A much-viewed video of U.S. Vice President JD Vance giving a tour of the White House to a Catholic priest in a white habit on St. Patrick’s Day has drawn interest in the priest.

Father Henry Stephan is a member of the Dominican order — hence the white cassock. The video shows Vance leading the priest into the White House Briefing Room and then through a back door further into the White House.

Father Stephan could not immediately be reached for comment on Tuesday. Here are some additional things to know about him.

 

1. Henry is his religious name.

Father Henry Stephan was known as Brian Stephan before he entered the Dominican novitiate in August 2011, not long after graduating from college. He grew up in San Jose, California.

2. A Protestant school helped hone his Catholic knowledge.

When Father Stephan’s family moved when he was in fifth grade, “there was no space for him at the local Catholic school, so he was sent to a Christian school instead,” according to a March 2023 story in The Irish Rover, a student newspaper at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.

“I learned a ton because it was the first time that I was really forced to grapple with the fact that I was rather ignorant of the Scriptures, that my faith had been just kind of perfunctory, that I just did what my folks did without thinking too deeply … I’d get into debates and disputes with my classmates and even with their parents. And I spent all my birthday money on Catholic apologetics books,” Father Stephan told the Rover.

When he subsequently returned to a Catholic school, he started serving daily Mass and had some fleeting thoughts about the priesthood.

3. While he was a Republican in college, he once argued like a Democrat.

In April 2008, when he was a freshman at Princeton University, Brian Stephan took part in a “Freaky Friday” debate in which he and a fellow member of the College Republicans argued Democratic positions against two Democrats who argued Republican positions.

The so-called “Backwards Debate” was moderated by Newsweek editor-at-large Evan Thomas, who taught journalism at Princeton at the time, according to a story in Princeton Alumni Weekly.

4. A federal judge suggested he become a priest.

As a college student, Father Stephan thought he wanted to go to law school.

But he loved the circle of Catholic friends he had in college, and he felt sad about losing them and the life of prayer, study, and conversation he enjoyed with them.

He interned with a federal judge, Diarmuid O’Scannlain, a Reagan appointee to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

The judge suggested Stephan consider the priesthood, which at first annoyed him, because he thought the judge might be implying that he wouldn’t do well as a lawyer.

But after some thought, he decided the judge was right —  that God was calling him to something else.

“I found the Dominicans, which is an order that’s very much all those things I just mentioned — it’s all about the life of friendship, of study, of prayer, of preaching … and teaching,” Father Stephan told The Irish Rover. “And so, for me, it was less of a matter of radical change as just, gosh, these are the things I love most.”

5. Cardinal Dolan ordained him.

He was ordained a priest in May 2018 by Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York, along with eight other Dominican friars.

The ordination took place at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., which is across the street from the Dominican House of Studies, where as a seminarian Father Stephan occasionally gave tours of the chapel.

6. He baptized JD Vance.

Father Stephan baptized the current vice president of the United States at St. Gertrude Priory in Cincinnati in August 2019, according to an interview Vance did with Rod Dreher published in The American Conservative not long afterward.

7. He met Vance during a brief window when they were both in Cincinnati.

Vance and his family moved to Cincinnati in 2018. He had already been in discussions with a Dominican priest about becoming a Catholic. That priest, Father Dominic Legge, put Vance in touch with Father Stephan, according to an August 2024 story in The New York Times.

Father Stephan was in the midst of a two-year stint as a priest at St. Gertrude Priory in Cincinnati.

8. He’s a graduate student at Notre Dame.

Father Stephan is pursuing a doctorate at the Medieval Institute at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, focusing on medieval political theory and “emphasizing civic friendship, constitutionalism, and the relationship between Church and State,” according to a March 2023 story in The Irish Rover.

“I'm interested in the intersection of faith and politics in Medieval Europe, and how political philosophers and theologians sought to reconcile the tensions of heavenly and earthly citizenship,” he wrote on his student web landing page on the website of the Medieval Institute.

“As a Dominican Friar, I have a particular interest in the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, especially as a reader and interpreter of classical and patristic political thought,” Father Stephan wrote. “I've written on friendship and the common good, and also explore these themes in literature and liturgy.”

He hopes to teach.