JD Vance: Satan wants Christians to separate faith from politics
July 21, 2026
Vice President JD Vance, in an interview with Bishop Robert Barron of the Minnesota-based Roman Catholic Diocese of Winona-Rochester, said the devil is trying to convince Christians that faith and politics belong in separate rooms.
The Christian Post reports that, during the interview, Vance called for “a more fully Christian politics,” one that refuses to treat “economic growth” as an idol, or to dismiss Catholic social teaching as merely “spiritual stuff” with no input on how a nation should be run.
In their discussion, Vance and Barron addressed the relationship between Catholic social teaching and U.S. politics, along with points of friction between the Trump administration and some Catholic Church leaders.
Vance also reflected on the legacy of the late Pope Francis, who died in April 2025, saying, “I always kind of liked that Pope Francis would just throw these bombs out there in the media because it would force a conversation. It forced a dialogue, and he was kind of a genius at that.”
According to the Christian Post, Vance defended Francis’ beliefs as consistent with “extremely Christian” ideas about “the universal destination of goods,” specifically, the need for balance between “promoting economic growth” and ensuring everyone has “a good opportunity to get their piece of the pie.”
Vance noted that the late pontiff was criticized by some right-wing Catholics as a Marxist and pointed to that labeling as an example of “the devil being a deceiver,” arguing, “One way to try to turn people’s minds off of very traditional and I think ultimately true Christian teaching is to name it as something else.”
Vance told Barron that he was troubled that “we had made an idol out of the American corporation” and out of “economic growth” itself, which he called “a deeply anti-Christian idea.”
The Vice President said, “We have become so obsessed with the economic measurements that that’s how we judge ourselves, that’s how we judge our success as policymakers.”
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