91°µÍø

The Scots-Irish played . Initially, these Protestants were from Scotland, but they moved to Ireland in the 17th century.  as a form of colonization, these immigrants riled the Catholic majority whose lands they occupied.

Later, many crossed the Atlantic and settled the Colonial American backcountry. Their distinctive influence .

The faith of these settlers kindled a fervent Protestant piety, found in the  of the Ohio Valley frontier. In this early 19th-century rebirth of backcountry religion, traveling ministers preached a fiery gospel of grace, stirring large crowds with their open-air sermons.

Queen City

Boundaries between urban and rural America were always porous.  a quarter of Ohio’s 1 million inhabitants clustered in the state’s southwestern corner. Cincinnati was the heart of this region: the of the United States’ .

It had become a hub of Catholic immigrants   – and a center for anti-Catholic preaching and anti-immigrant politics. In 1835, leading Protestant evangelist  “rushing in like the waters of the flood” and argued the Vatican and Catholic schools posed dangers for America.

Amid such prejudice, Protestant Irish Americans embraced the  to distinguish their more established population from recent Catholic arrivals. Many of these Catholic newcomers, fleeing famine and persecution, were disparaged as .

Yet despite alarmism and periodic violence, including , Cincinnati’s , shaped by a sense of shared civic endeavor. Protestants welcomed , for example, and often sent their children to the Catholic parochial schools. , including wealthy philanthropists.

In 1837, Cincinnati’s Catholic Bishop, John Baptist Purcell  on the merits of Catholic religion for several days before a crowded audience. Both debaters claimed victory, and proceeds from the published debates were evenly split between Catholic and Protestant charities in Cincinnati. 

Changing country

By the mid-19th century, the city’s Catholics, while still a minority, were larger than any single Protestant denomination and .

At the time, Catholics represented only 5% of the U.S. population. That percentage would , due to immigration from southern and eastern Europe.

Anti-Catholic backlash , along with other forms of religious prejudice. For example, the U.S.  restricted immigration from parts of Europe heavily populated by Jews and Catholics. Animosity once focused on immigrants from Germany and Ireland shifted to those from Italy and Russia.

Bias against Catholics remained a robust force in Appalachian politics, too. Leading up to the 1960 Democratic primary, John F. Kennedy campaigned tirelessly in West Virginia, considered a tough arena for a Harvard-educated Catholic but critical to his electoral strategy.  defied the myth that a Catholic candidate could never win the White House.

Turn toward ‘Communion’

Southern Ohio, where Vance grew up and converted to Catholicism, is deeply Midwestern. But its heritage has been influenced by  in the mid-20th century looking for jobs, including Vance’s family.

As Vance wrote in  for Lamp magazine, which addresses Catholic issues, his early ideas of Catholicism were negative ones – assuming, for example, that the church “rejected the legitimacy of Scripture.”

As a young man, he drifted away from faith altogether. During his days at Yale Law School, however, Vance discovered a curiosity that drew him toward Catholicism, inspired by thinkers from Silicon Valley mogul Peter Thiel and French philosopher René Girard to .

, “I often wonder what my grandmother” – a woman with Christian beliefs, but skepticism of institutional religion – “would have thought about her grandson becoming a Catholic.”

Today, , and another 9% consider themselves “cultural Catholics.” America’s prejudice toward their tradition has eroded.  are Catholic, along with .

In fact, Vance’s new faith highlights a growing alliance between culturally conservative elements of American Catholicism and , dominated by conservative Protestants since its emergence in the 1970s.

Lately, this alignment has come under strain, in part reflecting American-born Pope Leo XIV’s wariness toward U.S. policies, . Nowhere have such spats been more ironic than in  of the pope. After Leo remarked that Jesus’ followers are “never on the side of those who once wielded the sword ,” the vice president warned, “If you’re going to opine on matters of theology, you’ve got to be careful.”

It will be interesting to see how such tensions play out in years to come.