A leading Catholic paper has branded JD Vance a “moral stain” and accused the vice president of having a “twisted and wrongheaded view of Christianity” for his comments on a woman killed by ICE.
Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother, was shot three times in her car by a federal officer carrying out immigration raids on Jan. 7. Vance, 41, who identifies as Catholic, has since joined the government’s push to brand Good a “domestic terrorist” who tried to run the officer over, calling her death “a tragedy of her own making.”
In a blistering op-ed column on Thursday, the National Catholic Reporter accused Vance of “justifying” Good’s killing, saying his comments are “a moral stain on the collective witness of our Catholic faith.”
The outlet’s digital editor John Grosso wrote: “In times past, a politician might offer thoughts and prayers, encourage those reacting to wait for the full results of the investigation and generally try to lower the temperature. A leader might take the opportunity provided by a fresh day to soothe the broken heart of a nation.“
But, Grosso added, “JD Vance went in a different direction.”
Good, 37, a U.S. citizen, was killed when an ICE officer fired into her SUV on a residential street in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Multiple videos show agents shouting conflicting orders at her before one officer moved toward the driver’s door and another stood in front of the vehicle and opened fire as it rolled forward.
The Trump administration quickly framed the killing as an “act of domestic terrorism,” with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem alleging that Good had “weaponized her vehicle” and Trump claiming she “violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer.” Local officials who reviewed the footage, including Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, have called that version of events “garbage.”
Undeterred, Vance went even further. In posts on X and in a White House briefing, he argued that Good’s death was “a tragedy of her own making” and that she was part of “a broader left-wing network to attack” ICE officers.
In response, Grosso wrote: “As a Catholic, Vance knows better than to peddle this brand of gaslighting and agitation. Vance knows that only God can take life. Vance knows that protesting, fleeing or even interfering in an ICE investigation (which there is no evidence that Good did) does not carry a death sentence. Vance knows that lying and killing are sins.
But, Grosso added, “He doesn’t care. Vance’s twisted and wrongheaded view of Christianity has been repudiated by two popes.”
Suggesting that Vance’s Catholicism “seems to be little more than a political prop, a tool only for his career ambitions and desire for power,” Grosso said: “The vice president’s comments justifying the death of Renee Good are a moral stain on the collective witness of our Catholic faith. His repeated attempts to blame Good for her own death are fundamentally incompatible with the Gospel. Our only recourse is to pray for his conversion of heart.”
The critique is part of the latest episode in the long-running tension between Vance and the Vatican over the Trump administration’s hardline immigration crackdown. In 2025, Pope Francis skipped an official meeting with Vance at the Vatican, sending Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin instead to deliver a lecture on compassion and migrant rights, before granting the vice president only a brief Easter greeting the next day.
Francis’ final months were marked by increasingly sharp rebukes of Trump-era mass deportations, which he called a “disgrace” and “not Christian,” and by a behind-closed-doors dressing-down of Vance over the White House’s treatment of migrants shortly before the pontiff died at 88.
His successor, Pope Leo XIV, 69, has also seemed to distance himself from the Trump immigration agenda. When Vance led the U.S. delegation to Leo’s inaugural Mass in Rome last year, the new pope greeted him briefly in public but held private meetings that day with Ukraine’s president and Peru’s president instead.
A longer sit-down with Vance followed a day later, but the Vatican’s statement on it emphasized humanitarian concerns and “current international issues,” which was interpreted as a subtle signal of disagreement.
Outside Rome, Catholic criticism of the administration’s immigration campaign has intensified. An essay on the Letters From Leo website this week declared that Trump’s renewed crackdown—“championed by our nominally Catholic Vice President JD Vance”—has “inflicted mounting inhumanity,” and said the policies have drawn “scathing rebukes from two popes and the vast majority of bishops.”
The Daily Beast has contacted Vance’s office for comment.
I mean to each their own, but if you do believe in a God, you might also view this through the lens of most historical and religious texts being full of very similar stories. Seemingly undefeatable evil and oppressive rulers and empires, reigning supreme over large numbers of people for generations until the day they just suddenly didn't.
For me personally, it has actually kind of rekindled and helped me better understand my own faith, and I've stumbled across numerous passages in the bible that almost seem to be warning about this exact scenario. False prophets, hypocrisy, and men who use their positions of power and influence to spread a false message in the name of Jesus to deceive oppressed people, keep them from resisting oppression, and gaslight them into believing their oppression is a necessary part of God's larger plan. As if the oppressors were actually chosen by God to commit these horrific acts, and anyone who isn't loyal to their leadership somehow also isn't being loyal to God.
That dumbass Pete Hegseth actually recently quoted one of those warnings (Matthew 10:34) in an attempt to claim his thirst for destruction and violence is simply a manifestation of Jesus acting through him to spread his message... Except, he missed the entire point of the passage he quoted by about a million fucking miles.
When Jesus says he brings a message of the sword not one of peace, he's using a metaphor to describe the divisiveness of the message (the sword) he preached. When you read the entire passage in context, then try to depict Jesus as a violent warrior with a sword ready to go to war, you're literally arguing that Jesus was telling people to kill anyone that disagrees with them including their own parents... If that doesn't sound like something Jesus would say, it's because he definitely wasn't trying to say that. Like many parts of the Bible and other ancient texts, it was obviously a figure of speech. He was explaining that the true message of Christianity can often be a divisive one, even for the people you consider your closest friends and family.
When we hear this blasphemous messages this administration is spreading, like the idea of "toxic empathy," as a justification for tearing immigrant families apart by kidnapping, detaining, and often deporting them to places they fled while seeking asylum, just to flaunt their disregard for human life. Actively protecting wealthy pedophiles and rapists from justice, while publicly celebrating the attack and invasion of smaller and weaker sovereign country to kidnap a dictator and his wife, and put them on trial in the U.S., while the administration is continuing to violate habeas corpus for millions who have been detained in immigration sweeps in the U.S. Seizure of what resources that smaller country does have simply to make some of the most wealthy American corporations even more wealthy by giving them a larger share of the huge profits they were already making, yet still refusing to provide healthcare, housing, and other basic needs to Americans citizens. Now they're literally trying to justify the murder of a mother who made the fatal mistake of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and not bowing before the mighty army of the King when they invaded her home while welding their "absolute immunity" (not to mention the monetization of all of these fucked up messages and policies via constant exploitation of a religion they seem to care nothing about). We quite literally (not metaphorically) are all collectively witnessing how hard a pill to swallow Christianity actually is for the people who profit in his name while openly refusing to respect or follow the word of Christ.
Sorry for beating a dead horse, but these cowardly fascists hiding behind Christianity to spread their hate gets me a bit riled up. Even if you didn't grow up from birth to 18 immersed in the often dark and hypocritical world of southern evangelical Christianity, (then come out the other side very jaded only to realize that in spite of everything they tried to brainwash you into believing, your faith was never lost, it was what was guiding you to resist the whole time), you probably still understand that Jesus would be fucking pissed and flipping tables if he caught a glimpse of One America or Fox News right now, just like anyone with a shred of decency and critical thinking skills should be.
The passage Hegseth chose to quote as "secretary of war," is actually particularly relevant when it comes to contrasting the hypocrisy of the Christian Nationalist movement with what Jesus actually says in the same book (The Greatest Commandment Matthew 22:35-40), are the 2 most important commandments to remember and follow even if you take away nothing else from the Bible (practicing empathy and loving your neighbor as a sign of your own love and respect for God and his creations).
Tldr: Hegseth quoted what he thought sounded like a badass hypermasc message of Jesus advocating war, not realizing he's actually who Jesus was trying to warn you about in the passage.