Vice President Vance,
You recently told an audience of young people at the Turning Point USA conference that they “no longer have to apologize for being white.”
I’ll be honest, those words unsettled me.
I have been a white man for 41 years, and in all that time I have never once been asked to apologize for the color of my skin or for my ethnicity. Your statement doesn’t describe reality. It reshapes it. It invites resentment at the very moment when humility and truthfulness are needed.
And further, it encourages people to confuse two very different things: discrimination based on identity, which is always wrong… and the responsibility we share for the real, lived consequences of systems that have, across generations and even into the present, harmed communities of color.
That confusion does not happen by accident. It benefits movements and voices that thrive on grievance and racial resentment, and it deepens the divisions that already wound our nation. Divisions that, as we have seen again and again, can lead to devastating consequences.
And because you are a fellow Christian, I want to speak to you as a brother in the faith.
Not as a partisan opponent.
Not as a critic looking for a score.
But as a priest, trying to speak from conscience, one soul to another.
I believe there is something deeply spiritual at stake in how we talk about race, history, and responsibility in this country.
Repentance is Not Humiliation. It is Courage.
In the Christian tradition, repentance is not merely personal. It is also communal, historical, and moral.
Scripture gives us examples of entire nations called to truth and repair:
Nehemiah prays:
“I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father’s family, have committed.”
Nehemiah 1:6
Daniel laments:
“We have sinned… we have done wrong.”
Daniel 9:5
They are not confessing out of personal guilt for events they did not themselves commit.
They are standing inside a shared moral story.
That posture is not weakness.
It is maturity of soul.
It is courage.
History Did Not End When the Laws Changed
Communities of color, and especially Black communities, have endured generations of harm under white oppression.
Slavery tore families from their homeland and stripped people of history, culture, and language. Generations of labor were exploited. The wealth that labor produced flowed into white society, while those who created it were denied its fruits.
And when slavery ended, discrimination did not.
It continued through:
• exclusion from political representation
• banks that refused loans
• denial of home ownership and equity
• redlining and predatory lending
• barriers to business capital
• job discrimination
• unequal access to education
• predatory policing and unequal justice under the law
• and much more….
Across time, these forces created a historic inequality that still echoes through generations.
If your great-grandparents, grandparents, and parents were blocked from wealth, opportunity, and education, you do not start life at the same line.
You begin already in the hole.
And as Christians, we do not dismiss that reality…
We face it.
There Is Still Work to Be Done — And It Is Holy Work
If we take Scripture seriously, then the work of repair does not end with acknowledgment. Throughout the Bible, repentance leads to action… to concrete steps that restore what has been taken and lift up those who have been held down.
This is not charity.
It is not racial favoritism.
It is not punishment.
It is justice, conscience, and moral responsibility. It restores dignity to children of God that was stripped away through force, through policy, and through law.
And it is also wisdom, because the wounds of our past do not simply injure one community, they weaken the spiritual and social health of our entire nation for generations to come. A society that refuses to heal its history also limits its own future.
There is work we should be willing to do now… urgently, intentionally, and with humility:
• Invest in Black neighborhoods and schools that were historically underfunded
so that children are not punished for where they were born or what was denied to their families.
• Expand fair access to home ownership and business capital
because generations were locked out of equity, credit, and wealth-building that others were allowed to inherit.
• Strengthen voting access and representation in historically disenfranchised communities
so that those most affected by injustice have a real voice in shaping what comes next.
• Support restorative economic policies where harm can be traced
acknowledging that restitution is not a handout, it is an act of repair.
• Guarantee equal protection in education, hiring, wages, and advancement
not as symbolism, but as a lived commitment to dignity.
• Preserve and teach honest historical truth
so that future generations are formed in reality, not denial.
None of these steps erase history.
They honor it.
They say:
“We know what happened.
We know what was taken.
And we refuse to pretend that the consequences vanished on their own.”
This is the Christian thing to do,
because love that refuses repair is not love at all.
And it is also the American thing to do
because when one community is held back by the past, the whole nation moves forward with a limp.
Our flourishing is bound together.
Justice for our Black sisters and brothers does not diminish anyone else
it enlarges the moral horizon of all of us.
The Gospel Does Not Stop at Sympathy — It Calls Us to Repair
In the Gospel of Luke, Zacchaeus encounters Jesus and does not simply say, “I’m sorry.”
He restores what he has taken:
“If I have defrauded anyone, I repay them fourfold.”
Luke 19:8
Jesus responds:
“Today salvation has come to this house.”
Luke 19:9
Salvation arrives not because Zacchaeus feels guilty…
but because he chooses justice,
and restoration,
and restitution.
That is what love looks like when it is lived in public.
Justice, Mercy, and Humility Are Not Optional Virtues
The prophet Micah asks us plainly:
“What does the Lord require of you
but to act justly,
to love mercy,
and to walk humbly with your God.”
Micah 6:8
Justice requires honesty.
Mercy requires compassion.
Humility requires courage.
Resentment cannot produce any of these.
Nor can fear-based rhetoric.
And then Jesus tells us:
“Whatever you did to the least of these,
you did to me.”
Matthew 25:40
Which means:
The harm done to our Black sisters and brothers
is not merely social harm.
It is harm done to Christ himself.
This Is Not About Shame — It Is About Love
There is no disgrace in apology.
There is strength in truth.
There is holiness in repair.
When leaders tell people that accountability is an insult…
that reconciliation is unnecessary…
that history makes no moral claim upon us…
they do not lift souls.
They harden them.
And our nation does not need harder hearts.
It needs wiser ones.
My Hope, and My Prayer
Vice President Vance, I hope you reflect on the weight your words carry.
I hope you remember the faith you profess.
Our calling as Christians is not grievance.
It is reconciliation.
Not denial.
Truth.
Not resentment.
Love.
Love that tells the truth about history.
Love that seeks justice where harm remains.
Love that does not fear humility.
Because humility is not submission
it is liberation from self-defensiveness.
And repair is not punishment
it is the beginning of healing.
I pray we may choose that path.
Together.
In the peace of Christ,
Father Rich V
If this reflection speaks to your heart, I invite you to sit with it in prayer… and to consider where God may be calling you toward truth, repair, and solidarity in your own life and community.
If you feel moved to walk this road with me, I’d be grateful if you’d subscribe, share this piece with someone who may need to wrestle with it, and help us build a community committed to compassion, justice, and the Gospel lived out in real life.