'Couldn't do it without Usha': JD Vance reveals how wife's 'skills and precision' helped him on his Catholic journey

US Vice President JD Vance has appreciated his wife Usha Vance and credited her "skill and precision" with helping him convert to Catholicism. Usha Vance been an enduring influence on his spiritual and personal life, and her Hindu faith has been pivotal in guiding JD’s journey back to Christianity. The blending of their different faith backgrounds has had a lasting impact on JD's political perspectives.

Usha Vance and her religion was at the center of sickening far-right barbs online days before her husband JD Vance took oath as the Vice President of the United States. Google Trends data showed that interest in Usha Vance’s religion spiked in the days leading up to Donald Trump’s inauguration. Search queries for “Usha Vance religion” peaked on January 20 and continued to rise.

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How Usha Vance's skills helped JD Vance

JD Vance wasn't born a Catholic but was baptized into the church in 2019, despite Vance angering some conservative Catholics with his shifting stance on abortion. But he eventually found his way to the religion after long considering converting, reports Catholic News Agency. He admitted that “when I looked at the people who meant the most to me, they were Catholic."

Still, it took the encouragement of his wife - whom he married in 2024 - to commit to converting, according to a report in The Irish Star. “The sad fact is that I couldn’t do it without Usha. Even at my best, I’m a delayed explosion — I can be defused, but only with skill and precision,” Vance wrote in his best selling memoir, "Hillbilly Elegy."

“But from the beginning, she supported my decision, so I can’t blame the delay on her,” he said, praising his wife, who reportedly showed left-wing leanings while in college.

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Writing in the Lamp, Vance said the death of his grandmother in 2005 was also a factor in his conversion. “Yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that if I converted I would no longer be my grandmother’s grandson,” he said. “So for many years I occupied the uncomfortable territory between curiosity about Catholicism and mistrust," Vance added.

Vance was baptized in August 2019 by Father Henry Stephan, a Dominican priest, at St. Gertrude Priory, located at a Dominican parish in Cincinnati, where Vance currently resides. Vance says that practicing his Catholic faith has helped him develop more patience, control his temper, forgive others more readily, and prioritize his family over his career.

“I realized that there was a part of me — the best part — that took its cues from Catholicism," he wrote in an essay after he converted.

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How JD Vance met Usha

JD Vance and Usha Chilukuri married in 2014. Vance, raised by his grandmother in Ohio, comes from a modest background. Chilukuri, the daughter of Indian immigrants, grew up in California. The two met at Yale Law School where they worked on a project together.

“We were friends first; I mean, who wouldn’t want to be friends with JD?” Chilukuri said. Their friendship developed into a romantic relationship. Vance described his feelings for Chilukuri as intense in his book, -Hillbilly Elegy.

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He said he thought about her constantly. He asked her out after learning she was single. The couple faced challenges. Vance described an incident where he left a hotel room after a poor interview and later apologized to Chilukuri.

“She calmly told me through her tears that it was never acceptable to run away,” Vance said. Chilukuri introduced Vance at the Republican National Convention, highlighting their intercultural relationship as a testament to the United States.

She noted Vance’s simpler tastes had broadened to include her vegetarian diet and even cooking Indian food for her mother. Vance, a venture capitalist and author, is now the Vice President-elect.