When J.D. Vance became the 50th vice president of the United States earlier this year, he also became the first convert to Catholicism to serve “just a heartbeat away from the presidency,” as the expression goes. Indeed, throughout American history, while numerous Roman Catholics have served in very high positions in the government, most famously Presidents John F. Kennedy and Joseph Biden, it has been relatively rare for adult converts to the Catholic Church to be among them.
It was notable, for example, when Jeb Bush—son of President George H.W. Bush, and a man of impeccably WASP-establishment ancestry—converted from Episcopalianism to share his Mexican-born wife Columba’s Catholic faith. This was some years before he was elected governor of Florida and his brother George W., who himself had moved toward evangelical Christianity, was elected president. Jeb’s own presidential campaign in 2016, despite its failure, raised awareness of the growing presence of Catholic converts not just in American politics but within the country’s most prominent, traditionally Protestant families.
However, historic as it would be if Vance or another Catholic convert eventually became president, conversion to Catholicism in America’s leading political families is a surprisingly old, if little-known, tradition.