JD Vance really wants you to know he’s Catholic. He converted in 2019, he calls himself a “baby Catholic,” and he’s got a whole book coming out about it. The problem is that he keeps tripping over his own faith in ways that are genuinely hard to explain for someone who’s made Catholicism this central to his public identity.
We’re not talking about minor theological disagreements here. We’re talking about putting the wrong kind of church on the cover of your Catholic book. About blanking on the name of one of the most important Catholic officials in Washington. About snapping photos in the one room at the Vatican where cameras are banned. It’s a pattern at this point, and it’s getting harder to chalk up to honest mistakes.
His Catholic Book Has a Methodist Church on the Cover
Let’s start with the most absurd one. Vance’s upcoming memoir, Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith, is a 304-page book about how he found his way to Catholicism. The cover features a quaint little white clapboard church surrounded by trees against a sunset. Looks nice. Very rural America. One problem: that church is Mount Zion Church in Elk Creek, Virginia — a United Methodist congregation. Based on recent news reports from April 2026, the church has an average Sunday attendance of 17 people, though it’s described as a small congregation with largely older membership that has struggled with declining attendance like many rural churches. While official UMC data wasn’t directly accessible to verify current figures, the recent news coverage continues to reference this attendance number.
It’s a stock photo. The same image was previously used to illustrate a Babylon Bee satire piece making fun of a church that only held one service a week. So Vance’s deeply personal Catholic memoir shares its cover art with an internet joke about a tiny Protestant church. You could not write this stuff.
HarperCollins, his publisher, tried to spin it by saying the church “comes from the part of the country where Vice President Vance grew up” and that the book discusses “Christianity in an ecumenical sense.” Sure, but the book is specifically about becoming Catholic. That’s literally what “Communion” refers to. Picking a Methodist church for the cover is like writing a cookbook about Italian food and putting a taco on the front.
The People at That Church Have Never Heard of Him
It got worse. The Washington Post tracked down actual members of Mt. Zion United Methodist Church to ask if they had any connection to the vice president. They did not. Marshall Funk, a 78-year-old regular at the church, told reporters that Vance had never visited the church as far as he knew.
To his credit, Funk was gracious about it: “That’s between him and God.” Which is the kind of thing a genuinely faithful person says when they’re being polite about something ridiculous. Vance has no Methodist affiliation whatsoever. Before converting to Catholicism, he went through a period of atheism in college. The church on his book cover is connected to him in exactly zero ways — it’s just a pretty picture that tested well with focus groups, apparently.
Social media was less forgiving than Marshall Funk. One user wrote: “Everything about him down to his freaking name is manufactured.” Others called it proof that his entire religious identity is a political performance. Whether that’s fair or not, using a random stock photo of a denomination you don’t belong to for the cover of your conversion memoir is not a great way to prove the critics wrong.
He Couldn’t Identify the Vatican’s Top Diplomat to the U.S.
The book cover thing would be embarrassing enough on its own, but Vance followed it up with another stumble during a press conference in Budapest. A reporter asked him about a report that senior military leaders had invited Cardinal Christophe Pierre — the Apostolic Nuncio to the U.S., which is basically the Vatican’s ambassador — to the Pentagon and pressured him about Trump’s war in Iran.
Vance’s response: “With no disrespect to the Cardinal, I don’t know who Cardinal Christophe Pierre is.”
The reporter reminded him that Pierre was the Vatican’s ambassador to the U.S. and the Holy See. Vance then said, “Oh, okay, okay, I do. I’ve met him before. Sorry. I just didn’t remember the name.” Which, fine, people forget names. But this is the equivalent of a guy who won’t stop talking about how much he loves football not being able to name the commissioner of the NFL. If your entire brand is being a devout Catholic, you should probably know who the Pope’s guy in Washington is.
Actress Morgan Fairchild summed up the reaction perfectly: “But… you’re Catholic…” Jeopardy champion Hemant Mehta was more pointed: “Why would Vance know about a high-ranking Catholic leader with ties to DC? It’s not like Vance is a recent convert who wrote a forthcoming book about the importance of his Catholic faith.”
He Took Photos Inside the Sistine Chapel
During an Easter weekend visit to the Vatican, Vance was photographed by White House photographer Emily Higgins inside the Sistine Chapel, holding his young son and gazing up at Michelangelo’s ceiling. It’s a lovely image. It’s also taken in the one spot in the entire Vatican where photography is completely banned.
The photo ban has been in place since 1980, when the Vatican gave Japan’s Nippon TV exclusive photo and video rights to the restored frescoes in exchange for $4.2 million to fund the restoration. Regular visitors who try to sneak photos get their cameras confiscated and are forced to delete everything. Security guards in the chapel are famously aggressive about enforcing this.
When the photo made its way online — posted by MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk — the response was predictable. “You do NOT take pictures in the Sistine Chapel. No respect.” Another wrote: “Every true Catholic knows this.” A source close to the situation later told reporters that the Vatican gave special permission for the photographer, which is plausible — VIP treatment at the Vatican is real. But even if technically allowed, posting the photos publicly was tone-deaf given how strictly the
