Human life is never lived alone. Our lives play out in networks of proximity with other people—some by choice, others by birth, others by circumstances beyond our control. What is the vocation of the Christian within the constant push-and-pull of these social encounters that shape us in profound and inescapable ways? Should we offer greater love to those closest to us, with whom we share family ties or cultural values? Or should we respond first to those who need it most, who beg for our attention and energies no matter who they might be? What obligations do owe to those furthest away, whether stranger, foreigner, or enemy?
In January 2025, Vice President JD Vance proposed that Christian love proceeds in concentric circles: “as an American citizen, your compassion belongs first to your fellow citizens. … 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.”
Soon Pope Francis wrote the bishops of the United States to disagree: “The true common good is promoted when society and government … welcomes, protects, promotes and integrates the most fragile, unprotected and vulnerable. … Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups. … 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 [order of love] that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the Good Samaritan.”
Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan when a legal scholar asked: “Who is my neighbor?” (Lk 10:29). This is our question too. In recent decades we have grown uncertain about our obligations to each other—native-born and immigrants, wealthy and poor, men and women, young and old, highly educated and less educated, born and unborn. We fear the tensions that arise in the company of other tribes, classes, or cultures. We worry our fellow citizens might be threats or competitors for scarce resources. We might even hesitate to form new families of our own. What makes us kin? Who is my enemy? Who is my neighbor?
This year Nova Forum will explore the meanings of social “friendship” (philia or amicitia) in Catholic intellectual traditions: the primordial unit of belonging that informs all others, whether family and kinship, marriage and parenthood, guild and ally, nation and empire, or human and animal. How do we understand the different degrees of social friendship? How do they determine human flourishing? How do we order our loves?
This program is supported by a grant from the Lumen Christi Institute with funding from the John Templeton Foundation (Grant #63614).
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