About
By Michael Pakaluk
When J.D. Vance's memoir of his path back to Christianity, Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith, is described at a high level of generality, we see immediately that it is a book of the highest importance. Here is a leader on the world stage who grasps, and is not afraid to say, that Christianity has been the source of social unity for European – that is, Western – civilization, and also for that nation we call the United States, and even for neighborhoods and families.
The only two realities that unite us across disparities of wealth, race, and creed are the military and the Church, he likes to say. Economic bonds – trade agreements and business relationships – are insufficient. So too are procedural constructions of "international order" and human rights.
Rather, these systems risk dissolving subsidiary unities; and when they become "global," they serve only to unite the elites of various countries, rendering them incapable even of understanding the concerns of common working men and women.
Now add that this perceptive world leader has embraced Catholicism as that realization of Christianity that he regards as best. I don't think that commentators who anticipated a "Catholic moment" thought it could take this form.
Also working at a high level of generality, we can say that Vance converts to Catholicism because of a neglected transcendental. Some have seen Christianity as the source of Beauty (Kenneth Clark). Others, as the source of knowledge, science, and our grasp of Truth (Pierre Duhem). Still others, for its fostering of holiness, the virtues, and the Good (Tom Holland). But Vance correctly sees it as the glue that can make us, across our differences, in various ways One.
In this he is closely following Vatican II, which in Gaudium et spes taught that the Church, "thanks to her relationship with Christ, [is] a sacramental sign and an instrument of intimate union with God, and of the unity of the whole human race." (n.42, quoting Lumen gentium n.1)
But this is at a high level of generality. The book is a memoir and begins, again, with Vance's "hillbilly" roots in Appalachia, with tales of Mamaw and her crass bits of wisdom and guns. True, the book is interspersed with mini-policy papers on Catholic social teaching – immigration and other topics you'd expect from a potential presidential candidate – that are not always very accurate or well-grounded. But what keeps the book moving are anecdotes and tone of a tent-revival testimony.
Therefore, it must ultimately be evaluated for that testimony and, as a Catholic's memoir, whether it witnesses well to Catholicism.
The man giving witness is appealing and good-hearted. He shows real self-knowledge about the pointlessness of his ambitions as a young man. He wants above all to be a good father. He puts being a good father above his career. He sees that being a good father means caring for the character of his children above all.
Although highly credentialed, he wants to stay united with ordinary workers, like his dad, who was a welder. He strives to consider himself no better than they are, to regard their work as having equal dignity with his own.
He has a generous love of the religious pluralism distinctive of America. In this, he is like a mainline Protestant from the 1950s. He's a Catholic who loves Charlie Kirk, and who can also get along with progressive Christians in supporting the labor movement. He loves the generically Christian American civic religion of the 1950s.
But when I consider the book as the story of a Catholic convert, I find multiple shortcomings, and one very disturbing and scandalous chapter, which together make this a book that I cannot recommend to young persons or inquirers. This is a shame, because these shortcomings could easily have been repaired.
The scandalous chapter is entitled "My Favorite Year," which describes how he and Usha shacked up in Cincinnati, bought two dogs, and lived like the secular elites Vance loves to ...
When J.D. Vance's memoir of his path back to Christianity, Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith, is described at a high level of generality, we see immediately that it is a book of the highest importance. Here is a leader on the world stage who grasps, and is not afraid to say, that Christianity has been the source of social unity for European – that is, Western – civilization, and also for that nation we call the United States, and even for neighborhoods and families.
The only two realities that unite us across disparities of wealth, race, and creed are the military and the Church, he likes to say. Economic bonds – trade agreements and business relationships – are insufficient. So too are procedural constructions of "international order" and human rights.
Rather, these systems risk dissolving subsidiary unities; and when they become "global," they serve only to unite the elites of various countries, rendering them incapable even of understanding the concerns of common working men and women.
Now add that this perceptive world leader has embraced Catholicism as that realization of Christianity that he regards as best. I don't think that commentators who anticipated a "Catholic moment" thought it could take this form.
Also working at a high level of generality, we can say that Vance converts to Catholicism because of a neglected transcendental. Some have seen Christianity as the source of Beauty (Kenneth Clark). Others, as the source of knowledge, science, and our grasp of Truth (Pierre Duhem). Still others, for its fostering of holiness, the virtues, and the Good (Tom Holland). But Vance correctly sees it as the glue that can make us, across our differences, in various ways One.
In this he is closely following Vatican II, which in Gaudium et spes taught that the Church, "thanks to her relationship with Christ, [is] a sacramental sign and an instrument of intimate union with God, and of the unity of the whole human race." (n.42, quoting Lumen gentium n.1)
But this is at a high level of generality. The book is a memoir and begins, again, with Vance's "hillbilly" roots in Appalachia, with tales of Mamaw and her crass bits of wisdom and guns. True, the book is interspersed with mini-policy papers on Catholic social teaching – immigration and other topics you'd expect from a potential presidential candidate – that are not always very accurate or well-grounded. But what keeps the book moving are anecdotes and tone of a tent-revival testimony.
Therefore, it must ultimately be evaluated for that testimony and, as a Catholic's memoir, whether it witnesses well to Catholicism.
The man giving witness is appealing and good-hearted. He shows real self-knowledge about the pointlessness of his ambitions as a young man. He wants above all to be a good father. He puts being a good father above his career. He sees that being a good father means caring for the character of his children above all.
Although highly credentialed, he wants to stay united with ordinary workers, like his dad, who was a welder. He strives to consider himself no better than they are, to regard their work as having equal dignity with his own.
He has a generous love of the religious pluralism distinctive of America. In this, he is like a mainline Protestant from the 1950s. He's a Catholic who loves Charlie Kirk, and who can also get along with progressive Christians in supporting the labor movement. He loves the generically Christian American civic religion of the 1950s.
But when I consider the book as the story of a Catholic convert, I find multiple shortcomings, and one very disturbing and scandalous chapter, which together make this a book that I cannot recommend to young persons or inquirers. This is a shame, because these shortcomings could easily have been repaired.
The scandalous chapter is entitled "My Favorite Year," which describes how he and Usha shacked up in Cincinnati, bought two dogs, and lived like the secular elites Vance loves to ...