The apology, when it came, was quiet. No cameras, no podium, no crowd of cheering supporters. JustJ.D. Vance, the combative vice presidentwho has built much of his political brand on confrontation, is sitting down with one of the most influential Catholic leaders in the United States and admitting he had gone too far.
According to Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the former archbishop of New York and a prominent conservative figure in the American church, Vance privately climbed down from an attack that had infuriated Catholic bishops only weeks earlier.
'He and I had a little tête-à-tête, you probably know, when he suggested that bishops in the United States were pro-immigrant because we were making money,' Dolan said in an interview published Thursday, 19 February. 'And he apologized. He said, 'That was out of line and that's not true.''
For a politician who rarely backs away from a fight, even a private mea culpa is striking.
The row began in January 2025, after the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a sharply worded statement condemning Donald Trump's new executive order authorising immigration raids at schools and churches. For starters, the Conference is the powerful national body representing Catholic bishops across the United States, and its statements carry considerable moral and political weight.
Trump's order effectively tore up long-standing informal norms that treated schools and houses of worship as off-limits for immigration enforcement. The bishops called it out. Vance, standing squarely behind his running mate, hit back hard.
He accused Catholic leaders of being less interested in defending human dignity than in defending their bank balance.
The bishops, he said at the time, should 'look in the mirror a little bit and recognize that when they receive over $100 million to help resettle illegal immigrants, are they worried about humanitarian concerns? Or are they actually worried about their bottom line?'
The figure he cited refers to federal funds that go to Catholic charities and other faith-based organizations that, under U.S. law, partner with the government to resettle refugees and migrants. It is a long-standing arrangement, not a secret slush fund, but the insinuation was clear enough.
Dolan, who delivered the invocation at both of Trump's inaugurations and is hardly a natural enemy of the Republican right, was livid. He called Vance's remarks 'very nasty' and 'inaccurate.' It clearly stung that the attack came not from a secular liberal critic, but from inside the broader conservative camp.
Source: International Business Times UK
