Right now, the bishops have a problem. They are unable to speak to native-born, working-class Americans. They are looked at with suspicion by the poor the Church is supposed to serve.

From Appalachian coal mines to Texas oil fields, these people view the Church with suspicion because it does not seem to act in their interests or understand their plight. Fortunately, Vice President JD Vance is uniquely positioned to bridge the clergy with this group of people whom they have not been able to reach. Unfortunately, the Church hierarchy seems unwilling to listen to him. That needs to change. I see three reasons why the bishops have lost this trust.

First, the bishops rarely give concrete guidance on the immigration question. They make vague appeals to loving your neighbour, and sometimes to the rights of a nation to maintain its borders, but this rarely goes to the extent of giving prudential advice on how America can fix the immigration problem it faces. No advice means no action, so this lack of guidance has tacitly allowed the programme of mass illegal migration to continue.

Second, the Church has an economic interest in the continued importation of illegal immigrants through Catholic Charities. I am not alleging duplicity or corruption. All I am saying is that when these charities receive a large part of their budget from the federal government for the purpose of housing illegal immigrants, they have a financial interest in that programme continuing. It is a financial bias, and it was an imprudent move of the Church to put itself in that position.

Third, the bishops have stated their goal is to listen to the marginalised. Yet there exist large swathes of the native-born American people who are marginalised and poor, but feel as though they are not being heard by the US bishops. Whenever they voice their concerns about thousands of migrants changing the fabric of their communities, or their inability to find work because wages are too low, or their inability to find housing because prices are too high – and they are not receiving housing subsidies from the government or from Catholic Charities – they feel upset.

The Church responds by policing their tone and admonishing them to love the stranger. They are not being listened to despite the stated goal of the Church to listen to the marginalised.

JD Vance stands in a unique place to bridge this gap between the unheard and the bishops. If the bishops are willing to speak with him and hear what he has to say, they will find his position is unique because, unlike many politicians, he grew up with direct experience of these marginalised communities.

Furthermore, his conversion to Catholicism puts him in a unique position to understand Catholic social teaching specifically. He cites Rerum novarum in his recent book, Communion, and makes it clear he thinks deeply about what it means to be a Catholic statesman in America.

There are two major reasons why the bishops may be reluctant to listen to Vance. First, they do not want to appear political, to which I would respond: too late. The bishops already appear biased in the direction of the Democratic Party. The highest cardinals in the American Church are frequently socialising with Democratic politicians and being photographed at events with them. Many powerful prelates in the Catholic media wrote glowing endorsements of President Biden and his Catholicism.

Second, many left-leaning Catholics, bishops included, fundamentally do not trust JD Vance’s conversion as legitimate. They suspect it was some kind of cynical ploy to achieve political ascendance at a moment when the Church is experiencing popularity. Vance’s recent memoir Communion puts to bed any suspicion of cynicism. Vance converted to Catholicism in 2018, during one of the worst sex-abuse scandals in the American Catholic Church – arguably larger than the scandal in 2002. In 2018, it was revealed that one of the highest-ranking cardinals in the American Church, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, had been frequently abusing seminarians. At the same time, the infamous Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report was published, highlighting sexual abuse over the previous several decades.

Amid this monsoon of scandal, Vance was still convinced Jesus Christ established the Catholic Church, and he converted anyway. The fact that Catholicism became somewhat in vogue a few years later is astounding and providential, but unrelated to his conversion. Any fear of Vance’s duplicity or the illegitimacy of his conversion is unfairly prejudicial.

Vance represents an opportunity for the American Church to reach a population that it has avoided. If the bishops want to maintain their commitment to synodality, I recommend that they work with him.

Unlike many of my fellow American conservatives, I choose to believe the bishops mean what they say. I trust they want to reach out to “the peripheries” and are committed to listening to the cry of the poor. Given that commitment, I ask that the bishops consider the plight of the American poor, the oft-maligned “basket of deplorables” who voted for Trump and so often offend the sensibilities of the coastal elite in our country.

These people deserve to be heard, despite being rough around the edges. If they know the Church is willing to hear them, they may be willing to listen to us in return. They may be willing to hear the bishops correct the vices they see in them.

Our Church’s social teaching tells us we are to have a preferential option for the poor. We are to listen to them and give voice to their concerns because too often they are denied a voice in the public square. They have found a voice in the Vice President, and we would be shirking our duty as a Church if we did not listen to them as well.

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