their porn, their online betting, and their crypto speculation. But a Vance administration, influenced by Catholic concern for the common good, should be willing to push back against libertine excess in a way that the Trump administration did not.
Favoring Family Formation over Tax Cuts for the Wealthy
Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill gave massive tax cuts to the rich, gave smaller handouts to seniors, and gave young families a few paltry crumbs from the table. The child tax credit remains smaller in real terms than it was in 2017. Young families and would-be families will also have to shoulder the massive debt burden that Trump’s bill caused for decades to come. Catholic commentators like Ross Douthat rightly criticized the bill as kneecapping family formation to fund tax cuts for the wealthy. A Vance administration should move in the opposite direction—offering more support for young families even if it means raising taxes on wealthier Americans.
Caring About Climate Change, Scientific Research, and Foreign Aid
Some of the most distressing elements of the Trump platform are the gleeful attacks on climate action, scientific research, and foreign aid. These moves are best understood as a kulturkampf designed to “troll the libs” by taking a sledgehammer to the causes liberals care about. But from a Catholic perspective, there is every reason for Vance to move leftward on these issues. As stated above, Catholic thought is quite favorable to climate action, and for good reason: there is nothing admirable about letting every year get hotter and hotter until seasonal rhythms and traditions are wrecked. Catholic thought also favors the advancement of human knowledge through scientific research, and Catholic universities are certainly threatened by Trump’s cuts to research funding. Finally, on foreign aid, it should be self-evident that Catholic thought favors wealthy countries like the United States providing lifesaving foreign aid.
This does not mean a Vance administration should ban fossil fuels in the name of climate action, or fund intersectional navel-gazing in the name of scientific research, or promote outré LGBT content to conservative African countries in the name of foreign aid. On these issues, as on all political issues, there is a balance to be struck. And as Thomas P. Harmon recently wrote in these pages, Catholic social thought cannot pinpoint the precise balance to strike on political issues. But any reasonable observer would conclude that Trump struck the wrong balance. A Vance administration, influenced by Catholic social thought, can and should do better.
Imagine, then, a Vancian policy agenda that is socially conservative, pro-family, and judiciously favorable to climate action, scientific research, and foreign aid. This would not be a hard-right agenda—it would be a big-tent agenda. It may even be able to bring the country together.
Thus, I disagree with Daniel P. Burns’s recent statement here that “if our country is to be saved from its long decline, it will be mainly by Protestants.” There is no obvious Protestant politician on deck to potentially play the role of uniter-in-chief. (The current president revels in his role as divider-in-chief.) Protestant churches also tend to be balkanized into liberal and conservative denominations, perhaps because they are U.S.-specific and hence more susceptible to domestic political pressures. In turn, this balkanization makes it much more difficult for Protestant churches to build productive cross-ideological alliances.
For example, Burns expresses dismay about the recent struggles of pro-life advocates. But the conservative evangelical Protestant sects that champion pro-life politics are closely linked with Trumpism and down-the-line political conservatism. They have little to offer centrist or cross-pressured voters who may be conflicted on abortion but have certain progressive values. There is little chance these voters will listen to evangelical Protestants on abortion or anything else. By contrast, the Catholic Church can speak to such voters, as could a President Vance who adopted a holistic Catholic agenda. Catholicism has a big-tent credibility that Protestantism does not. While individual Catholic parishes are not immune to political tribalism, the Church as a whole has shown that it can maintain policy positions that do not neatly track the political right or left. And if you doubt the potency of this heterodoxy, consider that 70 percent of American liberals had a positive view of the pro-life, socially conservative pope just last year. Because it is politically heterodox, Catholic social thought can speak to (and potentially persuade) voters across the political spectrum.
To put the point a different way: ever since Hillary Clinton’s epic flame-out in 2016, astute commentators have noted that Democrats will not gain support from social conservatives if they have nothing to offer them. But social conservatives may be caught in a mirror-image bind—they probably will not attract broad popular support so long as they are linked with a divisive and hard-edged Trumpism that is repellent to centrist and center-left voters. Social conservatives would find themselves in a stronger position if they adopted an ethos that married social conservatism with more progressive positions on other charged issues like global poverty or climate change. And here’s the thing: they don’t need to build this ethos from scratch. The ethos already exists. It lies in Catholic social teaching.
As for myself, I’ll continue to admire the Catholic Church from afar. I’ll pray that it holds fast to its ethical principles. And I’ll wait to see what the future holds for the Church, for its most powerful American adherent, and for all of us.
