Valentine’s Day: “Ordo Amoris”
Statements made by the President at the National Prayer Breakfast are like the proverbial gift that keeps on giving! Trump announced proudly that he had issued an order mandating the establishment of a White House Faith Office. Odd name, White House Faith Office, a misnomer maybe? Who has faith in this White House anyway? Ominously, Fox News reported from the so-called fact sheet:
The new office will "empower faith-based entities, community organizations, and houses of worship to better serve families and communities.”
The office will be housed under the Domestic Policy Council and will consult experts in the faith community on policy changes to "better align with American values."
I wonder who these ‘experts in the faith community’ might be, certainly no one who has ever been associated with anyone or any program advocating for diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility! I wonder, too, what those ‘American values’ might be! To make matters worse and even more alarming, he appointed the Reverend Paula White-Cain, an American televangelist and an apostolic leader in the Independent Charismatic movement, and a proponent of prosperity theology, a theology that even the MAGA faithful reject as heretical. No surprise here, though, that Trump, the world’s most notorious and shameful grifter, surrounded by billionaires, would make a big deal of it. Some have suggested that, like the Department of Health and Human Services under the leadership of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the conspiracy quack who promised to Make America Healthy Again, (MAHA), the acronym, MARA, be assigned to the office. (Make America Religious Again) However, Trump stepped all over that suggestion soon afterward when he signed that executive order to impose twenty-five percent tariffs on imported steel and aluminum. In the Oval Office signing, he usurped the acronym MARA and made it: Make America Rich Again. Which should it be? Religious or Rich? No contest there for Trumpism! I would hope, however, that for us the answer would be ‘religious,’ i.e., faiths of all forms, including Christian.
I do not believe that the Christian faith should ever align comfortably with ‘American values,’ and they certainly do not in these chaotic times. Sometimes, the Chistian faith, as I understand it, is at odds with some widely held and so-called ‘Christian values.’
Were I to be solicited by the Reverend White-Cain to consult with this White House Faith Office, I would first remind myself of a quote by the Reverend William Sloane Coffin, chaplain of Yale University:
There are three kinds of patriots, two bad, one good. The bad ones are the uncritical lovers and the loveless critics. Good patriots carry on a lover's quarrel with their country, a reflection of God's lover's quarrel with all the world.
What he says of a patriot can also be said of a Christian. Good Christians must conduct a lover’s quarrel with their country, a reflection of God’s quarrel with the world.
In response to Pope Francis’ criticism of the Trump administration’s cruel immigration and deportation pogrom, Vice President J. D. Vance must have consulted some of those experts in the White House Faith Office. He created quite a dust-up when he invoked the Catholic concept of “ordo amoris” — “rightly ordered love” to defend Trump’s deplorable actions. Vance claimed:
But there’s this old-school [concept] — and I think a very Christian concept, by the way — that you love your family, and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country, and then after that you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world. A lot of the far left has completely inverted that. They seem to hate the citizens of their own country and care more about people outside their own borders. That is no way to run a society.
Pope Francis responded in a papal letter to the United States bishops. He criticized the Trump administration's mass deportation efforts and then schooled the vice president and others on the term, saying it encourages compassion for all people. meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception. He wrote:
Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups. 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. Rather, …it is centered on human dignity with a special concern for the poorest. Francis condemned ideologies that are first concerned with personal, community and national identity.
By most standards, that comeback was quite a smackdown. I would only add that in addition to the Parable of the Good Samaritan, we might want to read the Gospel according to Mark, chapter three. It begins with the story of Jesus’ entrance into the synagogue, where he says to a man with a withered hand: “Come forward.” He says the same words to us at this very moment and challenges us to be participants in the pericope.
3 Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there who had a withered hand. 2 They were watching him to see whether he would cure him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. 3 And he said to the man who had the withered hand, “Come forward.” 4 Then he said to them, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. 5 He looked around at them with anger; he was grieved at their hardness of heart and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. 6 The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him. (NRSVU)
What a suspenseful moment that must have been! He fixes his steely gaze upon those in the synagogue, knowing full well that this was a trap. However, he sets his own trap by asking:
“Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save life or to kill?”
This question proved to be a silencer!
He, on the other hand, was neither silent nor stoic!
5 He looked around at them with anger; he was grieved at their hardness of heart and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored.
What happens next is equally provocative. Mark concludes his story with this report:
6 The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.
I would say Jesus had an impressive lover’s quarrel with his tradition and its leaders and as a result, they showed that they had no intention of tolerating a law breaking, compassionate healer in their midst!
Well, the Markan chapter ends in an equally remarkable way. Please read the closing paragraph closely and ponder the arresting (poor pun) significance of its import.
31 Then his mother and his brothers came, and standing outside they sent to him and called him. 32 A crowd was sitting around him, and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers[c] are outside asking for you.” 33 And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” 34 And looking at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! 35 Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”
“Ordo Amoris,” “rightly ordered love.” On Valentine’s Day, let us do the will God by living expansively and compassionately with “a rightly ordered love.”