www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News Pope Francis letter to American bishops

Posted by AJK:

"It's attention to details, here and elsewhere"
******

Details are meaningless when we fail to see the big picture.......

Christ is in our midst!!

This is all well and good, but we need educated people to work in an advanced technolgical society. We no longer need waves of uneducated people to provide grunt labor. We need people familiar with things like stoves--recent story about illegals in an apartment building starting a fire because they thought the oven needed something to burn in it to make it work--and plumbing in bathrooms. We can take small numbers of people and aculturate them but we cannot take the millions who have swarmed over the border since 2020. We don't need people without skills competing with our own people who are competing for low or no-skill jobs.

We'll see how much grunt labor we rely on this summer, if immigrant workers are not given access to harvest foods. Kitchens and service industries are already struggling in most major cities.

Not to mention babysitting, and elder care which costs $500/day in some areas

No, because I don't know if they were lies or not. Vance may be wrong but how do you know he "lies"? NPR? For instance:

But do a close-reading of the NPR article. For starters, I challenge you to find your words "legal" and "immigrants" in the article.

Vance says he has "the first-hand accounts of my constituents" while NPR, actually at this point just the word of the writer Luke Garrett that Vance "went on to defend the dissemination of this false story." So Vance is telling "lies about Haitians [that] were disgusting, undignified, and unChristian" while Luke Garrett has given us the evidence that it's a "false story." Well no, he just proclaimed it false. That's not journalism. Vance has also said elsewhere "It's possible, of course, that all of these rumors will turn out to be false." So I'd say that the claim is looking false -- Vance and Trump were wrong -- but you know Vance "lies"?


Seems like it's better then to come in undocumented.

Can't agree, not meaningless since “God is in the details” -- Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Need both.

Ajk, as you said it's point less to try to have a discussion with bad faith actors that repeat lies with reckless abandon. The local police, mayor, governor, even the so called witness stated she didn't tie Haitians to eating pets at all. If you want to be taken seriously and a Christian, you need to denounce outright racism and open unchristian behavior thats being flaunted and pridefully justified. This group seem to have to no problem flat out lying to meet the ends. JD tying his mother's fentanyl addiction to illegal immigration is another bold faced lie, she was nurse who stole patient meds and got addicted to opiates. She didn't buy street fentanyl off Mexicans.

I don't see how

Christ is in our midst!!


You have a red herring argument here. The seasonal workers come with temporary visas each season and return to Mexico after their work is done. They do equate to the millions of illegals who have crashed the border during the last four years and who think they have some right to stay. These are two different categories if you will. Ask the people put up in cities in high end hotels if they have any farm work to do while they are there.

The idea that people put up in hotels take away from locals is a red herring if you ask me. If you wanted poor citizens to have access to high end hotels and governmental support, these politicians are cutting what little they were getting not adding funds to those accounts either.

As to the distinction between legal workers and illegals - this is true, they do not and should not equate but that is not being made clear by the people making statements and raiding establishments. As to cities and farm work, many of these people were bused into cities and abandoned there by border states as a performative show, the cities created a short term solution - what would be preferred to let them all live on the streets or in the cold during Chicago, NY, Philadelphia winters? Perhaps the border governors should have bused them into farmland towns to assist with labor if the goal was practical and not performative. The plan they came with gives the border governor political points with their base, while claiming "liberal cities" are hosting illegals for propaganda purposes, but neither solves the illegal immigration problem, nor deals with them humanely. It was no coincidence why they bused these folks to those particular places and not to places workers are needed.

No one coming to the US on a visa, as a guest, or a green card or an illegal has an automatic right to stay - they should be swiftly vetted and documented and tracked, up to the deportation or green card or asylum is received. But definitely not abandoned, sent to Guantanamo in a concentration camp, imprisoned, or abused.

*****************

Theophan,

Your response above deserves comment. It is reasoned, has a personal touch, and is impassioned. It is also a clear appraisal of what many people in America are feeling. Without question, those feelings contributed to the latest election results. However, when one compares your response to the letter of Pope Francis to his bishops, there is one, big difference. That difference does not have to with any particular circumstances. Rather, it is a difference in the perception of suffering and mercy, of helping the needy.

Your response speaks so well of the need for America to help it's needy, to help it's poor. Generally, your comments echo the popularist notion of "America first". To me, your comments (and please forgive my frankness) attempt to qualify love and mercy. The Pope, on the other hand, is reminding his bishops to instill in their people the notion that love and mercy are universal, they should not be qualified. They should be applied equally. He is saying, human beings are human beings, one should not be favored over another, especially based upon nationality or ethnicity, and especially in times of great need....like the immigration crisis and the fleeing of multitudes from oppression.

Now, his comments were widely regarded in the news as a correction of comments by Vice President Vance. These comments are supposedly Vance's interpretation of Ordo Amoris. That is an " age old" ordering of love, rooted in Saints Augustine and Aquinus. That's fine...... and certainly has its place in Church thought. However..... Vance is taking a spiritual concept and using it as an excuse for secular policies including mass deportation. This is not only an over simplification of the concept, but a twisting of it's intended meaning. The concept describes love as growing and spreading outward. With regard to the immigration situation, the concept is invoked as a reason to thwart and control. It is especially disturbing because it uses the spiritual to rationalize the secular.

Putting one's nation first has always been a form of pride and patriotism. But when that spirit of nationalism begins to bend the meanings of mercy and compassion and use the teachings of Christianity as a tool, maybe the Pope needs to give a wake up call.

Further, this whole split between the ideas of nationalism and globalism bewilder me. We have never, in the history of civilization been more of a global community. Modern communications and travel have made that an undeniable reality. Insular policies and extreme nationalism are not only things of the past, they are counter productive to any country's growth and progress. Those ideologies caused frictions between countries, led to wars, and serve only to benefit those in already in power. History testifies to that. I think it is also good to remember that the Church itself is a global institution- universal, and diverse.

Christ is in our midst!!

I'm not arguing that we should ignore people. I am saying that our government has lavished money and benefits on illegals and refused to help our own. That's the point that the Pope misses. Many people outside this country have the mistaken notion that everyone here lives in the lap of luxury. That is so far from reality that it is laughable. But that is the idea that many outside our country have. With that in mind, they think we have unlimited resources that just need a little adjustment on our part so that we can bring an unlimited number of people up to our living standard--which again is mistakenly thought to be rich and lavish. High end hotels, catered meals, cell phones, credit cards--many people I work with don't even dream of these things. They're too busy trying to navigate rent, food, gasoline, car payments and insurance.

Our resources are stretched thin by the influx of over 10 million people in the last four years. The reality is that no country, including ours, can absorb that many people without radical economic challenge. Socialist sharing won't do it; capitalism won't do it. No economic model can do it.

I have an idea, though. Let's stop Peter's Pence collections to help the people here targeted by deportation. That way, the Holy Father can help with this crisis rather than pontificating from afar. Let's stop aid to NGOs like Catholic Social Services that have been settling people and let them take this job on their own.

Here is an example of a problem with discussions like this.

Propaganda: [emphasis added]

Propaganda: CNN Headline "Trump directs Guantanamo Bay to be prepared to host up to 30,000 migrants"

Horrible, sending innocents with "visa, as a guest, or a green card," 30,000 who are just "migrants"... that terrible, heartless Trump.

What the CNN article actually says: [emphasis added]
Link to the article. [cnn.com]

A personal note: My grandparents were migrants from Ukraine, Poland and Hungary. I am all for legal immigration. I have great sympathy for those who came here in an irregular manner, having irresponsibly been given the impression that it was all going to be ok.

Returning to the letter: What is the Pope's take on the Patristic notion of there being an "order of love"? Is he saying that Vance misstated it?
Pope Francis:
So that is the "true ordo amoris." What is the other one as articulated by Augustine and Aquinas and brought to the world's attention by Vance?

ajk wrote"

"So that is the "true ordo amoris." What is the other one as articulated by Augustine and Aquinas and brought to the world's attention by Vance."
***********

I can not be sure ajk. I did not formally study theology, I only have a superficial understanding of the concept you ask about. I have read some Augustine and a very little Aquinas, but I admit that I cannot answer this as one that is academically informed- I wish I could. But, my limited background still allows me to have some sense, or guess, at what is up here. Maybe I am way off base, but both Augustine, then Aquinas, were learned in the logic of Clasical thought. I have always felt that both really tried to reconcile logic and reasoning to what we used to call "mysteries". ( you don't hear that term much anymore).

Mysteries were always given as answers to the great questions of faith. They were truths beyond reason, they had no explanation, and attempting to explain them really ruined their truth. I have a guess that Pope Francis is not talking about another Order of Love at all. I think he may be taking issue with depending on the logic of Ordos, as repeated by Vance. Even though Augustine and Aquinas may have felt the need to investigate Love in a reasoned way, they still understood it's truth as mystery- a mystery who's fullness is revealed, not thought- out or decifered.

Perhaps the Pope, in suggesting that we meditate on the parable of the Good Samaritan is his way of saying that Love is a mystery and attempting to put Love into a formula ruins its truth. It diminishes its scope and possibilities. It diminishes its ability to transform and to heal. Subjecting any mystery to logic, fences the mystery in, and limits it. So, with that said, I feel the Pope is referring to the true Ordos as the Ordos of mystery, the Ordos of the heart, the Divine Ordos.

Then ........The True Ordos is the "perfection" of the reasoned one.

Well there..... there is the only answer I can give. I would guess that it is insufficient. But so be it, that is what I sense.

By the way, of course I know that you did not canonize Vance, lol, I was being a little sarcastic.......sorry.

My grandparents were also from Poland, Slovakia, and Western Ukraine....all near the 3 borders.

Thanks for your answer; it's a good one because you express the true faith that is within you.

One issue I usually have with contested topics like this is that information is conveyed second-hand and embellished by incompetent and/or biased journalists. There is no reason in today's electronic media world to not at least reference and link the primary source. It took me a while to find what, where and the context of what Vance said. See for yourself; it is here, What is 'ordo amoris'? JD Vance's use of Catholic theology sparks debate [northjersey.com], specifically at JD Vance: President Trump is looking after American citizens [youtube.com]. I was looking to see if this was a setup Q&A but it seemed to me an off-the cuff; Vance also expressing the true faith that is within him. Only later when challenged does he provide the "footnote":X-Vance Post. [x.com]

As a bishop and leader I think Pope Francis blew an opportunity to raise up the traditional theology, coming from a Patristic foundation that is so important in Catholic and Orthodox theology, raise it up to even further general awareness. Instead he, hopefully unwittingly, set it in conflict, in opposition: the ambiguity of a "true ordo ..." versus what, some other false or deficient ordo? So scripture, here the Good Samaritan, is certainly on the mark but not his "The true ordo amoris that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly..." That "constantly" really gets me in this context because it sounds so good and true, it must be right. Also in this context, I see it as hyperbole that isolates it from the context of the scripture, the details:
The parable is a clear teaching on having compassion and mercy, ἔλεος (elos; Luk 10:37) but not directly for the marginalized. The Samaritan is the marginalized one. This parable too often is turned into a meditation on social classes that dilutes the important context of a first commandment, love of God, and the important condition on the second: love your neighbor as yourself. It is in the "as yourself" that we find not only the theoretical but the practical Patristic meditation that is the ordo amoris.


Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, (Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1976), 202.

The response to Vance's comments by Pope Francis -- the Pope's explicit reference to "ordo amoris" -- can also be seen as an example of synodality: the Catholic Pope dialoguing with a Catholic politician in what is now a public forum. Is this new territory? During the previous administration two prominent Catholics, Pelosi and Biden, also, by word and deed, articulated their Catholic faith and "spiritual principles." What would be examples of the Pope responding to them at a similar level of engagement?