(LifeSiteNews) — Video footage has resurfaced of J.D. Vance briefly criticizing Pope Francis’s crackdown on the traditional Latin Mass (TLM) during a 2021 Napa Institute virtual conference.
Responding to a question by conference host Brian Burch about the challenges confronting Catholics (viewable in the video below at 13:50), Vance emphasized that today many of the faithful struggle with handling internal disputes like the TLM restrictions, noting that while he’s not an avid attendee of the Latin Mass, he thinks barring its celebration is wrong. The July 2021 conference was held during Vance’s 2022 senate campaign and shortly after the Vatican issued Traditionis Custodes.
“I think that one of the problems that we have is that we’re not totally sure how to deal with what should be internal family disputes within the Catholic Church in a world of social media. One of the things that I’m just not totally sure how to deal with as a public figure who sometimes does disagree and agree too with the Holy Father on some core issues is what is my role? Especially as a new Catholic, a Catholic who has some public voice. Like what should I do when, for example, the Pope issues an order on the Latin Mass that I think is not the right order for the Church? Even though I’m not a big Latin Mass guy, it felt wrong,” Vance said at the conference.
Vance added that Catholics need to respectfully debate liturgical and other divisions. The then-senate candidate also touched on the abuse scandal of the last few decades.
In 2021 new Catholic @JDVance commented on #PopeFrancis‘ restrictions on the Latin Mass.
He said he thought Traditionis Custodes “is not the right order for the Church, even though I’m not a big Latin Mass guy… it felt wrong.”
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“[W]e don’t love our families because they’re perfect; we love it because they’re good and because they’re our own. And to me, that’s how we should approach the Catholic Church as this institution. It is certainly not perfect; it has its faults, but it is ours. And we believe in the core truths of the Catholic Church, and we are devoted to it not because it’s always, again, perfect, but because it’s the best way we represent the Gospel in a very broken modern world,” Vance said.
It is important to note that while Vance said the Church is not perfect, the context of his comments makes it likely he was referring to human members of the Church, not the Church as a divine institution or her infallible teachings.
Pope Francis promulgated Traditionis Custodes just days before this conference in July 2021. The motu proprio abrogated the universal permission for the celebration of the TLM granted by Pope Benedict XVI’s Summorum Pontificum and gave the bishops the power to restrict its celebration within their dioceses. In December 2021, the Vatican issued a Responsa clarifying that diocesean clergy are barred from celebrating old Rite sacraments and must be willing to concelebrate the Novus Ordo. In February 2023, Francis issued a Rescript restricting bishops’ ability to dispense priests from the restrictions of Traditionis Custodes.
Vance converted to Catholicism in 2019 and ran successfully for a vacant Ohio Senate seat in 2022 on a heavily pro-life platform. “I am 100 percent pro-life and believe that abortion has turned our society into a place where we see children as an inconvenience to be thrown away rather than a blessing to be nurtured,” his 2022 campaign site stated.
Since being considered and then becoming Trump’s running mate, Vance has broken with Church teaching by expressing support for access to abortion pills, defending the GOP’s support of IVF, and saying a Trump-Vance Administration would not support a federal abortion ban.
“Since the first century, the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable,” the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches. “Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law.”
On the other hand, Vance suggested that defunding Planned Parenthood would be on the table in a second Trump term. He also wrote an op-ed for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette slamming Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democrats for their blatant anti-Catholic bias, and received a “0” rating from the pro-LGBT Human Rights Campaign.