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At a Turning Point USA event at the University of Mississippi honoring the group’s slain founder, Charlie Kirk, an audience member asked the vice-president about the relationship between American patriotism and Christianity and questioned why Christianity was being treated as a requirement for belonging.

Vance responded by describing his wife as having grown up in a Hindu household that was “not a particularly religious family,” and said that when they met they both would have considered themselves agnostic or atheist. He recounted his own conversion to Catholicism in his 30s and said his views on public policy and the “optimal state” align with Catholic social teaching.

Vance said he and his wife decided to raise their children as Christians, citing that their children attend Christian school and that their eight-year-old received first communion. In remarks delivered “in front of 10,000,” he said he hopes his wife is “moved” to Christianity, while adding that free will means her not converting “doesn’t cause a problem.” Usha Vance has publicly said she does not intend to convert and that their children have access to Hindu traditions. The Hindu American Foundation’s executive director criticized the remarks to the New York Times, and Vance later called a critical social media comment “anti-Christian bigotry.”