By The Daily Caller (Opinion) | Created at 2026-06-25 17:10:37 | Updated at 2026-06-25 20:14:56
4 hours ago
A lot has been said about the recent CBS News interview of Vice President JD Vance and his wife, second lady Usha Vance, and most of it is wrong.
JD and Usha Vance discussed their faith, relationship, and family in a CBS interview shared June 14, which stirred up a bit of a fuss because most people can’t fathom seeing a healthy, loving couple in public anymore. Usha was asked about JD’s conversion to Catholicism and whether his move had affected her decision about her own faith.
She answered honestly that it hasn’t at this time. Usha is Hindu. Cue the meltdown.
“JD can’t lead his wife and you expect him to lead a nation?” one X user posted in response to the video clip.
“Vance just sits there like an obedient puppy dog and nods while she dominates him. This shit is so bleak,” another said in part.
“Bad look for Vance. This makes him look like a total cuck,” another said.
Interfaith marriages can be hard. It’s why most pastors and priests will tell you not to enter into them lightly. But that doesn’t make them impossible. JD Vance is a recent convert, having decided to become Catholic in 2019. Our society is so used to instant gratification, but these things take time; I know from personal experience.
I converted to Catholicism when my husband and I first started dating in college. He was very supportive but told me that he would never convert. He was born in England and was raised in the Church of England. It was part of his heritage and identity. While these are more similar than Catholic and Hindu, they are still two very distinct faiths. (Sign up for Mary Rooke’s weekly newsletter here!)
We got married young by modern-day standards. I was 22, and he was 24. We married in the Catholic Church, and he promised to let me raise our kids as Catholics. Still, he stayed staunchly in the Church of England. I decided before we were married that I would never force him to convert. I realized that if he didn’t make the choice freely it wouldn’t be genuine. Thankfully, early on, I had received some advice from a woman at Mass who had gone through an almost identical experience. Her husband, also English and a member of the Church of England, had refused for years to convert. After 10 years, he decided to convert. She told me to enter into unceasing prayer, but to be patient.
The first seven years were the hardest. We went to Mass on Sundays and enrolled the kids in Catholic school, but there were no signs that anything was working on him. He went through the motions, but our family was still divided. These were years of quiet pain. I wanted so badly to scream, “Why don’t you want this?!” But I knew that God would work in His time, not mine.
Ten years almost to the day from when that woman sat me down in that courtyard, my husband came up to me and told me he would be receiving his Confirmation on Easter. He had been secretly meeting with our priest and wanted to surprise me. (RELATED: JD Vance’s Stock Goes Up As Iran War Winds Down)
JD Vance isn’t weak. His wife isn’t dominating him. He is gracefully showing our nation the most beautiful Christian witness of patience in God and His time. This part of his character makes him a leader worth following. What he is going through isn’t easy. He clearly loves his wife and family. But you can’t force conversion if you want it to be real.
Follow Mary Rooke on X: @MaryRooke
