In my last column I commented on JD Vance’s invocation of the ordo amoris to justify the Trump administration’s immigration policy. I defended his explanation of ordo amoris but criticized the policy. After my column was published, Pope Francis wrote (or, more likely, signed off on) a letter to the bishops of the United States about the same issue. The letter misconstrues what is happening in the U.S. and contradicts previous statements from Pope Francis himself.
As readers of this column know, I have no interest in defending President Trump. And I repeat my charge that he is temperamentally, psychologically and morally unfit to be president of the United States. Nothing has happened in his first month in office to change my mind. But that’s a different matter than analyzing policy positions, some of which are good despite the president’s deficiencies.
While Pope Francis’s letter is addressed to the bishops, it is a really passive-aggressive criticism of President Trump and Vice President Vance. The letter is unfortunate in at least two respects. First, it perpetuates a confusion between deportation and repatriation. Second, while purporting to criticize JD Vance’s invocation of the order of love, the pope’s letter actually confirms it.
Repatriation is not deportation
In virtually every discussion of the Trump administration’s immigration policy, the term “mass deportation” is used. Even the president and vice president use this term. But thus far the program has been neither”mass” nor “deportation.” In every case of removing undocumented immigrants to date, the U.S. has returned them to the country of their origin. This is not deportation. It is repatriation.
Deportation is the act of forcibly evicting someone from a country (often the country of their citizenship), without regard or concern about where they go after they have been expelled. It is a synonym of “exile.” Repatriation is the act of returning people to their native country from one in which they are neither citizens nor properly documented guests. The U.S. has been engaged in the latter, not the former.
“Deportation” is more accurately used to describe the forcible removal of citizens from their native land. In the aftermath of World War II, on Dec. 10, 1948, the United Nations General Assembly issued its famous “Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” Written especially in reference to the Nazis’ treatment of Jews in Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and other nations, the Declaration sets forth certain juridical or legal rights that must be protected by every nation. Among them are rights related to citizenship and immigration. For example, Article 9 declares, “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.” Article 15 states, “No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.”
Judging by the rhetoric of pundits and the press, one would think that these provisions are being flagrantly violated in the U.S. They are not. No one is being deported or exiled. Rather, migrants who have entered the United States without visas or other proper documentation have been selectively returned to their native land. Many of these persons have committed violent crimes in their native country and/or while they have been residing in the United States. The U.N. Declaration expressly addresses this situation in Article 15, which affirms the right to seek asylum. This right, however, “may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.”
There has been no “deportation” in the first month of the Trump administration, much less mass deportation. No one has been exiled; everyone has been returned home.
The pope has affirmed the concentric ordo amoris
Among the passive-aggressive criticisms of JD Vance in the pope’s letter is the charge that “Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups.” But in this very letter, as well as other writings, Pope Francis endorses the notion of “a concentric expansion of interests.” For example, he states, “one must recognize the right of a nation to defend itself and keep communities safe from those who have committed violent or serious crimes while in the country or prior to arrival” (No. 4). And he expressly endorses the development of a policy that “regulates orderly and legal migration” (No. 5). This is policy informed by the concentric order of love.
Pope Francis has said similar things in prior letters and other documents. In a 2019 letter to the Pontifical Academy for Life, he affirms the teaching of Pope St. Paul VI that “the Church family extends in concentric circles to all men and women, even to those who consider themselves extraneous to the faith and the worship of God” (No. 7). In a 2021 homily, Pope Francis notes that the unity of Christians can be imagined as “unity consisting of three concentric rings,” namely, abiding in Jesus, unity with Christians, and then the “third circle of unity … the whole of humanity.” And in a 2019 audience, the pope noted that reconciliation “takes the form of concentric circles, starting from the heart and extending to the universe — but in reality it starts from the heart of God, from the heart of Christ.” These are all endorsements of a concentric ordo amoris.
It is sadly disconcerting to see Pope Francis — having expressly articulated the concentric nature of love, faith, worship and reconciliation — attack Vice President JD Vance for articulating the identical theological principle.
U.S. immigration policy is a mess. And the rhetoric from some members of the administration is hateful and cruel. But not JD Vance’s. And to misconstrue what is really happening, and how it is being affected, is not helpful for anyone.
