Vice President JD Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019, said in an Oct. 29 podcast interview that his faith calls him to balance compassion for migrants with the duty to protect national sovereignty.
“I think the Catholic Church recognizes we have to have border control,” Vance said in the interview, which was on the New York Post’s “Pod Force One” with Miranda Devine. “We have to have the ability to control the borders of our own country. That’s very clearly written in Catholic teaching, is that nations are allowed sovereignty, they’re allowed to control their own borders.”
At the same time, he emphasized that border policies must never eclipse human dignity.
“It’s always useful to remind ourselves that a lot of the people who have come into our country, they’re struggling in some way,” Vance said. “They’re human beings, and even though we have to engage in immigration enforcement, I try to remind myself — consistent with church teaching — that doesn’t mean we can let these people stay in our country, but I do have a responsibility to try to remember their humanity.”
Vance described his approach as a “charitable interpretation” of Catholic social teaching — enforcing the law while recognizing that “all 8 billion people who are alive on this planet are God’s creatures” and deserving of respect and dignity.
The Biden administration’s open-border policies, he argued, have deeply harmed several individuals by violating their dignity and exposing them to exploitation.
“When you encourage illegal immigration [at] the scale that Joe Biden did, you empower the cartels, you empower these people who are raping and murdering and selling 12-year-old girls [as] sex slaves,” Vance said, adding that the Trump administration is fulfilling a responsibility to “stop the border crisis.”
Vance also spoke candidly about his spiritual life, describing a deeply moving visit to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre — which marks the site where Christ was crucified — during his trip to Jerusalem last week. He said the experience was “probably the single most amazing experience of my life.”
Vance recalled kneeling beneath the altar that marks the site of the Crucifixion, placing his hand where the cross once stood, and crying out of deep emotion.
“You can actually place your hand where the cross would have been placed on Golgotha. And I started crying,” he recalled. “I was just completely overcome by emotion.”
He said he also touched the stone of anointing, where, according to the Gospel, Christ’s body was prepared for burial.
“To just be there” was “unbelievable,” he said.
During the trip, he met with Franciscan friars and American priests serving in the Holy Land, who offered a private Mass for him and his wife, Usha, inside the church.
“During his homily, the priest said something very sweet to me and to Usha,” Vance recalled. “And again, you just feel the power of that place.”