The Challenge of Partiality in Neighborly Love

Team Members/Contributors

Victor Carmona University of Notre Dame Contact Me

About this dissertation fellowship

The dissertation will develop a theological concept of neighbor love that combines Aquinas’s order of charity and Gutierrez’s preferential option for the poor to produce a practical moral framework for thinking through U.S.-Mexican immigration issues. Debates about U.S. immigration policy and many if not most faith-based positions proceed on the assumption that all immigration applicants must be considered equally, regardless of their country of origin, their proximity to the U.S., or their relationship with U.S. citizens. This project will argue that a theological concept of neighbor love that takes into account particular bonds and shared goods is better suited to address the practical realities of Mexican immigration than the current approach, which insists on a strict equal regard for all applicants from around the globe. To conclude, I will offer a constructive account of how such an approach might renew the centrality of neighbor love in Catholic social teaching on migration, and thus make it more responsive to the challenges of U.S.-Mexican immigration.