J.D. Vance And 'Ordo Amoris'
Jesus Is Not ‘America First’
On May 8, 2025 Cardinal Robert Prevost became Pope Leo XIV and the second pope in seventeen days to tell Vice President J.D. Vance his interpretation of Roman Catholic theology is wrong.
J. D. Vance has seized upon the medieval Christian doctrine ordo amoris to claim that his administration’s abuse and summary removal of vulnerable people to a foreign torture-prison is God’s incontrovertible will.
I will discuss ordo amoris and its origins in the early Christian theology of St. Augustine of Hippo. I will argue the doctrine is not a justification of “America First,” the abduction of immigrants, or the withdraw of promised USAID funding which has thus far killed an average of 103 people an hour, totaling 43,000 adults and 90,000 children.
I will offer two reasons why, as Pope Leo XIV suggested just a few weeks ago, “J.D. Vance is wrong.”
Before I get to that, I am struck by the righteous certainty the Vice-President displays.
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.
― Bertrand Russell
On January 29, 2025 Vice President Vance said:
There is an old-school, 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, and then after that, 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.
You can hear Vice President Vance’s words in the context they were spoken, beginning at 4:30, above.
On January 30 Vance followed up on X: “just google ‘ordo amoris,’” calling it “basic common sense” (below).
If you are persuaded, consider for a moment that his administration interpreted the constitution’s plain guarantee of due process to “all persons” to exclude persons “who may be here illegally,” or persons “here legally but who we don’t like.”
Three federal courts, including a unanimous Supreme Court, told the Trump-Vance administration this interpretation of due process was wrong. Vance has ignored them.
I don’t know who the Vice-President means when he uses the term “the far left” but, as we will see, it certainly includes at least two people: Pope Francis and his successor, Pope Leo XIV.
Both popes told him his interpretation of ordo amoris is wrong. Vance has ignored them, as well.
I recall Ralph Fiennes as Dean Lawrence in “Conclave” (below) where he warns:
Over the course of many years of service there is one sin I have come to fear above all others: certainty. . . [i]f there was only certainty and no doubt there would be no mystery and therefore no need for faith . . . Let us pray that God will grant us a pope who doubts.
The Origin Of Ordo Amoris
The ordo amoris —the “order of love”— is a theological concept introduced by St. Augustine in the fifth century. Augustine is a critical figure in the development of Christianity, establishing the doctrines of original sin, transubstantiation, and just war.
Augustine (and 1000 years later St. Thomas Aquinas) suggests that when individuals consider the degree of care Jesus wants us to offer others, practical concerns are relevant. That is, the love we have for our various neighbors increases and decreases related to levels of kinship and friendship.
Saint Thomas calls it “the order of charity:” God, one’s self, then one’s neighbor. This “order of love” properly directs human affections toward the divine.
Ordo Amoris Is A Guide For Individuals, Not A Foreign Policy
Christian theology has never interpreted the ordo amoris to be anything but a doctrine which governs the individual Christian spirit.
Despite this, Vance casually subverts it by replacing the individual with the United States government.
He then calls protected civil rights “Christian charity,” to be distributed or denied based on citizenship status and rank.
God’s Love Is Not Pie
Further, Vance assumes that Christian love is a zero-sum game: if we love God and our family, there can be no love left for non-citizens. Under Vance’s calculus, Christian love is finite and, when depleted, justifies the abuse of vulnerable, low-ranking people.
St. Thomas Aquinas anticipated this misinterpretation 800 years ago. In his “Summa Theologica” he explains that true Christian charity “cannot decrease:”
In Scripture, charity is compared to fire . . . fire ever mounts upward so long as it lasts. Therefore as long as charity endures, it can ascend, but cannot descend, i.e., decrease. The quantity which charity has in comparison with its proper object, cannot decrease.
God’s love isn’t pie; taking a piece doesn’t mean less pie for others. God’s love is an eternal fire that “mounts upward as long as it lasts.”
The Trump Administration Is Intentionally Harming Americans
Even if Vance correctly interpreted the ordo amoris (which, to be clear, he did not) he is not prioritizing Christian love for American citizens.
I will not dwell on this but rather suggest that ignoring the constitutional separation of powers, taking away health care for 8.6 million people, and placing its citizens in danger by gutting critical government functions is not the “properly ordered Christian love” as defined by two millennia of Christian theology.
Two Popes Told J.D. Vance He Is Wrong
But hey, don’t take my word for it! Two Popes told Vance he was wrong.
On April 21, 2025 Vance met with Pope Francis who gave him a dressing down about the Trump Administration’s abuse of immigrants. In his Easter Sermon, Pope Francis asked, “[h]ow much contempt is stirred up at times toward the vulnerable, the marginalized and migrants?”
Francis died hours later.
On February 1, 2025, (then) Cardinal Robert Prevost shared a National Catholic Reporter article entitled “J.D. Vance Is Wrong” which, upon his May 8, 2025 election to the Chair of St. Peter, set off a torrent of name-calling from the MAGA hate machine.
Thus, two popes told J.D. Vance that his interpretation of Roman Catholic doctrine was wrong.
He doesn’t seem to care.
Summa
Vice-President Vance cites the ordo amoris as justification for his administration’s violent, xenophobic abuse of vulnerable immigrants and the denial of promised medicine to sick, desperate people.
Although the doctrine of ordo amoris has never been applied to governments, Vance claims his extra-legal persecution of immigrants represents Christian orthodoxy.
Contrary to Jesus, St. Augustine, and St. Thomas Aquinas, Vance declares God’s love finite, justifying the forcible expulsion of people he calls “illegal,” including the mother of a four year old girl suffering from a rare cancer for which she can no longer be treated.
Even if Vance properly interpreted the ordo amoris (he did not), his administration has demonstrated only contempt for its neighbors and countrymen.
Finally, both Pope Francis and Pope Leo XIV (a member of the Order of St. Augustine) have told Vance that his interpretation of ordo amoris is wrong. He ignores them, just as he ignores the orders of the United States Supreme Court.
Our Vice President displays open contempt for the constitution, the rule of law, and the welfare of the American people who elected him.
He terrorizes, abuses, deports, and kills vulnerable people while claiming he is a lover of God acting out his divine will.
Please do not be silent.