Vance’s Hierarchy of Goods

There is an old saying that great men are seldom good men. The reason for this is that people we call “great” often have real or imagined duties well outside their families and friends, making it difficult to meet their daily obligations. My grandmother once expressed disappointment after reading the memoir of an evangelist she admired when she learned he wasn’t the family man she expected.

Imagine a person who is generous in his support of charities and great causes but neglects his family, to the point that his children live in poverty and squalor. That’s the thought experiment at the heart of a seemingly arcane theological dispute between Vice President J.D. Vance, Pope Francis, and the American Catholic bishops.

“Ordo amoris,” or the order of love, has become the surprise catchphrase of the second Trump administration. Many who voted for Donald Trump and Vance see the federal government as being like the neglectful parent who may have serious social concerns but is not meeting its primary fiduciary duty to the American people.

While an extreme example, it wouldn’t be moral under Catholic social teaching properly understood or basic common sense to let your children starve to serve some greater good or simply because you accidentally allowed other worthy concerns to consume all your attention. 

“What is built on the basis of force, and not on the truth about the equal dignity of every human being, begins badly and will end badly,” Pope Francis wrote in an open letter rebuking the administration. “I exhort all the faithful of the Catholic Church, and all men and women of good will, not to give in to narratives that discriminate against and cause unnecessary suffering to our migrant and refugee brothers and sisters.”

Since the publication of Hillbilly Elegy, Vance has made the plight of the working class in the Rust Belt and Appalachia central to his political mission. That is a morally defensible priority even though there are poorer people elsewhere in the world with whom he has less direct, personal connection. The economic and cultural problems of the communities Vance is interested in also have serious implications for national prosperity and social solidarity.

Vance’s Christian detractors view issues like immigration almost solely through the prism of poor migrants being kept out of wealthy countries. But the costs and benefits of cheap and plentiful immigrant labor, legal or otherwise, are not shared equally across American society.

Many of the benefits of continuous mass immigration flow to affluent Americans who are not exposed to the costs much at all. PR stunts like flying illegal immigrants from strained border communities to Martha’s Vineyard were meant to both illustrate and counteract that. 

The working-class citizens and lawful permanent residents, many of the latter immigrants themselves, bear the costs while receiving fewer of the benefits. Yes, there are some macroeconomic upsides that are shared more broadly. But in general, the people in direct employment and wage competition with the new arrivals are not reaping the rewards of cheaper domestic services.

In most other contexts, a public policy where the benefits go disproportionately to corporations and the upwardly mobile while the costs are disproportionately concentrated among the downwardly mobile would be scrutinized as possibly unfair and unjust. Immigration is a major exception to this rule.

The broken border under former President Joe Biden created moral hazards for migrants themselves, as well as a political upheaval that even those tut-tutting Vance for raising impolitic questions must recognize. If it weren’t for the chaos along the southern border, it is possible that Trump and Vance wouldn’t be wielding power right now in the first place.

That’s not to say that there aren’t legitimate moral concerns about the human dignity of even illegal immigrants. There has been dehumanizing rhetoric and there likely will be excesses of the Trump deportation program. Ordo amoris doesn’t invalidate the parable of the Good Samaritan or more radical concepts of Christian love (though the latter are made possible by God, not government).

But there is some need for the reordering of loves and loyalties. Or more accurately, a restoration of their proper order. Whether that makes America great again res to be seen. There’s a case to be made it was already great. Let’s hold out hope for good, too.