JD Vance’s “Christian Concept” Immigration Defense: One Year of Escalating Controversy

Pope Francis Weighs In

On February 10, 2025, Pope Francis wrote a letter to U.S. bishops expressing concern over Trump’s “program of mass deportations” and directly addressing the proper interpretation of ordo amoris—without naming Vance explicitly.

“Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups,” Pope Francis wrote. “The true ordo amoris that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the ‘good Samaritan’ (cf. Lk 10:25-37), that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception.”

The message was clear: Vance’s interpretation of ordo amoris was wrong.

Catholic commentator Father Raymond de Souza explained: “It is difficult to hear in the Trump-Vance rhetoric love for the immigrant, whether properly ordered or not. Francis insists that even those refused entry, or returned, are to be treated with dignity and fit within the ordo amoris.”

Vance responded at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast on February 28, 2025, saying he was “certainly surprised” by the Pope’s criticism but calling himself a “baby Catholic” and acknowledging there are “things about the faith that I don’t know.”

On Easter Sunday, April 20, 2025, Vance met with Pope Francis at the Vatican in what was described as a brief encounter, receiving Vatican gifts including rosaries and chocolate Easter eggs for his children. It would be Pope Francis’s final Easter—he died shortly after.

Then Came Minneapolis: The Killing of Renee Good

On January 7, 2026, the theological debate became tragically concrete.

Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen, writer, poet, wife, and mother of three, was fatally shot by ICE agent Jonathan Ross in Minneapolis. She had just dropped her six-year-old child at school.

Video footage showed Good in her car, stopped sideways in the street. Ross drove around her vehicle, returned on foot, and as Good began driving away while turning from Ross, he fired three shots—one through the windshield, then two through the open driver’s side window—killing her.

The next day, Vice President Vance held a press conference at the White House.

“This is a guy who’s actually done a very, very important job for the United States of America,” Vance said of Ross, asking for prayers for the ICE agent. He called Good’s death “a tragedy of her own making” and described her as “a victim of left-wing ideology.”