Catholicism and Immigration: A Rejoinder to Cory and Sweeney

As I showed in a recent article in Public Discourse, the Catholic Church teaches that prosperous nations have a duty to welcome immigrants, but only to the extent they are able, and that governments may restrict immigration out of concerns about security, economic impact, and the prospects of assimilation. In a pair of recent essays, Therese Cory and Terence Sweeney have criticized my article. What follows is a response.

“Relativism” and Other Straw Men  

Having documented in my article what Church teaching says about both the duties nations have to immigrants and the qualifications on those duties—along with the duties immigrants have to their host countries—I concluded:

The truth is that the entirety of that teaching—not only what it says about the obligation to welcome the stranger, but also what it says about the limitations on that obligation—must inform our judgments about how many migrants to allow in and under what conditions. And as Aquinas teaches, here “it is not possible to decide, by any general rule” but requires the exercise of the virtue of prudence. As to what prudence calls for, Catholics of good will can reasonably disagree.

Commenting on this passage, Cory writes:

Feser . . . relies on an essentially relativistic notion of prudence—one in which objective moral principles only get us so far, and the rest of the work is done by prudential judgment in a personal realm of mere “difference of opinion,” shielded from objective moral scrutiny. Indeed, the phrase “legitimate difference of opinion about a matter of public policy” places public policy outside the realm of things one can objectively morally evaluate—a view commonly found in company with relativistic notions of prudence.

The bulk of her article then goes on to criticize this “relativistic notion of prudence.” The problem is that I hold no such notion. Nor, frankly, does Cory have any basis for attributing it to me. She has rashly read it into what I wrote, not out of what I wrote. It is a straw man.

Cory herself acknowledges that when making moral decisions in light of a variety of relevant considerations, “my options may be equally good and thus morally indistinguishable. Or poorly informed agents may reach different judgments where one or both are unwittingly wrong, but they disagree ‘legitimately’ in the sense of both acting in good faith.” But, as a charitable reading of my article should have made evident, that is all I meant when I wrote that “as to what prudence calls for, Catholics of good will can reasonably disagree.”  

Nowhere do I say, nor would I say, that differing prudential judgments about immigration should be “shielded from objective moral scrutiny.”  In no way would I place this area of public policy “outside the realm of things one can objectively morally evaluate.” My point was simply that because the relevant concrete circumstances to which we have to apply moral principle in this area are so complex, it is possible in some cases for there to be “options [that are] equally good and thus morally indistinguishable” (to borrow Cory’s words). And it is also possible for there to be other cases “where one or both [people] are unwittingly wrong, but they disagree ‘legitimately’ in the sense of both acting in good faith” (once again to use Cory’s words).

In fact, Cory and I are essentially in agreement on the general philosophical question of the nature of prudence. So, most of what she has to say is simply misdirected. Nor is this the only case where she attacks a straw man. Criticizing the use I make of the magisterial documents I cite, Cory writes, with respect to one of them:

[The] document . . . takes a more open-ended perspective on the good of society as including that of the potentially admitted refugees [emphasis in the original], rather than being a one-sided consideration of the “economic well-being of its own citizens” as Feser suggests. . . . The Church’s concern, again, is for the good of the newcomers taken together with the preexisting population.

But I never said or implied otherwise. It is true that I emphasize the legitimacy of a government’s taking account of the economic needs of its own population, because that is a consideration that routinely gets ignored in recent discussions about Catholicism and immigration. All the same, I did not deny that the good of immigrants must also be considered. On the contrary, I explicitly acknowledged that “there can certainly be particular cases where the needs of strangers trump those of people closer to us,” and that “we do indeed have obligations to people of other nations, who are part of the common human family of which all nations are members.”

Sweeney attacks a straw man of his own when he alleges that my article “emphasizes only our rights” and neglects “our duty to the stranger.” “Ever deepening our concern with rights,” Sweeney laments, “the modern person ‘closes in on himself’—losing track of the fundamental relationality between self and other.” The unwary reader might imagine from this that my article is grounded in a rights-based libertarian or individualist political philosophy.  

But like Cory, Sweeney is attacking a figment of his imagination.  There is in my article no emphasis on rights over duties, nor any commitment to individualism. On the contrary, the article explicitly emphasizes that we are “social animals” rather than “atomized individuals,” and that “it is precisely in the contexts of the family and the nation that our social nature is most immediately developed.” And again, I explicitly say that “the needs of strangers [can sometimes] trump those of people closer to us,” and that “we do indeed have obligations to people of other nations, who are part of the common human family.” My point was precisely that we have duties (not just rights), and that our first duty is to those closest to us.

Immigration and Culture

Cory takes issue with my claim that the Church allows that when formulating immigration policy, governments may take account of potential impact on the cultural heritage of a nation. She objects that “the point of section 2241 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, about respecting cultural heritage, is phrased in terms of the immigrant’s duties to the host, rather than as something governments should consider in admitting immigrants.” But in fact, what that passage says is this:

Political authorities, for the sake of the common good for which they are responsible, may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions, especially with regard to the immigrants’ duties toward their country of adoption.  Immigrants are obliged to respect with gratitude the material and spiritual heritage of the country that receives them, to obey its laws, and to assist in carrying civic burdens. (2241)

The Catechism says here that governments may put conditions on immigration “especially with regard to the immigrants’ duties toward their country of adoption.” And it says that among these duties are “to respect with gratitude the . . . spiritual heritage of the country that receives them.” So, contrary to what Cory claims, the Catechism is not talking only about the duties of immigrants, but also about what governments may consider when deciding on immigration policy.  Indeed, the Catechism says that governments may consider the country’s “spiritual heritage” precisely because immigrants have a duty to respect it.

Even apart from this particular passage from the Catechism, it stands to reason that governments may take account of a nation’s culture when determining immigration policy. The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church notes that:

A nation has a “fundamental right to existence,” to “its own language and culture, through which a people expresses and promotes . . . its fundamental spiritual ‘sovereignty,’” to “shape its life according to its own traditions,” . . . [and] to “build its future by providing an appropriate education for the younger generation.” (157)

Now, a nation’s government exists precisely for the sake of promoting the common good of its people, which can hardly exclude protecting a nation’s rights. Hence, if a nation has a right to its own language, culture, spiritual sovereignty, and traditions, then it follows that a government can consider what is conducive to protecting these things when deciding on immigration policy.

The Church has also acknowledged that grave social problems can arise when a cultural minority does not respect the cultural heritage of the nation in which it resides. In the encyclical Pacem in Terris, Pope St. John XXIII wrote that such minority groups must always be treated justly, but also warned:

It is worth noting, however, that these minority groups, in reaction, perhaps, to the enforced hardships of their present situation, or to historical circumstances, frequently tend to magnify unduly characteristics proper to their own people. They even rate them above those human values which are common to all mankind, as though the good of the entire human family should subserve the interests of their own particular groups. A more reasonable attitude for such people to adopt would be to recognize the advantages, too, which accrue to them from their own special situation. They should realize that their constant association with a people steeped in a different civilization from their own has no small part to play in the development of their own particular genius and spirit. Little by little they can absorb into their very being those virtues which characterize the other nation. But for this to happen these minority groups must enter into some kind of association with the people in whose midst they are living, and learn to share their customs and way of life.  It will never happen if they sow seeds of disaffection which can only produce a harvest of evils. (97)

Similarly, in a 2003 address, Pope St. John Paul II advised governments facing such problems:

If the gradual integration of all immigrants is fostered with respect for their identity and, at the same time, safeguarding the cultural patrimony of the peoples who receive them, there is less of a risk that they will come together to form real “ghettos” in which they remain isolated from the social context and sometimes even end by harbouring a desire to take over the territory gradually.

Pope Francis too acknowledged the problem in some remarks made in 2016:

In theory, hearts must not be closed to refugees, but those who govern need prudence. They must be very open to receiving refugees, but they also have to calculate how best to settle them, because refugees must not only be accepted, but also integrated. . . . [A] political price can be paid for an imprudent judgement, for accepting more than can be integrated. What is the danger when refugees or migrants—and this applies to everybody—are not integrated? They become a ghetto.

A culture that does not develop in relationship with another culture, this is dangerous. . . . I talked with an official of the Swedish government . . . [who] told me of some difficulties they are presently facing, . . . because so many are arriving that there is no time to make provision for them, so that they can find schools, homes, employment, and learn the language.  Prudence has to make this calculation.

Culture and Religion

Now, Cory herself acknowledges that “in the abstract, cultural identity looms large as a problem for immigration policy to address.” But she argues that given the actual concrete facts in the American context, “there is little reason in our present circumstances to think that cultural identity will be weighty enough to become a defining moral factor in this domain at all.” She notes that assimilation normally can, and in the American context historically has, occurred in an organic way that has served to enrich rather than disrupt the culture of the nation receiving immigrants. In particular, she notes that Irish, Italian, German, Hungarian, Polish, Chinese, and Jewish immigrants “did not displace American culture; instead, they became part of the life of American culture.”

In fact, I am in agreement with Cory about that much. But it would be fallacious glibly to extrapolate from this example to other contexts, including future immigration into the United States. The crucial factor here, I would argue, is religion. The reason Irish, Italian, German, Hungarian, and Polish immigrants ultimately assimilated so smoothly into American culture is that they shared the same Christian religious view of the world that already prevailed in the United States. And while Chinese and Jewish immigrants did not, they could nevertheless assimilate smoothly as well, because their religious traditions were not missionary in character. For example, Confucianism does not require that the entire world become Confucian, and Judaism does not require that the entire world become Jewish. It was easy, then, for new Chinese and Jewish Americans to “live and let live” with their predominantly Christian fellow citizens, and for Christian citizens to adopt a similar attitude toward them.

But things are by no means guaranteed to go as smoothly with religions that are aggressively missionary in character. Of course, Christianity and Islam are both missionary religions. Both have the conversion of the entire world as their goal. Historically, both have also held that state power can legitimately be used to facilitate the realization of this goal. Hence, the governments of Christian countries have traditionally given special favor to Christianity, and the governments of Islamic countries have traditionally given special favor to Islam.

There is today a crucial difference, however. In modern times, Christians have tended by and large to abandon the use of state power to uphold Christianity. I put to one side for present purposes the question whether this change was theologically sound or practically advisable. The point is that this is, as an empirical matter, how most (even if not all) Christians today view relations between Church and state. But no parallel change has taken place in Islam. While there are some Muslims who have adopted Western attitudes on this matter, the majority have not. As the Pew Research Center has reported, “overwhelming percentages of Muslims in many countries want Islamic law (sharia) to be the official law of the land.”  

To be sure, there are varying attitudes among Muslims about what, specifically, this should entail. Some want Islamic law to govern the Muslim minority communities within a nation, but not necessarily the whole country. Some want only certain aspects of Islamic law to be enforced. Some might hold that while it would in theory be best for Islamic law to be the law of the land, in practice this is not a reasonable goal in a country while Muslims remain a minority. The point, though, is that Muslim attitudes about the relationship between government and religion are in general very different from those that prevail among modern Westerners.  

Now, in light of this fact, one would expect that social tensions of the kind warned about in the remarks from popes John XXIII, John Paul II, and Francis quoted above, would exist in Western countries that have taken in large numbers of Muslim immigrants. And indeed, that is what we find, as others have pointed out here at Public Discourse.

Whatever one thinks about this situation, two things are evident. First, for the reason I’ve explained, one cannot with confidence extrapolate from the example of immigration into the U.S. in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Hence Cory is jumping to conclusions when she says that “there is little reason in our present circumstances to think that cultural identity will be weighty enough to become a defining moral factor in this domain at all.” Second, it is therefore reasonable to include these difficulties of assimilation among the factors governments may consider when deciding on immigration policy—as even Pope Francis acknowledges, as the remarks quoted above make clear.

A Matter of Emphasis

Sweeney, for his part, acknowledges that I was correct to raise the considerations I did in my original article. Indeed, he writes:

[Feser’s] essay is an important reminder of the need for balance in understanding the question of immigration. The political community is a real expression of the fundamental sociality of the human person. We ought to love the us that we are part of. We rightly prioritize our own communities, and we have a legitimate role in determining who can join this community and how. It is because of this reality that a nation has a right to its borders and “governments have the right to prevent illegal immigration. . . .”

He is right to emphasize this right. Those who advocate “a virtually ‘open borders’ position in the name of Catholicism” should indeed read Feser’s article, because such positions are incompatible with a Catholic stance. Countries have a legitimate right to regulate the who, how, and how many of immigration.

But he should have stopped there, because the rest of what he says conflicts with this acknowledgment. Sweeney’s main complaint is that the emphasis in scripture and tradition has been on the obligation to welcome the stranger, whereas the emphasis in my article is on the qualifications on this obligation.  

He is correct that scripture and tradition put emphasis on welcoming the stranger whereas my article puts emphasis on the rights of nations and the duties of immigrants. But my article was not intended as a comprehensive, stand-alone presentation of Catholic teaching on immigration. It was intended, rather, to correct an imbalance. 

Most people historically have tended too strongly to favor their own families and nations, at the expense of our duties to the stranger. That is arguably why scripture and tradition put the emphasis on the latter. But in modern Western nations, there is a strong tendency toward the opposite extreme vice—toward what the philosopher Roger Scruton has called “oikophobia” or hostility toward one’s own nation, indeed toward the very idea that one has any special duties to one’s own nation. This is in part precisely a consequence of the individualism and neglect of our social nature that Sweeney rightly decries.

As I noted in my article, when Vice President J. D. Vance appealed to the ordo amoris or “order of charity,” he was simply calling attention to a longstanding theme in Christian moral theology, one given classic expression by thinkers of the stature of Augustine and Aquinas. He was merely noting that while the Christian tradition insists that we have duties to all, it also acknowledges that by nature our primary obligations are to those closest to us. But judging from the reaction to his remarks, a great many people today, including many who identify as Christians, are hostile to this idea.  

Certainly much of the reaction I saw on social media rejected the very idea of the ordo amoris, as if it were somehow an embarrassment to the Christian tradition. Many did not even take the view that while Vance was correct to say that we have special duties to our own nation, he was drawing a mistaken conclusion from this fact. Rather, they objected to the very idea that we have any special duties to our own nation. Even the pope’s recent remarks on the immigration controversy, while not explicitly rejecting the idea of the ordo amoris, seemed to refrain from conceding that there is any special obligation to one’s own nation.

For these reasons, the emphasis of my article was on combating the extreme vice opposite to the one the Christian tradition has usually focused on. That is to say, it was meant as a reminder that while people are often prone to put too much emphasis on what is good for their own nation, it is also possible to put too little emphasis on it.  

The remarks from Sweeney that I quoted above indicate that he agrees with me about this—and, moreover, that he agrees the problem is a real one today. But if that is indeed the case, it is not clear to me what the point was in writing a whole article criticizing my essay, as if our views were somehow at odds.

Image by Elizabeth and licensed via Adobe Stock.