Communion (Vance book)
Upcoming 2026 memoir by JD Vance
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Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith is a 2026 memoir by the 50th and current vice president of the United States, JD Vance. The book is stated to center on his conversion to Catholicism in 2019, while also serving as a sequel to Vance's previous book, Hillbilly Elegy. It was published by HarperCollins.[1][2][3]
Cover (HarperCollins) | |
| Author | JD Vance |
|---|---|
| Subject | Religion |
| Published | June 16, 2026 (HarperCollins) |
| Pages | TBA |
| ISBN | 978-0-06-357501-1 |
Background
In 2019, Vance, then 35 years old, converted to Catholicism.[3] The title of the work, Communion, refers to the Eucharist, a Christian rite that honors the Last Supper. According to the publisher, HarperCollins, Vance started a book on faith in 2022, which he set aside; Communion is an extension of that project.[3]
The cover of the book, which depicts Mt. Zion United Methodist Church, not a Catholic church, attracted coverage. Congregants of the rural church in southwestern Virginia reported no connection to Vance or Catholicism.[4][5]
Contents
The Associated Press described the book as a "manifesto for the role of religion in public life".[6] Vance chronicles his journey to Catholicism, after earlier identifying for periods as a Protestant Christian or atheist, while also exploring the role of religion in politics.
The book describes meetings between Vance and officials from the Vatican in April 2025.[7] According to Vance, officials refrained from making any substantive remarks about immigration, instead offering "platitudes" and "cliches" about treating migrants humanely. His meeting with Pope Francis was brief due to the leader's ill health; Francis died the following day.[7]
Vance walked back a comment that he made during an appearance on Fox News in 2021 that described Kamala Harris and other Democrats as "a bunch of childless cat ladies" ruining the country. He called the remarks "intentionally (and successfully) provocative rather than illuminating".[8]
Reception
In a review for The Wall Street Journal, Barton Swaim viewed many of Vance's arguments as muddled or contradictory, describing one section as showing "egregious sloppiness" for its misinterpretation of a paper on parental-leave.[9] Jessica Winter of The New Yorker saw Vance as espousing a peculiar aloofness to Catholicism by hedging on doctrine or policy from the Vatican, while wondering if the book's ambiguity may have been intentional to appeal to evangelicals. Winter also wrote that the "[the book] communicates little of spiritual hunger, of crises of faith, of temptation or redemption or awe, or whatever else one might want or expect from a conversion tale".[10]
