In a recent appearance on a TV news show, JD Vance articulated the “Christian concept 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.” The comment caused immediate, harsh reaction from many in the Catholic commentariat, condemning Vance’s observation. Some have cast doubt on his personal faith. One prominent British journalist even questioned the faith of the priest who received Vance into the Church.
The National Catholic Reporter, for example, ran an opinion column headlined “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.” In the course of the article, the author did more to affirm the propriety of Vance’s comment than support the thesis expressed in the headline. For example, she writes, “Paul reminds them: love starts close. It moves first toward those in front of us, ensuring widows were not abandoned while preserving the church’s resources for those truly without support.” This is, in essence, a paraphrase of Vance’s observation, but I suppose that was lost on the author and editors of NCR.
Similarly, a prominent Jesuit priest took to X to trot out the parable of the Good Samaritan, saying that Vance “misses the point” of the parable. He then gets both Vance’s statement and the parable wrong. Nothing in Vance’s statement remotely implies that he denies that one should help the victim of the crime in this parable. The priest’s comment “misses the point” of both the parable and Vance’s comment.
These disparagements have a strong whiff of bad faith. Not only is Vance’s statement correct, but it is also theologically unremarkable. None of the condemnations of his observation come close to refuting the essential point. This suggests that they are motivated by personal animus rather than informed by Catholic theology.
Based on Scripture
A single passage of Scripture affirms, in principle, the propriety of Vance’s observation. In Matthew 22, Jesus was asked, “Which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He answered in terms of precisely the concentric hierarchy that Vance articulated: “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and the first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Mt 22:37-40). This is the foundation for the ordo amoris or “order of love,” and Vance’s observation fits comfortably within it.
When Jesus called the apostles James, John, Andrew and Peter, all of them were busy helping with the family fishing business. As the Gospels tell us, they immediately left the boats to follow Jesus (Mt 4:18-22, Mk 1:16-20, Lk 5:10). This tells us that love of Jesus transcends love of family. To make the point even finer, in Mark and Matthew’s account, James and John abandoned their father, in the boat mending broken nets, to follow Jesus. As Vance’s detractors rightly say, this tells us that Christian discipleship subordinates all other human relationships. Our first and greatest love must be for Christ. This implies, for example, that one must be willing to follow Christ against family if the family is an obstruction. Nothing Vance said contradicts this foundational moral principle. Indeed, his articulation of the ordo amoris is perfectly consistent with it.
Vance’s comment also follows the teaching of St. Paul the Apostle. “Honor widows who are really widows,” commands St. Paul. But “if a widow has children or grandchildren,” he continues, “they should first learn their religious duty to their own family and make some repayment to their parents; for this is pleasing in God’s sight” (1 Tim 5:4). And he summarizes the teaching, “whoever does not provide for relatives, and especially for family members, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Tim 5:8). Vance’s articulation of the ordo amoris is nothing more than a paraphrase of this instruction. Indeed, it is remarkably consonant with it. It is not logistically possible for one community to care for every widow. Thus, those who are able are commanded to assist those closest to them, so that other resources can be used for those who do not. In other words, Paul confirms a concentric ordo amoris for public policy considerations, beginning with the family.
Toward a generous, but prudent, immigration policy
I have been critical of JD Vance’s rhetoric about immigrants and immigration. Language like “mass deportations” and “illegal aliens” is damaging to public discourse and a distraction from the need for good immigration policy. Vance was also wrong to suggest that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has somehow profited from federal grants for the U.S. refugee resettlement program. He owes the bishops an apology for that ill-informed assertion.
I have also suggested that immigration policy must start with the demand to love the immigrant, rather than with the protection of borders. Nationalistic and individualist rhetoric should be avoided, replaced with the language of dignity, subsidiarity, solidarity and common good. Border policy should be ordered by love, not national security. Prudentially and charitably applied, this would render a generous policy, not a restrictive one.
But neither can immigration policy sacrifice the common good of the receiving nation. It is not loving either to immigrants or the receiving community, for example, to permit wholesale migration of dangerous criminals, drug dealers, child traffickers, convicted felons and cartel operatives. Nor is it consistent with love to impose upon a community financial burdens that it is unable to bear.
This is why the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches both that we must be generously welcoming of the immigrant and dutifully protective of the common good. “The more prosperous nations are obliged, to the extent they are able, to welcome the foreigner in search of the security and the means of livelihood which he cannot find in his country of origin,” explains paragraph 2241 of the Catechism. On the other hand, it continues, “political authorities, for the sake of the common good for which they are responsible, may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions, especially with regard to the immigrants’ duties toward their country of adoption.” These reciprocal teaching requires careful deliberation and prudent application of the law.
Vance’s articulation of the order of love is consistent with both these demands. His detractors have disingenuously implied that Vance said, “Love your family; hate everyone else.” But of course, he said, “love everyone.” And as Jesus himself tells us, this love must be properly ordered. It’s not an easy task to determine how this plays out in public policy. But Catholic commentators should at least be honest about the integrity of the teaching, rather than attack it because the “wrong” person said it.