Vice President JD Vance defended the Trump administration’s strict immigration policies by invoking medieval Catholic theology to justify prioritizing U.S. citizens over illegal immigrants.
Family, neighbors, and America first, says Vance. Then the rest of the nations.
“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,” Vance said in a Fox News interview.
Following liberal attacks over his remarks, Vance directed critics on X to research “ordo amoris,” a theological principle dating to St. Augustine.
The Latin phrase, meaning “order of love” or “order of charity,” outlines a hierarchy of moral obligations.
“This is basic common sense,” Vance said about the philosophy. “Your moral duties to your children outweigh your moral duties to a stranger who lives thousands of miles away.”
The concept traces back to St. Augustine, who wrote: “All men are to be loved equally. But since you cannot do good to all, you are to pay special regard to those who, by the accidents of time, or place, or circumstance, are brought into closer connection with you.”
Later theologian St. Thomas Aquinas expanded on this principle while noting exceptions.
“We ought to be most beneficent towards those who are most closely connected with us,” he wrote, though adding that “in certain cases one ought, for instance, to succor a stranger, in extreme necessity, rather than one’s own father, if he is not in such urgent need.”
The modern Catholic Church’s catechism references this “order of charity” primarily in relation to family duties and civic obligations.