It’s not often that Catholic theology breaks into the news cycle, but this is just what happened when Vice President J. D. Vance gave an interview to FOX News defending the Trump administration’s actions regarding immigration and its “America First” stance on foreign policy. Vance appealed to the traditional theological concept of the “order of love” (ordo amoris)—the idea that our love of neighbor has a certain set of priorities—to justify prioritizing the needs of citizens over immigrants and domestic concerns over foreign ones.
But there’s this old-school concept—and I think a very Christian concept, by the way—that you love your family, and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country, and then after that you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world.
Immediately, controversy ensued. Some people were surprised to find out that the ordo amoris was a traditional Christian principle at all, while others questioned its compatibility with the teachings of Jesus.
After all, doesn’t the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Lk 10:25-37) tell us that we are supposed to love our neighbor and that our neighbor is anyone near us, even the foreigner? Still others, recognizing that the principle of the ordo amoris is traditional Christian teaching, questioned what they took to be Vance’s formulation of it, rejecting the notion that the government should not address the needs of non-Americans until all the needs of Americans have been addressed. Finally, other people questioned whether Vance correctly applied the principle of the ordo amoris to the public policy questions that he was addressing.
Whatever one may make of Vance’s views, the controversy he stirred up raised important questions about the role of love in the Christian life. The Bible teaches that the love of neighbor follows necessarily from the love of God, because each person is a reflection of God’s goodness. So, if we love God, then we must esteem each person that we meet, we must will his good, and we must do good things for him. If we love others on account of our love for God, then our neighbor is anyone who is “nigh” to us. Anyone that we can reach with a particular act of love is our neighbor. This is the point of the parable of the Good Samaritan: our neighbor is not just our own kinsman or countryman, but anyone for whom we have the opportunity to wish or do good.
Although we must be willing to do good for every person, this is not actually possible, because we are finite people with finite resources. How do we choose to whom we should do good when we need to make this choice? We follow the ordo amoris. There is an order of priority by which we should choose to do the good.
The basic idea is obvious. If you are sitting in the middle seat of an airplane, with your wife on your left and a stranger on your right, when the air masks come down, you put your mask on first, then you help your wife with her mask, and finally you help the stranger with his. You help everyone whom you can help, but in a certain order. In the order of charity, God comes first, then our spiritual welfare, then our neighbor’s spiritual welfare, then our bodily welfare, then our neighbor’s bodily welfare. Among our neighbors, we prioritize our family, then our friends, then our benefactors, colleagues, other members of our community, our country, and finally the rest of the world. If it is a question of giving a good that is proper to a particular relationship, then we ought to prioritize giving that good to those with whom we share that relationship.
The principle of the ordo amoris, however, is a counsel of prudence; it is not an absolute moral maxim; it presupposes that all other things are equal. But if all other things are not equal, our evaluation of whom to prioritize may change. A greater need in a more distantly related neighbor, which I can alleviate here and now, should often be given preference over a lesser need in a more closely related neighbor.
We must determine when this is the case by a prudent evaluation of the relevant circumstances, and in complex or difficult cases, good and reasonable people will often come to differing conclusions.
This is a part of the debate surrounding Vice President Vance’s comments: if Vance meant to suggest that all the needs of citizens must be satisfied before we meet any of the needs of immigrants or people in other countries, then his statement of the principle of the ordo amoris was not correct. If Vance was giving an abbreviated statement of the principle because he was giving an impromptu answer in an interview, then perhaps he does concede that sometimes the greater needs of others might take priority over the lesser needs of citizens, just not in the case at hand. Vance’s claim, then, that the Trump administration’s spending priorities reflect the ordo amoris would be one of the complex and difficult cases that good and reasonable people must vigorously debate.
Unfortunately, this debate is vitiated by the fact that each side in our politics presumes bad faith in the other side—itself a violation of the command to love our neighbor.
Even though the ordo amoris seems to be a matter of common sense, some people have suggested that it is not compatible with Jesus’ teaching. After all, the parable of the Good Samaritan says that everyone is our neighbor. Jesus says that we should love each other “as he has loved us” (Jn 15:12), and that we should love everyone, just like God who “makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” (Mt 5:45).
But we can love all people while still doing good for all people in a certain order. The ordo amoris does not restrict our love; it orders our love. In fact, the ordo amoris has clear roots in the New Testament. St. Paul teaches, “let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith,” (Gal 6:10) and, “if anyone does not provide for his relatives and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Tim 5:8).
Still others think that the gospel renders all people equal objects of our love. Doesn’t our new life in Christ render nugatory our natural relationships? No, it does not. Our natural relationships are good and willed by the same God who gives us new life in Christ. God does not take away with grace what he gives with nature; rather, grace builds on nature and perfects it. Therefore, supernatural charity deifies—it heals and elevates—the love that we have for our families, our friends, our community, our country, and for the whole world.
The ordo amoris, then, reminds us that our love for our neighbor is directed at specific people, according to the relationships we have with them. When all the sentiment is stripped away, what is lurking behind the egalitarian impulse to love all people equally is the temptation to replace love of actual people with philanthropy for humanity. If I love everybody equally, then I don’t love anybody specifically. It is a distinctly modern temptation to turn love into an abstraction, doling out goods to people according to an impersonal utilitarian calculus.
But the ordo amoris reminds us that the world is not flat; love occurs within the context of ordered interpersonal relationships. Charity begins at home, where we learn to love the actual people we live with, and from there it extends to successively wider circles, until reaches all people. We arrive at the love of all through the love of those who are near. The ordo amoris is really just the order in which we learn to love our neighbor.
It is the modern affinity for egalitarianism that raises suspicions about the ordo amoris. We moderns think that fairness implies egalitarianism, which thus must characterize divine action. Hence the assumption that the ordo amoris must be incompatible with Jesus’ teaching. But traditionally, Christianity has not shared this assumption. Rather, it assumes the opposite: hierarchy characterizes divine action, because hierarchy indicates order and order is the mark of the wise man. The ordered way in which God pours out his blessings on all creatures is the pattern for how we pour out our love on all people. If the wise person puts all things in order, then the wise lover loves all people in order, according to the relationships he has with them. This is the fundamental insight on which the ordo amoris is based.
The controversy that ensued on Vance’s comments, then, shows that the command to love our neighbor is not a trite moral truism whose meaning is obvious. The command to love our neighbor raises questions about the nature of society and the nature of creation. It is a proposal for how to live a decent human life, and indeed a holy one, as it is an invitation to follow in the footsteps of our savior right into the heart of God who is Love.
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One thing is for certain: It is NOT charity when you dole out benefaction with other people’s money without their permission.
The Catholic Church can provide charitable benefits to whomever it pleases using their own money. But don’t ever call it charity when the money comes from government contracts.
This money flow from the Federal government to the Catholic Church must end now completely and never resume. It is NOT charity, the Church is acting as an agent of government, the government will expect the Church to promote its partisan political agenda and it ultimately harms the Church.
Clearly, Christ’s Church is divided over, not theology in this case, but over the predictable results when the Church gets into bed with secular auhorities.
Well put brother
It’s looking like, now, it is up to laypeople to discuss the problems you have raised (and I agree with your assessment). None of the Church leaders addressing these topics seem to want to talk about any of the risks incurred by heavy reliance on government funding (especially federal contracts, which are particularly problematic) for the work performed by Catholic charitable organizations and their affiliates.
If anyone knows of an article, podcast or talk by a bishop, priest or other Church leader that tackles these issues, I would apprecIate the lead. I enjoy reading these articles about the ordo amoris and other topics related to charity but would really like to find more discussion of what has been going on in recent years with the deepening relationship between the federal government, the USCCB and various dioceses–and how it has affected the Church’s performance of “charitable” works.
Mary E: There’s a book coming out in early March on this very topic. It’s written by Chris Mannion. You can ore-order it.
Thank you! I look forward to reading that book.
Perhaps it’s time to finally put Christ aside & acknowledge Trump as your lord & master and savior.
Trump is the embodiment of everything you now accept as gospel…wealth, power, revenge, retaliation, intimidation, supremacy, freedom without responsibility,
Jesus is the embodiment of everything you reject…inclusion, unconditional love, charity, ‘wokeness’, and the danger that He will infuse the children of the future with such illiberal ideals cannot be denied.
Ask yourselves Who is trump?
Someone who is the fulfillment of all your desires.
Someone whose power enables you to become like him.
Someone who will remove the causes of all your problems & finally guarantee your happiness & wealth..homosexuals, illegals, sinful women, governmental interference, catering to the poor & the elderly without your permission.
After all, God sent trump for a reason, yes?
Sorry, but no one who voted for Trump thinks like this. This is a typical progressive straw man argument. It is as irrational as it is false.
Strawman? I think not.
It’s pure argumentum ad hominem.
Spot on correct.
Panic comes for the bishops.
Bet on it.
Beautifully said!
I had no problem understanding the point that JD Vance was trying to make. Whether we accept it or not, God instilled an order in creation. There is a hiarchy of values, relationships, duties, priorities, etc. within the order of creation. If parents neglect the needs of their own children, while being generous to strangers, something is wrong. In 1John 1, John says: “How can you say you love God, who you cannot see, if you can’t love your brother, who you can see”. The “Good Samaritan” is not just about loving the poor and needy, it is about loving our enemy. Jesus came to teach us to love our enemy. This is the point that Jesus was making. We can only do that with divine love, but divine love does not cancel natural love. I wonder if a Democrat saw a Republican lying on the street, if he would stop to help him. It takes divine love, to love with the love in which God loves us. The President is not giving his own money to emigrants, but money that belongs to the people. We have thousands, millions, of people who are homeless today in America that are needy, and do not have them money to care for them. If we can’t help them, then how can we give to illegal emigrants who want to come to America to make a better life for themselves? We have to take care of Americans, first, than we can invite emigrants. Refuges are another matter. They have no one else to turn too.
JD loses credibility on any theological argument by demonizing the “other ” as eating our cats and dogs.
That was a low point in the campaign but it brought up some issues that needed looking at.
Do you have any credible evidence that that wasn’t happening? All the ducks and geese from local parks suddenly and mysteriously vanished.
In a world saturated with instantaneous global communications, the ordo amoris imposes an imponderable calculus. Did the Good Samaritan force out another lodger out at the inn? Did he feed his donkey before aiding the last crime victim in Palestine? Are there no longer any lines in the sand, or if there are lines, are they no longer red lines? Is the Rio Grande a line in the sand, or is it instead a frontier? Does the illegal immigrant farm hand violate the ordo amoris by supplying his labor in order to send money home to his own and possibly destitute family?
Or, more simply, is crime invasion clearly a red line. Or, how about fentanyl piggy-backed from agent China and a domestic toll of up to 100,000 lives each year? Or dilution–by failed or corrupt neighboring states–of a homeland political, economic and constitutional culture? And, overall, in the interconnected world at large, is the Westphalia nation-state political idiom of the West nothing more than an artifact of Reformation-era politics?
After returning from a military tour in the Far East, in 1971, I treated a friend and the local priest to a pizza in a university town. To him, and about our compact world, I posed the question of eating pizza that day, instead of sending the money to lessen the urgencies of poverty and worse that I had seen in so many port cities of Asia. His immediate response: “I will not allow you to deify me.”
Now, five decades later and a Ph.D. and full career in urban and regional planning and public-private strategizing (that is, not theology), yours truly has no simple answers, even to myself…
My octogenarian mind does go back to a post-World War II treatise entitled “The Natural Law: A study of Legal and Social History and Philosophy (1946),” by the Catholic thinker Henrich Rommen, who also wrote the even more extensive “The State in Catholic Thought: A Treatise in Political Philosophy (1945)” One of Rommen’s points is that the Natural Law is “latent”: it often does not tell us exactly what to do, but in concrete cases it does tell us what not to do. One thing not to do is policy paralysis by those responsible for the common good of their (and other?) people.
Less concretely: “…Politics is and remains a part of the moral universe [….] Its main function is to establish an order and unity of cooperation among free persons and free associations of persons in such a way that these, while they freely pursue their individual and group interests, are nevertheless so coordinated that they realize at the same time the common good under the rule of law. But [!] the rule of law is the [higher] natural law….” (“Natural Law,” from the Conclusion).
I think we need not submit to an oppressive government which steals our money to pay for an invasion of our country by foreign criminals, mental cases and opportunists. What’s love got to do with it?
“Each side in our politics presumes bad faith in the other side—itself a violation of the command to love our neighbor.” No, you presume each side presumes. How is that presumption loving toward Vance? Stick to theology.
Vance knows that there is bad faith on the Democratic side because they have a systematic program of ordered hate. Take for example USAID. It is laced with billions of dollars of USEVIL. Look no further than PEPFAR. It was created to care for the sick before Biden hijacked it to export the murder of children, sterilization and contraception.
https://chrissmith.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=411693
No , by your own admission, Vance does not know, he “presumes “. 🫣
For more on the colonialism of USEVIL and ordered hate, see:
https://chrissmith.house.gov/uploadedfiles/scanned_from_a_xerox_multifunction_printer.pdf
https://chrissmith.house.gov/uploadedfiles/african_leaders_concerns_with_pepfar_reauthorization.pdf
https://chrissmith.house.gov/uploadedfiles/letter_from_pro-life_organizations_on_pepfar_to_mccarthy_and_mcconnell.pdf
Great article! Thank you for your insight.
Fr. Brings up some very challenging issues. Can and should we expect our government to practice Christian morality? Or is there a common morality which may be less stringent which we can hold them accountable for? Can we, as Christians, hope to influence others by practicing our moral values as a witness? The important thing is that as a Church we do everything possible to maintain our right to openly practice our faith both inside and outside our Churches without harassment. At the same time we must be willing to allow others to have the same rights. We must hold ourselves accountable for a higher standard than we can expect from society at large. In short we can’t expect our government to uphold Christian morality, but we must practice it as a Church with our compassionate ministries. May God bless us all as we seek to follow him.
“The important thing is that as a Church we do everything possible to maintain our right to openly practice our faith both inside and outside our Churches without harassment.”
Does “everything possible” include breaking the law?
Having been in pro-life for decades, I know a bit about unjust laws and harassment.
Does obeying the law while doing your “compassionate ministries” make you feel harassed? If so, that’s a “you” problem as the youth would say.
We have rights because we have responsibilities. (St. Newman)
Br. Jacques: The Church should use its own money for its charitable works. It is NOT charity to use other people’s money without their knowledge or permission. The Catholic Church needs to get out of bed with government.
A very edifying essay. The last 4 – 5 paragraphs really get to the heart of the matter: The modern West’s total & unquestioning commitment to egalitarianism.
It is one thing to say that everybody has human dignity; it is quite another to insist that that means everybody be treated in exactly the same way.
NYC spent 7 billion dollars to support migrants. NC suffering hurricane catastrophe is left in the cold. Morning news.
Dilemma regarding priorities, placed or misplaced sets the tone for a closer look at the Aquinas Augustine Ordo Amoris. We should prioritize the needs of those closest to us down the line. Fr Totleben attacks the issue head on [good ground for his doctoral research] – the disparity between modern egalitarianism and an order of charity. Is there a reconcilable mean [median]? Some have criticized the notion of a mean that would satisfy justice for both [see Cardinal Koch rejects extreme traditionalist, progressive positions on Vatican II] stating there is no mean for theological doctrine, as if seeking justice for migrant and citizen splits the baby in half, mistaking deliberation of applying a theology of love with the virtues. A thoughtless denial of the need to exercise the virtue Prudence [deliberation of a moral act] in moral decisions.
Fr Totleben postulates ‘hierarchy characterizes divine action, because hierarchy indicates order and order is the mark of the wise man’. However, our challenge brings us to the neck of hierarchy. The head is divine love. Wherein Man in the singular is regarded as the entire body when his needs demand attention. Prudential deliberation is more than mere logical sequence because it addresses divine love.
A man or men in dire need may under given conditions require absolute attention when life is at stake, as when the father of a family risks his life to save a derelict [the least of our brothers] from death. A body of migrants landed by government at the doorstep of a city cannot, out of the command of charity toward the least, be ignored while the government seeks a just solution. Although 7 billion dollars is another matter.
Do migrants have no responsibility to love their neighbor? to show
respect for others. our laws and our rights?
Aquinas said, in the Summa Theologica, in the First part of the Second Part, question 105, article 3 (I-II, Q. 105, Art. 3)
“Man’s relations with foreigners are twofold: peaceful, and hostile: and in directing both kinds of relation the Law contained suitable precepts.”
“For the Jews were offered three opportunities of peaceful relations with foreigners. First, when foreigners passed through their land as travelers. Secondly, when they came to dwell in their land as newcomers. And in both these respects the Law made kind provision in its precepts: for it is written (Exodus 22:21): ‘Thou shalt not molest a stranger [advenam]’; and again (Exodus 22:9): ‘Thou shalt not molest a stranger [peregrino].’ Thirdly, when any foreigners wished to be admitted entirely to their fellowship and mode of worship. With regard to these a certain order was observed. For they were not at once admitted to citizenship: just as it was law with some nations that no one was deemed a citizen except after two or three generations, as the Philosopher says (Polit. iii, 1).”
“The reason for this was that if foreigners were allowed to meddle with the affairs of a nation as soon as they settled down in its midst, many dangers might occur, since the foreigners not yet having the common good firmly at heart might attempt something hurtful to the people.”
One could argue that illegal immigration sets the parameters for the host response. Does the host nation construe illegal immigration as a peaceful or as a hostile act?
The host nation would sensibly see hostility in an uncontrolled influx or horde of illegal immigrants, especially if the horde tends to plunder and chaos. Such hostile behaviors would render the host people as vulnerable, exploited, and seeking justice through self defense.
This article is impressive. So what’s the next step? What do we do with actual people?
Did the Good Samaritan do anything to set up the traveler to be robbed and beaten? He did his benefaction from out of his own funds. Open borders sets up people for criminal exploitation and harm.
The government’s first responsibility, its primary responsibility, is to its citizens. We have no moral, spiritual, or financial obligation to divert limited resources away from citizens to finance illegal aliens’ housing needs, or any other needs, for that matter. This guilt-tripping and manipulation from the hierarchy is getting really old.
Charity begins at home merely reflects Catholic social teachings on subsidiarity and solidarity.
That allied to ordered patriarchy should foster love of one’s country and patriotism.
Globalism has distorted this and sentimentalism has allowed untrained emotions to override the well ordered intellect.
The stranger is the neighbour and the charity filtering down comes with strings attached.
The recipients are vulnerable and must accept the usual improper conditions .
JDVance is to be applauded for introducing Catholic social teachings into the public square.
He will be loathed by the men without chests
Catholic Unscripted recently commented that Pope Francis is on the side of Rory Stewart in the recent dust-up between Stewart and Vance.
Lord help us.
THE UNACKNOWLEDGED ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM
1. About 98% of illegal immigrants are here because American citizens hire them by the millions to do work in America, despite knowing that they are illegal immigrants. Most of these American citizen employers are Republican voters or even party leaders–that’s because business owners tend to be Republicans. Democrats tend to be teachers or social workers.
2. No border wall and no mass deportation would be necessary if the American citizen criminals who violate the law by knowingly and repeatedly employing illegal immigrants were prosecuted and imprisoned and given million-dollar fines in cases with large number of illegal employees.
4. If the crime of employing illegals was punished, there would be no jobs for illegals in America, and they’d all get on Greyhound buses and go back to their country of origin. Think how much cheaper that would be to taxpayers.
5. Imagine if the police raided illegal bordellos and arrested the prostitutes but acted like their male customers were invisible. That’s our current situation. It’s absurd.
The unacknowleged elephant in the room actually has nothing to do with Republican policies or employers. The reality is that Democrats have provided incentives to illegals in the form of tens of billions of dollars for housing, cars, food, and access to Medicare. Dry up those funds and people will leave.
Some people may leave if social welfare benefits are denied but most people who come here to work come from countries with no welfare benefits, no freebies. Just the ability to earn a great deal more income in the States is a huge draw.
SISTER MARY IGNATIUS EXPLAINS IT ALL FOR YOU
1. Christian “caritas” (charity) is always meant to expand beyond the family. That’s why Jesus says: “If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?” (Matthew 5:46-47). Socialists want us to love everyone, and when we don’t, they use violence to make us. But Catholics are called by the Lord God to love everyone, even enemies, and to do it voluntarily, from the heart, as much as is practically feasible, and to convince others to love God and do the same. These are just basic principles of Christ which we must not let twisty politicians mislead us about.
2. I am always surprised that no one suggests that the USA gov’t or private charities help poor people in their own countries. Well, of course, that goes on already. But more could be done, by the gov’t or by donors to private charities.
3. Recall that when Americans in the 13 colonies felt oppressed by King George III, they did not jump in boats and emigrate to France or Brazil. They took up arms. And their American revolutionary war was basically lost until the awesome navy and army of the French Empire went face to face with British navy and army. So, more people in those Latin American countries could overthrow their oppressive, economy-ruining governments, and the USA Navy could provide some assistance to these revolutionaries, from a safe distance.
4. All these illegals are in the USA because America’s big employers want them here, and these big employers make big donations to the unpatriotic, greedy politicians of both parties. That’s why nobody ever arrests or imprisons the lawbreaking American employers.
5. Four years from now, I guarantee you that there will be more illegal employees in the USA than right now.
6. Illegal immigrants should really be called “ILLEGAL EMPLOYEES.” After all, they are here to work, not to immigrate. They are only here for the jobs.
7. Birthright citizens for illegal immigrants may be gone soon, but that’s because that is what America’s unpatriotic big employers want–they want a multigeneration cheap labor force to permanently displace citizen employees.
If the legal Immigration System is not adequate, we must fix it so it is so. Having an inadequate system contributes to the problem, but this does not change the fact that the Democratic Party, as a party, was willing to ignore Laws that were in place to protect our borders and then claim breaking these laws are necessary if we desire to have an adequate Immigration System, which is a lie from the start.
Perhaps Fr.Totbien’s abstract theological treatise can also be used to explain Vice President Vance’s recent embrace of, and advocacy for, Germany’s new Nazi party, the AfD, during his recent meeting and speech to European leaders. The AfD’s leadership continues to use slogans such as “Alles für Deutschland” in public – the same slogan used by Nazi stormtroopers and engraved on their daggers during the Third Reich. The AfD’s leadership also calls for a “180-degree turn” in Germany’s attitude to the Second World War and condemns the National Holocaust Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in the middle of Berlin as a “monument of shame”. Its leadership further state that Germans should be “proud of the achievements of German soldiers in two world wars.” Certainly then, we should give prayer on behalf of our deeply devout V.P. who is working so diligently to elevate a party that echoes and celebrates the achievements of the Third Reich during the Holocaust. Likely he employed the same principle of ‘ordo amoris’ yet again to rationalize and justify his recent words, and his thus seeming devotion to the guiding principles of something more akin to ‘dis-ordo amoris’ or, in more simple lay terms, just good old hatred. But hey, let’s continue to split theological and philosophical hairs on these pages as everything that Catholicism holds dear burns to the ground.
I looked up Fr. Edward Beck on CNN to hear his criticism of VP Vance – who watches CNN anymore? I thought Fr. Beck was Anderson Cooper mocking Catholics in a Roman collar. It’s even more weird when I saw the offset pictures of Fr. Beck in his usual civvies – a doppelgänger…
I believe another analogy that could address this dilemma would be: I see two people who
are struggling to avoid drowning: one is my child, the other a perfect stranger. if only one can be saved, who among us would rescue the stranger and lose his child?