Vance gives Catholic converts a bigger stage

The converts it does attract tend to be whiter, more conservative, and more observant than "cradle Catholics," or those born into the faith.

• "The story of how I regained my faith, of course, only happened because I had lost it to begin with," Vance said in an announcement about the book in March. "The interesting question that hangs over this book, and over my mind, is why I ever strayed from the path."

By the numbers: 1.5% of U.S. adults are converts to Catholicism, Pew found, making up about 8% of Catholics in the U.S.

• Most converts come from another Christian background, with 59% raised Protestant, 9% in another Christian tradition and 22% with no childhood religious affiliation.
• The most common reason for conversion is family, not politics or ideology: 49% of converts cite a Catholic spouse or partner, or a desire to marry in the Church.
• Smaller shares cite belief in church teachings or its historical foundation, spiritual fulfillment, or relatives and friends.

Zoom in: Catholic converts are more observant by some measures. 38% attend Mass weekly, compared with 28% of cradle Catholics.

• 58% say they receive Communion every time they go to Mass, compared with 34% of cradle Catholics.
• Pew found there is no statistically significant gap in prayer or confession.

State of play: Vance fits several big pieces of the convert profile.

• He is white, U.S.-born, Republican and was raised outside Catholicism in a loosely evangelical family — aligning with Pew's finding that converts are disproportionately white, native-born and often raised Protestant.
• But he differs from the most common conversion story. Pew finds nearly half of converts cite a Catholic spouse or church marriage, while Vance's wife, First Lady Usha Vance, is Hindu.

What they're saying: "I would say this is more of religious resilience rather than a religious revival," David Campbell, a political science professor at the University of Notre Dame, tells Axios.

• Campbell said that while certain parishes are seeing an increase in new converts, it's still too early to tell if it will have a long-term effect on church membership and its political makeup.

• Campbell, co-author of "Secular Surge: A New Fault Line in American Politics," said new converts typically see their Catholicism as a political identity, while cradle Catholics see their religion as part of their ethnic upbringing.

Between the lines: U.S. Catholicism is also deeply shaped by Hispanic and immigrant Catholics.

• Pope Leo XIV's migrant-rights posture has positioned him against some of the Trump-era politics splitting American Catholics.
• Vance's use of ordo amoris — "order of love" — to defend prioritizing citizens over outsiders was criticized by senior Catholic figures, including Pope Francis before his death.

The bottom line: Vance has plenty in common with America's Catholic converts — especially demographically and politically.

• But Pew's data undercut the idea that converts are powering a broad Catholic comeback.

Methodology: Pew's findings are based primarily on its 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study, conducted July 17, 2023 to March 4, 2024, among 36,908 U.S. adults (margin of error ±0.8 percentage points).

• The analysis also incorporates a February 2025 survey of 9,544 U.S. adults examining connections to Catholicism (±1.4 points) and a May 2025 survey of 8,937 U.S. adults examining religious switching (±1.5 points).
• Estimates for Catholic converts are based on smaller subsamples and carry larger margins of error.