J D Vance, a convert to Catholicism less than a decade ago, has decided it’s his job to bring the pope, Leo XIV, a fellow American and White Sox fan, who has been an Augustinian cleric for a half century, who holds a doctorate in canon law, and who was elected by his fellow cardinals to lead the global Catholic church, up to speed on the basics of Catholic doctrine.

I’m not sure what the stock market relevance is, but I find this odd and weird. Most of this is that Vance seems to be clueless about really basic stuff. (I don’t want to claim to be an expert on the Catholic faith, although 16 years in Catholic schools, half of them with the Jesuits, plus a whole bunch of time in Catholic and Episcopal congregations, have hopefully taught me something.) To wit,

–a big part of the pope’s job is to give guidance on faith and morals. Secretary Hegseth’s apparent instructions to troops to give no quarter and show no mercy, for example, not only seem to me to be illegal, but also very un-Christian and to deserve at the very least some comment, if not outright condemnation. So, it’s strange for Vance to say this isn’t the pope’s concern.

–Catholic doctrine traces the church’s origin to Jesus laying hands on Peter and declaring him to be the rock on which the Catholic Church is built, an association of the Catholic church with the divine that doctrine holds to remain to this day. If Leo, as the anointed successor to Peter, makes an official declaration about matters of faith or morals (which he is not yet doing), this basically means that Leo is speaking in the place of Jesus and can’t be in error. If he were to ex cathedra condemn that the 50%+ of US Catholics who now favor Trump, but appear to be slowly fading away from him, would have a harder time continuing to support him or any of his associates.