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JD Vance vs the Popes
What exactly is St. Augustine’s ordo amoris, and why is it controversial?
I’m already on record as not thinking very highly of Donald Trump, virtue-wise, so I might as well go after his Vice President too. In for a penny, in for a pound, as they say. As usual, though, I don’t mean to mount a partisan attack, since I don’t think of myself as a Democrat, nor are my comments going to address details of policy, since I am not qualified to say anything particularly original in that department.
Rather, I’m going to focus on a theological (and, hence, philosophical) dispute between J.D. Vance and not just one, but two Popes.
On 29 January 2025, Vance said in an interview on Fox News: “There is a 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.” [1] Vance referred to an unspecified “old school” Christian concept, which he later identified with the notion of ordo amoris (literally, hierarchy of love) articulated by St. Augustine.
As a former Catholic myself, that immediately smelled like nonsense on stilts. If anything, Vance seemed to be describing a Stoic principle, the circles of…
