Aquinas lays down a basic principle: “One’s obligation to love a person is proportionate to the gravity of the sin one commits in acting against this love.” To say it another way, we are to love with deeper devotion those for whom we have a bigger responsibility. Those against the concept of Ordo Amoris are either being dishonest or have never had a natural family or close friends.

Have you done it yet? Did you do what Vice President JD Vance said to do? Did you Google Ordo Amoris?

Vance, who professes faith in Christ as a Roman Catholic, said recently in a Fox News interview, “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 your own country, and then after that you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world.”

Honestly, this sounds completely normal. Certainly, in previous generations, there would be zero controversy.

Not today.

This concept is very similar to what others have discussed in various forms regarding government. First, you have self-government, then family government, church government, city, state, federal, and so forth. Yet, too many times modern people hear the word government and automatically think, federal government. Generally, this should probably be the last form of government on anyone’s mind, especially the Christian, but usually, it’s the first.
But, is Ordo Amoris a pagan and naturalist ideal as some posit or a Christian concept worthy of emulation? Well, a quick Google search will inform you that it simply is to have “ordered loves or affections,” truly a concept as old as time and yet a foreign concept to our modern, upside-down world. Sadly, tradition and common-sense thinking have been swapped out for vague, “tolerant,” and frequently poisonous ideas about how humans should order their lives.

Ordered Loves

What does it mean to “order our loves?” Everyone, even atheists, and Christians of all stripes, can agree that human beings love things, people, experiences, and culture. But there has been a growing contingent of people, usually on the left (both politically and theologically) that want the average man or woman to swap out their natural affections for family and closest of kin in exchange for the “stranger,” “sojourner,” the anonymous “guy under the bridge downtown,” or the nameless, faceless, impoverished woman in some far-flung corner of the earth.

But must Christians choose between these? It is the order that is the problem, at least for those who don’t seem to carefully read and understand the totality of Scripture. Are Christians called to love people? Yes. Enemies and friends. (1) But Christians are also called to “love our neighbor.” (2) That begs the question, who is our closest neighbor? Our spouse, children the guy next door, the people at church. Love of people both near and far can be true at the same time, but the order still matters. We don’t love everyone equally.

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