The Pope vs. JD Vance On Immigration

Wall Street Journal Op-Ed: The Pope vs. JD Vance on Immigration, by Raymond J. de Souza (Priest, Kemptville, Ontario):

Pope Francis directly addressed an argument made by JD Vance, a self-confessed devout Catholic who converted in 2019. Mr. Vance justified the administration’s immigration policy by appealing to the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas on the ordo amoris, the proper “ordering of loves.” The vice president called it “common sense” that we love, protect and serve those closest to us—family, fellow citizens—before those more distant. Hence, America first on immigration and other matters.

Pope Francis wrote this week that the “true ordo amoris that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the ‘Good Samaritan’ (cf. Lk 10:25-37), that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception.” Jesus told that parable in direct response to the question, “Who is my neighbor?” in relation to the commandment, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Not since 1984 has there been as high-profile a dispute about Catholic theology in relation to American public policy. That year, Democratic vice-presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro argued that her advocacy of legal abortion was compatible with the Catholic faith. New York Archbishop John O’Connor vigorously corrected her. Gov. Mario Cuomo then went to the University of Notre Dame to outline the intellectual framework of the “personally opposed” but publicly pro-choice position.

Mr. Vance is likely the most intellectually sophisticated Catholic in high elected office since Cuomo, and his exchange with the church could similarly shape Catholic political engagement for generations. That was already playing out before the papal letter. American Catholic bishops have been united on two public-policy priorities for decades: abortion and immigration. ...

Mario Cuomo lost the theological argument to O’Connor and St. John Paul II. But he won the political argument for pro-choice Catholics, including Democrats (Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi) and Republicans (Tom Ridge, Susan Collins) alike. Is Mr. Vance set to do the same on immigration?

Both issues aren’t equally important in Catholic teaching, but Francis and the consensus of American bishops hold that the rhetoric of the Trump administration—and the consideration of all illegal immigrants as ipso facto criminals—is contrary to their human dignity. The pontiff’s letter cites Pope Pius XII, who outlined the history of Catholic teaching on migration, dating to St. Ambrose, St. Augustine and the Holy Family itself. Mr. Vance’s theological challenge is thus considerable, even if the politics of the moment are on his side, as they were for Cuomo in 1984.

Dispatch Faith:  Why J.D. Vance Is Wrong About the Catholic Church’s Mission, by  Dan Hugger (Acton Institute for the Study of Religion & Liberty):

Vance’s most interesting, well-developed, and honest theological engagement on the immigration issue came not in his disparagement of the USCCB on CBS but in his positive case for immigration restriction made on Fox News in the aftermath of the controversy:

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. A lot of the far left has completely inverted that. They seem to hate the citizens of their own country and care more about people outside their own borders. That is no way to run a society.

There is insight here and it is a Christian one, although not uniquely so. It is a more general truth of natural law rooted in the nature of the human person irrespective of time, place, or circumstance. It is discernable by human reason irrespective of nation, color, or creed. It is traditionally taught in Christian catechisms as a derivation from the fourth commandment, “Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.” (Exodus 20:12) As explained in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (2199):

The fourth commandment is addressed expressly to children in their relationship to their father and mother, because this relationship is the most universal. It likewise concerns the ties of kinship between members of the extended family. It requires honor, affection, and gratitude toward elders and ancestors. Finally, it extends to the duties of pupils to teachers, employees to employers, subordinates to leaders, citizens to their country, and to those who administer or govern it.

This commandment includes and presupposes the duties of parents, instructors, teachers, leaders, magistrates, those who govern, all who exercise authority over others or over a community of persons.

Vance is right that we have positive duties to those closest to us and to harbor ill will or feel resentment toward them is wrong. Using this intuition, reasoning, and tradition as the basis for a justification for the immigration policies of the Trump administration is, however, a stretch.

Jesus’ Parable of the Good Samaritan is one of the most beloved. It captures the imagination in part because it complicates this very question. A lawyer asks Jesus what he must do to attain eternal life. Christ answers with another question asking his interlocutor what is written in the law, and the lawyer responds rightly: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself”  (Luke 10:27). The lawyer then, seeking to justify himself, asks, “Who is my neighbor?” In the stilted language of the theological controversy Vice President Vance opened, “Who is in my responsibility in the ordo amoris (order of love)?” Christ answers:

A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him, and went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee.  Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves?  And he said, He that shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise. (Luke 30:37)

The parable, like all of Christ’s parables, is unfathomably rich. It does not provide an answer conditioned by nation, religion, or ethnicity. Those boundaries, it transcends. What there is, is physical proximity, recognition, compassion, and action. It doesn’t give us a rigid category of “neighbor” but tells us how to be one wherever the Lord puts us.

The Lord has placed migrants in our midst, and we have duties to them as neighbors. The form and substance those duties take in our communities, churches, and nations are different. There will be differing policy proposals to address immigration put forward by people of good will, but the fourth commandment isn’t an escape clause, it is a call to responsibility.

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