By Mark Waters

I’m Episcopalian, not Roman Catholic, so I can only imagine how I might feel if I were Catholic and was corrected publicly by the Pope. This happened last week to a well-known politician. The politician, who is Catholic, was scrambling for a “Christian” way to downplay the needs of immigrants and others around the world who are being further marginalized by the current administration. 

The politician in question called upon an old church teaching called Ordo Amoris, which is Latin for “the order of love.” The word “order” here is not explicitly used in the sense of a command (although love is commanded) but rather expresses how one’s affections are “ordered” across various relationships. This public figure claimed that love moves out in concentric circles. “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.” He said that “liberals” have this order backward and want to serve the rest of the world first.

Let’s look more deeply. Ordo Amoris is found in the writings of Augustine (354-430 CE) and is further refined by Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274 CE) in Summa Theologica. I have Summa Theologica on my Kindle which I can access directly on my iPhone. So, I decided to check it out myself. 

I counted four Latin nouns for love in Aquinas’ tome. Relevant for our purposes are amor and caritas. Amor can be understood as the affection one person has for another. Caritas, though it can include the idea of affection, is unconditional, comprehensive love offered to everyone, translated from agape’ in Greek. A verb, dilige, is imperative and expresses caritas in action. “Love (dilige) your neighbor as yourself.” 

Our politician’s concentric circle interpretation of the order of love, moving outward from family to neighbor to community to fellow citizen and finally to “the rest of the world” is a fairly accurate expression of Aquinas’ treatment of amor. For instance, we have more affection for our own child than for a child on the other side of the world even if we genuinely care about the fate of that child and send financial support.

But this politician, who was educated at an Ivy League school and should know better, didn’t bother to check primary sources or else intentionally neglected the fact that caritas is crucial in understanding Aquinas’ teaching about love. Caritas begins with love for God and radiates out equally and unconditionally to all people.

The self-serving political interpretation warranted a response from Pope Francis who wrote, “The rightly formed conscience cannot fail to make a critical judgment and express its disagreement with any measure that tacitly or explicitly identifies the illegal status of some migrants with criminality…Christians know very well that it is only by affirming the infinite dignity of all that our own identity as persons and as communities reaches its maturity. Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups. …  The true ordo amoris that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the “Good Samaritan” (cf.Lk10:25-37), that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception.” (The letter is dated 11.2.25. Keep in mind that this is the way that Europeans write 2.11.25.)

We risk missing the point of the parable if we forget the conversation that sparked it. A scribe comes to Jesus asking, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” ²⁶ Jesus said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” ²⁷ He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself.” ²⁸ And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.” ²⁹ But wanting to vindicate himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:25-37)

Hidden within the question “And who is my neighbor?” is a counterquestion, “How can I determine who is my neighbor and who is not my neighbor? Where can I place a limit on love? Can I limit love to those who are in the concentric circles that are within my comfort zone and social agenda? 

Jesus recognizes the self-serving motive and responds to the question with a parable. Readers of this article know the parable quite well, so I’ll jump to the exchange between Jesus and the scribe that follows the story of the Samaritan. Jesus asks, “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” The scribe has no real choice but to say, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

In other words, stop the nonsense of rationalizing who is in and who is out. Instead, have mercy and be a neighbor.

Dr. Mark Waters is professor of religion in McMurry University’s Department of Religion and Philosophy and Chair of the Division of Humanities, Religion, and Social Sciences

Dr. Mark Waters