Revisiting Ordo Amoris

There are some moral theorists who suppose that virtue springs to the intellect as iron law which runs contrary to the senses and is hostile to the personal affections of the world. This could not be more mistaken, but it is often the unwitting contention of modern “Christians” who affirm an antagonism between universal love and ethnic preference, as if man is not forced to make discriminations on behalf of his own nature, his race, his family, and his blood, imagining him as disembodied spirit freed of all finite obligations. They assert that charity necessitates a universal rejection of all distinctions, as if God’s love is to be found above the world rather than within it. On the other flank, there exist those who would affirm that the Christian disposition towards difference is not of truly universal embrace, but of graduated affection that is diluted by every degree of separation from its source. This latter view would empty the depths of selfless love to timid fondness, given only as freely as it is received and indistinguishable from self-interest.

Vance Versus Francis

A few months ago, Vice President JD Vance fell into disagreement with Pope Francis over his interpretation of Ordo Amoris to justify the deportation of illegal immigrants. In late January of this year, Vance, a self-confessed baby Catholic, detailed a neat checklist of loves, beginning with the compassion owed to one’s “family,” followed by “neighbor,” “community,” and “fellow citizens in your own country,” only then permitting one to “prioritize the rest of the world.” In early February, Pope Francis released a letter to US bishops panning Vance’s reading of Ordo Amoris as a reduction of Christian love to a hapless model of “concentric circles” proceeding from the individual outward, gesturing to the parable of the Good Samaritan instead. The pontiff stressed true love as “a fraternity open to all, without exception,” counter to the gradated hierarchy espoused by Vance.

Pope Francis, while insulated from America’s political climate by the Vatican’s walls and admittedly ill-advised on issues of race and immigration, is sound in his theological critique, if not in its application. Vance contrarily is correct in his political application, but errant in his theological reading. Vance has entirely misunderstood Ordo Amoris, the Augustinian notion of an ordered love, to conflate personal obligation, which is bound up with the self, with Christian altruism, which is by definition selfless. Christian love cannot be anything but selfless if it is to stay true to its name. After all, Christ perished not in order to save just himself, nor His family, nor His nation, but all mankind, making no shrewd calculus of priorities while he bled out upon the Cross. Vance is correct to maintain America’s right to repatriate illegal immigrants (and even further the mass of unassimilated legal immigrants currently residing within the interior), but he is right for the wrong reasons.

Where Vance imagines Christian compassion as a disposition which in any way limits itself to the perimeters of household, neighborhood, and nation, he departs from the impartial charity that the Church has always maintained. Even still, it must be delineated to clarify that this unconditional love does not exclude family, community, nation, but fully and intimately enfolds each. The natural dimensions of proximity found in the likeness of family, community, race, and nation are so participatory with the realization of Christian love that their deconstruction, under the auspices of diversity, could only do it harm. The deconstructionists who have hijacked Christian dialogue to champion a suicidal empathy could not be more misguided in attempting to dissolve obligations of blood in pursuit of an indiscriminate, voluntary, and unconditional love. To dissolve these relations, both immediate and historical, would dissolve the possibility of selfless and universal love, the very thing they allege to cherish.

There is no enmity between the selfless, voluntary love revealed by one God and the familial, communal, and national obligations divided among men. As man is above all a temporal creature, love cannot be understood outside of this passage of time, but rather given to it in marrying all dimensions of personal proximity to this indivisible love. After all, man is called to be like Christ, but unlike Christ, who is the Word of God, man is not beget of the uncreated but of the created and is called to “tend to his household” before he may tend to the Church¹.

Christ, as the God-man, was born into the world cognizant of His mortal mission, sharing in the will and intellect of His Father in Heaven, but of a markedly different relation than created man. He did not require these relations to instruct Him of His duties, nor to instill Him with affections, for He carried with him this impartial disposition of love before its partial counterpart, from eternity into time. Therefore, no conflation can be made to imply that all Christians should be called to pastor to the world and not first to their own family. Instead, man must receive and reciprocate God’s love through his own inherited relations and created nature.

Love's Cradle in the Family

Love is first revealed to man in the family, the nearest station by which he is ushered into the world as the proof of its participation. His parents, both sharing in likeness to their child, are inclined to compassion towards that fruit of their mutual love as the reflection of their own particular natures, in habit, temperament, and character. This is a relative likeness, as the affections of a mother to a son or a brother to a sister are conditioned by their very nature as social beings who seek what is already recognizable to them. The affective comfort of this unity, while exclusive to particulars, mirrors the relation of God to Himself in the Trinity, albeit distinct in its dependency. God’s relation to Himself exists independent of external relation, whereas the relation of a son to a father or a daughter to a mother is intelligible only in its exclusion of externals (those belonging to other families) who are not regarded by the same intensity of affection. God’s love then, as primal and universal, does not refuse any echo of mankind from its grasp, but belongs all. Its recognition is prior to man’s at-hand relations but emerges through each, like an image behind murky glass cleared by each swipe.

From the affection of families bound by relative homogeneity, as dependent upon God’s absolute homogeneity, springs affection which inspires the formation of a loving habit, an acting affection of what is first recognized and known. St. Thomas Aquinas submits knowledge as a prerequisite for this inclined love, “Accordingly, knowledge is the cause of love for the same reason as good is, which can be loved only if known” ². It is apparent that to love, there must first be some recognition of the thing which is loved, and it follows that those who are most known to each other by nature shall be the first to share in it.

Beyond the Familiar

The relative nature of man is intractable from his person, even while this truth has been obscured by Enlightenment sophistry which has cleaved him of all relation and contingency. It is through act and obligations to others that love (as disposition) passes through the station of family, the chief tutor of his infancy, to the broadest reaches of mankind. It is this spirit of love, its wonder and mystery, that transforms man’s consciousness, and never partitioned and uninspired act. It is from the inclinations of nature found first within his kind that man develops a loving habit, and thus may extend it to those less proximate to him. However, even this maturation may only unfold in gradation, as man crawls out from the borders of the household into civil life. Having formed the practice of loving act within the bonds of kin, having loved and been loved, he may engage loving habit towards those less like him, but sharing in some degree of likeness as members of a common company, whether neighbor or citizen, common in language, nature, and custom. Only here, the emergence of the will as the pedagogue of an acting love that has been reserved prior to all that was known may inch out towards the recognizable stranger. This habit of love, borne out of greater charity than its predecessor, is as chosen as it is inclined. Here it approaches the other, first in caution, so it may later in boldness.

Love only ventures into the truly unfamiliar in its embrace of the unrecognizable stranger, he whom is seemingly opposed to its subject. Loving habit, in its movement beyond the familiar, toward even the estranged, extends beyond the particular subject, yet this movement is realized only through the being of its subject, in all his specificity and detail. Just as the Good Samaritan came to embrace the wounded Judean in Christ’s aphorism, such love allows its subject intellect to recognize the other as bearing the same Image as itself, stepping over the petty discord of particulars. And in this giving, it is given no guarantee that it will be received. There is no expectation that its object shall welcome it, and may even return its mercy with cruelty, but it loves unflinchingly. In Christ’s piercing words to the apostles, he codifies this standard for love, asking, “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?” ³. For it is selflessness which confers love its identity, and its subject the means to move beyond himself. It is this giving that composes its being, with the subject stepping aside to reveal it—whether in feeding the weary, tending the stranger, or forgiving the detractor, seeing not through man’s veil of prejudice, but through the eyes of God. It inspires recognition insofar as it reaches beyond its subject, confounding all particular animosities, and so cannot be accredited to its subject, but the Spirit which has moved him. It is unconcealed in this motion, where love’s subject becomes transparent to itself and acutely apparent to its object. The wounded Jew who had been neglected by the men of his own tribe, a high priest and a Levite, would’ve been stupefied to see a man bearing the colors of his enemy to receive him in love, and yet only able to behold his charity in awe. If he was greeted by men alike himself, he may have regarded the act conditioned upon likeness. Yet it is only by the love of Samaritan, who abandons himself and all personal presumption in embrace of his foe, that this act becomes its own miracle, where its subject denies himself only to become visible in the eyes of his opposite. And yet, where the stranger, the object of this charity, sees the object of his emnity extended in unassuming goodwill, he is jolted out of the fragmented ordinary and into a congruent wonder, no longer capable of maintaining such distance between him and the other. This perception of subject and object, particular and negative, carries beyond itself, not just in the mind of the giver but in the heart of the recipient. In this epochè of grace, neither can help but see God.

Without affection for the true stranger borne through habit, man, in both subject and object, friend and stranger, could remain sure of the chasm between them, closed to this reconciliation. It is through willing act that the universal affection of God is poured out into man, expressive in goodwill towards all, and impartial in its sentiment. Through habit, affection is stirred, and from this affection, man’s reason may apprehend the likeness of himself to another, not in natural distinction but in supernatural communion. For it has already been recognized that he could never love that which was so alien to him, unless both shared in a primal relation to which both owe their whole being and knowing. It is through the relations of externality that God’s relation of internality makes its odyssey into and beyond the world, appearing to man as it existed before he had eyes to see it. The motion of this love folds upon itself, both emergent through (towards those of man’s particular nature) and realized in affection (towards those of man’s universal nature), carried forth by habit, and finding its beginning and end in knowledge of not only what distinguishes the self from the other, but what unites both in spite of their differences (that being God).

Disposition and Distinction

However, one may ask, if God’s love knows no distinction, and man is invited to participate in this love, must he dismiss all distinctions in obligation? Having glimpsed the reflection of God’s face in the stranger and the stranger in his, may he discard whatever prior commitments had led him to this recognition? This is most certainly not the case, as man’s hierarchic obligations are disposed to the preservation of the relations which unveil the fullness of God’s charity, in family, station, nation, and history. As man may only be inducted into participation of love by those relations of his birth, he should intend that others familiar to him should be afforded the same means of realization. Having emerged from the mouth of Plato’s cave, man is not called to linger in the light of a private sun, but to venture back, to convey its brilliance to his fellows in a language most agreeable to them. Man, in his personhood, is suited to care for like him, and those like him are inclined to trust him. Therefore, within bonds of those most known to man, there is a warmth of refuge impossible among the unfamiliar. A liberal individualism would cast man into this frigid wild, demanding that man love everyone before he can know anyone. Thus, he shall know no one and love none.

In the finitude of the flesh, God has granted man not restraints, but the freedom to afford those nearest to him the same expression of selflessness that he has been afforded. And yet in the recognition of the origin of mutuality between himself and the stranger, a father may recognize his own child in the same breadth, not loved on behalf of his likeness to him but of likeness to God—bearing a dignity unconditioned by the perspectives of finitude. Indeed, universal affection does not abrade its particular counterpart, but buttresses it in greater knowledge. It moves beyond the ego in acknowledgment of the stranger, imparting the sight not of creation but creator. And yet it does not rebuke any form of man, but urges the preservation of its manifold forms, in all tribes and tongues, to this higher end, so that all may give in obligation, as directed by their particular affections. It tends to the footpath that directs man to the pinnacle of this love, so that he may not lose his footing nor cause those behind him to stumble amongst creeping brambles and jagged rocks. Not as an enlightened man who has escaped the primitive shackles of blood, but he who has seen its end, may he helm his fellows in their ascent upon this sacred mount. A selfless love could never command that man to selfishness in pursuit of it. Its nobility insists that it be shared, and it cannot be shared if never received. What love can a son know, if deprived of a parent’s embrace, borne into union with not a father but a ‘free’ soul, an individual who boasts of his love for the farthest creature but cannot spare any for his own child? The inhumanity of liberalism is its aversion to grasp what is in front of it in obsession with that which is just out of reach. It sees nations so hubristic as to assume that they may govern foreigners before their own citizens, and this is the heart of its disorder. It is only by loving that which is reach, that man may set his gaze to the unfamiliar, and not in neglect of who came prior. Obligation unfolds the true nature of charity, not by trampling sentiment, but by discerning where love may be aptly received, to ground in cognition of its subject.

The Nature of Love

Then, the preservation of homogenous peoples, families, and race as the broadest extension of families is imperative to the instruction of love. Man’s created and particular nature is not just superfluous to this end, but necessary to it, for without the inclination fostered by common likeness, man could never learn to be selfless. It insists that man not just maintain his own family, as instructed by obligation, but his race and his country as its extension. Christian love insists, too, that he retain the disposition of love for the farthest stranger, and yet remain stalwart in the obligation to those nearest. Just as man cannot find the truth of love in his individual person, but in another, family cannot be made an island of nation, and nation of humanity. If family is the first body of likeness that must be retained in the instantiation of love, then neighbor and nation is its nearest limb to the stranger, all gingerly held aloft by the fingertips of God. An awkward diversification, as the reckless deconstruction of the proximate bonds of filial relations, stands as the fortuitous enemy of love.

Ordered love, grounded in the obligations inherent to man’s nature, does not call him to forsake Christ’s command to love all, but to fulfill it according to the proper order of his own responsibilities and capacities. It is not a pagan philia which regards men by only their likeness to one’s kind, nor a cold rationalism which unnaturally impels the rejection of all kinds. It is a love aware of itself in the world, bound by place so it may be boundless in expression. As man born into his time and place, so too must his love be, lest it become mute and blind of its circumstance. Love cannot be detached from person, and identified in law, as then it ceases to be love of men, and instead adherence to command. It is a greater vocation to love men, who are distinct by nature so they may be one in Christ, as Paul writes (and is frequently misunderstood) ⁴. Were man so uniform and friendless, he would have no enemy to love, no river to bridge, to sacrifice to offer, and no commonality to apprehend. It is true love awakens only in the awareness of the self, a self intelligible only through its awareness of its nearest others, and its nearest others intelligible only through those farther still. If God had laid no soil of relation to situate man in his being, man would lose himself in the weeds of oblivion, unable to flower into virtue. It seems some have taken up this impossible task themselves however. They would sever the roots of man’s personhood and, as in culture and as in law, hollow the ethic of community, and polity, and nation by obliging reason unmoored from nature. If their machinations were to reach completion by some stretch of credulity, man would be cast into Hobbesian horrors, plunged into insecurity, with none more like him than different, made fearful as he is loveless.

In Defense of the Nation

Toiling for the integrity and preservation of one’s people, nation, and kin is the natural extension of Christian love, as it involves a moral concern for both oneself and others. Globalization, mass migration, commercialized misgeneration, and the homogenization of peoples push men into a world of incoherence. These forces pose not merely natural perils to one group or another but a moral affront against all. In America, illegal immigration has overseen the entrance of 20 million foreigners—mostly seeking economic opportunity—who refuse to abide by the country’s most fundamental dictums. Yet their law-breaking may be the most trivial evidence of their dissimilarity. Many do not seek to learn the language or identify with their country of origin, and by custom and nature, they are decidedly unlike those who still compose its narrow majority. Man’s neighbors should resemble him, for it is in this likeness that he finds the foundation of affection toward his country—a patriotism that may compel him to the good of the other. The diversification of his polis, to its law and identity, certainly undermine this condition. It is only dignified to honor both the migrant by safely returning them to their country of origin and the American citizen, who rightly expects his nation’s laws to be enforced.

The greatest ill of mass migration is not found in its illegal mode, but in its legal, normative counterpart. In 1910, 88.9% of America’s population was European. After decades of permeable borders, this figure has fallen to 58% in 2023 ⁵. Under a misreading of ‘love thy enemy,’ America has transformed itself from a majority-ethnic nation into a pluralistic one. Yet, in this pluralistic state, it risks losing the very virtues that once defined it. In its political life, without a recognizable stranger to orient the family—a common citizen—there will be no reconciliation between peoples, only conflict. This conflict will deepen man into immature particularities and obscure God in race. Identitarianism has only gained prominence in political life due to the erosion of racial, social, cultural cohesion; where tribal man is stripped of ethnic sanctuary, he scrambles for refuge in some other political stronghold. Yet, with his own community — more alien to him than ever — he has become untrusting, and this has culminated in the slow death of public and political care, which can be observed at the very moment. If selfless love (which American liberals so claim to do) is contingent upon inclined love, and inclined love upon trust, and trust upon likeness, then the erasure of national identity does not just pose a natural threat but a ethical one. Instead of encouraging man to engage with the other, diversity alienates him from the other and the other from him.

To reverse this precedent in policy governance, its moral claim must be shattered—not just in the benefit of America or the West but for all peoples, to whom God has endowed a propensity for their own. This propensity facilitates that all may partake in the nature of God’s love, yet in a way amicable to their finitude and selfhood. The allure of capital, where a migrant chooses economic opportunity over loyalty to their homeland, undermines the pursuit of virtue. Likewise, America should resist the siren-song of unceasing financial expansion by foreign labor if it means ceding its soul. It is not a material, but a moral imperative that federal policy in America, as well as in European states, to restore or preserve each’s homogeneity and distinct identity by all prudent means. Repatriation, even if incentivized by taxpayer money, would do much good toward preserving the likeness and distinction of nations, families, and persons, if a moratorium on immigration alone cannot undo the harms already cemented.

In the same respect in which one need not harm another’s race to preserve one’s own, compassion may be shown to the stranger insofar as it does not imperil one’s own. Morals are duty-bound—not as an impersonal obligation, but inspired by affection and an uncaused Love that orients man to care. God offers this gift to man, intertwined with his nature, so that he may freely participate in the love, will, and knowledge of the divine. Family, community, race, nation, and mankind are pillars of likeness entrusted to man by God, so that he may glimpse His reflection in each, not just his own.

¹ 1 Timothy 3:4-5

² St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I-II, Q.27, A.2

³ Luke 6:32

⁴ Galatians 3:28

⁵ U.S. Census Bureau. Population Estimates and Characteristics (2024)