Vice President JD Vance recently referenced ancient Catholic theology to defend President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
“Just google ‘ordo amoris,'” he wrote on Jan. 30 on the social networking platform X.
He wrote this in response to criticism over words he made in a Fox News interview: “You love your family first, then your neighbor, then your community, and finally your fellow citizens in your own country.” And then you can concentrate and prioritize the rest of the world.” He stated that the “far left” had flipped that.
Vance stated that the notion is “basic common sense” since one’s moral obligations to one’s children surpass those “to a stranger who lives thousands of miles away.”
What is ‘ordo amoris’?
It has been translated as “order of love” or “order of charity.” St. Augustine, an ancient theologian, explored the notion, stating that everyone and everything should be loved in its right way.
“Now he is a man of just and holy life who … neither loves what he ought not to love, nor fails to love what he ought to love, nor loves that more which ought to be loved less, nor loves that equally which ought to be loved either less or more, nor loves that less or more which ought to be loved equally,” according to Augustine.
“Further, all men are to be loved equally,” Augustine stated. “But since you cannot do good to all, you are to pay special regard to those who, by the accidents of time, or place, or circumstance, are brought into closer connection with you.”
In the 13th century, St. Thomas Aquinas expanded on this idea, emphasizing that it varies depending on the circumstances.
“We ought to be most beneficent towards those who are most closely connected with us,” said the writer. “And yet this may vary according to the various requirements of time, place, or matter in hand: because in certain cases one ought, for instance, to succor a stranger, in extreme necessity, rather than one’s own father, if he is not in such urgent need.”
The Catholic Church’s current catechism briefly mentions the “order of charity” and specifies requirements to honor one’s parents and be decent citizens.