Say what you will about the first two weeks of US president Donald Trump’s second term in office, which has seen a blizzard of presidential executive orders and is now handling the fallout of the tragic midair collision in the US capital, it has also certainly put the spotlight on Catholic social teaching.
That’s largely due to the words of Vice President JD Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019.
Before becoming a senator of Ohio in 2023, Vance was most famous for his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, published in 2016 and adapted for the screen in 2020. The book spoke about his small-town upbringing in the Appalachia, including his relationship with his troubled but conservative, evangelical Protestant family.
