JD VANCE: 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...
Apparently Pope Francis did. Or rather he used his common sense and dug into the Gospels and the deposit of Catholic social teaching that draws upon them.
"Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups. In other words: the human person is not a mere individual, relatively expansive, with some philanthropic feelings! The human person is a subject with dignity who, through the constitutive relationship with all, especially with the poorest, can gradually mature in his identity and vocation. The true ordo amoris that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the “Good Samaritan” (cf. Lk 10:25-37), that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception." — Pope Francis in a letter to the Bishops of the United States, 11 February 2025
The whole letter is here.
I find the concept of love is often difficult for those who are driven by hatred, emboldened by greed, and preaching holier than thou with exceedingly dirty, and often bloody hands from atrocities committed. The funny thing is I, as a Catholic and as a follower of Christ’s teachings, have never needed to “Goolgle” anything about how to treat others, I simply remember “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”
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