The Dominican Friars Who Guided JD Vance’s Conversion to Catholicism

Two Dominican priors intellectual tutelage, outside the usual parish classes, shaped JD Vance as he became America's most famous and controversial convert.

Dear friends —

Happy Monday! Today’s essay is the third in our ongoing series on the religious and political formation of Vice President JD Vance — a story that continues to raise urgent questions about power, faith, and the future of American Catholicism.

On Friday, we examined how Vance distorted St. Augustine’s theology to defend the administration’s immigration policy — and how Pope Francis and the future Pope Leo XIV issued rare, public rebukes in response.

Now, we turn our attention to the priests who brought JD Vance into the Church. Not through a parish OCIA class or public conversion ceremony — but through bespoke, elite instruction led by two Dominican friars with deep ties to Washington and conservative Catholic intellectual life.

This is the story of how Fr. Dominic Legge and Fr. Henry Stephan quietly mentored one of America’s most powerful politicians into Catholicism — and what it reveals about a growing movement of ideologically driven converts whose faith often blossoms in private but manifests explosively in public.

In the coming weeks, we’ll continue this journey: into the donor circles behind Vance’s Catholic ascent, the trad Catholic influencers shaping his public witness, and the Vatican’s growing concern over the politicization of American converts.

As always, these thoroughly-researched essays are only available to our paid subscribers. If you haven’t yet joined us, I hope you will — your support helps keep this work free from advertising.

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Thank you for reading. I’ll see you on the road.

Long before JD Vance stood on a national stage as a convert-turned-VP, he was a Yale-trained skeptic seeking answers in the ancient halls of the Dominican Order. Two friars led the way.

From his new home in Cincinnati in 2018, Vance would slip into St. Gertrude Church — a parish run by the Dominican Friars of the Province of St. Joseph, an 800-year-old order famed for marrying faith and reason.

In an incense-scented chapel with modern stained glass, Vance met regularly with Fr. Henry Stephan, OP, a young Dominican priest.

For months they pored over theology, mysticism, and moral philosophy over coffee and lunch.