Should Vance Have Kissed the Ring?

Although our country has Protestant roots and is still predominantly Protestant, we are now accustomed to Catholics in high political office. Unfortunately, many of those Catholic politicians—people such as Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, and Richard Durbin—aren’t very good Catholics, showing disdain for fundamental Catholic teaching like the dignity of the unborn and the sacredness of marriage. Now, however, we have a Vice President in J.D. Vance who actually takes the Church’s teachings seriously and by all appearances works to integrate his Catholic faith into his political views (no “I’m personally opposed but…” for him). So all faithful Catholics are interested whenever Vance’s Catholic faith publicly intersects with his duties as Vice President of the United States.

One such intersection occurred on May 18, when Vance led the U.S. delegation to Pope Leo’s inauguration Mass in Rome. While the most important aspect of that visit was Vance’s private meeting with the pope, many eyes were on the public greeting between the two that occurred after the Mass. Specifically, many Catholics wondered: would Vance bow and kiss the papal ring?

Let’s take a step back for a moment. Life as a Catholic contains a myriad of customs and traditions handed down for centuries. I’ve taught RCIA (or whatever it is called currently) for many years, and one of the topics of most interest to new converts is these customs. When should I genuflect in a church? Why do I see people bow or genuflect when crossing the center of a church? What do I call the bishop? While converts want to know doctrine, they can look up most of the Church’s teachings in catechisms while many customs are not written down in any authoritative text.

Sadly, many of those customs were lost in the upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s, but they are still important. They give little signals of respect for underlying beliefs. They aren’t written in Canon Law and they typically hold no force of sin behind them, but their practice can reflect a deep commitment to the Catholic faith.

A set of customs that is always a challenge to Americans involves how a Catholic greets a bishop. In our casual culture, anything more than a handshake when greeting someone is considered awkward. However, traditionally a Catholic lightly kisses the bishop’s episcopal ring and calls the bishop either “Your Eminence” (in the case of a Cardinal) or “Your Excellency” (in the case of a non-Cardinal bishop). The same basic protocol applies when meeting a pope, except one would call him “Your Holiness” and makes a bow of the head (for a man) or a curtsy (for a woman).

Pope Francis, of course, famously resisted these conventions, even sometimes angrily pulling away his hand when someone tried to kiss his ring. Yet Pope Leo has shown no sign of this kind of rejection of Catholic customs.

So, when J.D. Vance, who takes his Catholic faith seriously, met Pope Leo for the first time, did he bow his head and kiss the ring of the fisherman? He did not; he simply shook the pope’s hand.

This led to a kerfuffle on Catholic social media (because of course it did), with some Catholics accusing Vance of essentially denying his faith, and others lamenting that this is yet another sign of our disordered world where not all nations subsist under the banner of Christ the King.

Vance himself addressed his failure to follow Catholic custom in a podcast with Catholic author Ross Douthat—in fact, he brought it up without Douthat’s prompting. Essentially, he said that he was there as the Vice President of the United States, not as an individual Catholic, and United States protocol dictates that the President and Vice President never bow to another head of state or kiss their rings (remember that the pope is the monarch of the Vatican City State).

So did Vance compromise his faith? Did he improperly put his duties as Vice President above his duties as a Catholic? Is this in effect equivalent to the Catholic Democrat who puts his faith aside when it’s not politically expedient? Did Vance compromise his faith? Did he improperly put his duties as Vice President above his duties as a Catholic? Is this in effect equivalent to the Catholic Democrat who puts his faith aside when it’s not politically expedient?Tweet This

I don’t think so.

When the Vice President meets a head of state, he is representing the President, but even more so, the whole country. The reality is that our country is only 20% Catholic, and in no way is America a Catholic country. The overwhelming majority of Americans (including many Catholics) would not want the Vice President to bow his head or kiss the ring of any head of state, including the pope. We might not like that fact, but it’s a fact nonetheless. J.D. Vance was elected to represent those people, and so it is fitting and proper that he would follow the protocols set up to represent the beliefs of the American people.

Further, we must remember that customs like bowing the head or kissing the ring are just that: customs. Yes, they are good for Catholics to practice, and I lament how many have been lost, but they are not moral teachings we are obligated to follow; it is not a denial of the faith to leave out these customs. 

Vance still called the pope “Your Holiness” or “Holy Father,” as this particular sign of respect does not contradict the American protocols governing such a meeting. In other words, the handshake greeting was not intended to convey any disrespect for the spiritual office the pope holds—and it was not received as one.

J.D. Vance takes his Catholic faith far more seriously than many of the Catholic politicians who have preceded him, but he also takes his office as Vice President of the United States very seriously. When these two conflict, it’s true that Catholicism should typically take precedence. However, the level of demand placed by each obligation must be weighed. If a duty of the Vice Presidential office leads one to sin, it must be rejected. But if an important principle of American policy conflicts with a minor custom of the Church, there is no obligation for the Catholic to follow the Catholic custom over the American principle.

Social media often makes much ado over nothing, and the case of J.D. Vance choosing not to kiss the papal ring is yet one more example. There are policies of the Trump Administration that Catholics should strongly oppose (such as its IVF promotion), but the protocol for greeting the pope isn’t one of them.