The Catholic Church and Care for Migrants
Years ago, while pursuing a master’s degree in theology in Rome, I witnessed firsthand the effects of Europe’s migration crisis. Pope Francis repeatedly called Europeans to greater generosity toward migrants, yet many Italian Catholics expressed genuine moral unease.
Their concern was understandable. I saw multitudes of young migrants wandering in the big cities without a job or a place to stay. Meanwhile, every Italian family I met had a relative living overseas. Italians themselves were leaving their homeland in large numbers due to economic stagnation and limited opportunities.
This tension between generosity and responsibility echoes Vice President J. D. Vance’s recent appeal to the ordo amoris. He invoked the ancient principle of the order of charity to say that love follows a hierarchy that gives priority to those closest members of the community. The vice president extrapolated this to the issue of migration controls, claiming it justified stricter regulations. As conservative Christians call for tighter migration regulations and liberal Christians promote more open approaches, I believe that we should return to the richness of the Christian tradition for a more nuanced insight.
A close study of the Christian tradition reveals a complex moral vision of migration: the Church consistently affirms a generous duty of care toward migrants while also recognizing the legitimacy of regulating the admission of newcomers for the sake of the common good. Far from endorsing either open borders or blanket restrictions, Catholic Social Teaching (CST) offers a nuanced framework shaped by hospitality, universal destination of goods, and the common good of the host communities.
In this context, it is helpful to recall the French friar and priest Yves Congar’s insight that the true agent of the Church’s living tradition is the Holy Spirit. The Divine Guest is the one who inspires and guides the Church in her practices and beliefs, just as he once inspired the human authors of Scripture. I argue that studying the history of Christian migration ethics can reveal how the Holy Spirit has continually inspired the Church in her care for migrants.
This is the very question I aim to explore in this essay: can we identify in tradition a distinctly Christian position on the care of migrants and its relationship to host communities? Vance’s comment on the ordo amoris suggests that Christian tradition has emphasized the care for the communities instead of migrants. I argue, instead, that the Catholic moral tradition has a rich heritage of ethical principles on migration that promotes a generous care for migrants, while admitting specific situations in which regulation is legitimate.
Most instances of this tradition on migrant care offer general principles such as hospitality or universal destination of goods, such as are found in the works of the Church Fathers. Other instances are more specific and directly address the migration issue, such as the teachings of the School of Salamanca. I will start with some references to the Church Fathers, then late antiquity and medieval law, and finally the work of the School of Salamanca in the sixteenth century, which I believe to be the most robust treatment of migration ethics in Christian tradition.
The Church Fathers on Migration
The most ancient instances of the Church teaching on migration, outside the biblical texts, are the teachings of the Church Fathers on poverty and wealth. When Pope Pius XII argued in the apostolic constitution Exsul Familia for the right to migrate, he referred to the principle of the universal destination of goods, meaning that God created the earth for the flourishing of all human beings, regardless of nationality, religion, or race. This principle is drawn from a strong theology of creation developed by the Church Fathers, such as Saints Ambrose, Basil, and John Chrysostom. They argue that individuals who have more resources have an obligation to support those in need. St. Ambrose puts it in very strong words: “You are not making a gift of what is yours to the poor man, but you are giving him back what is his. You have been appropriating things that are meant to be for the common use of everyone. The earth belongs to everyone, not to the rich.”
Although they did not have in mind our current migration crisis, sixteenth-century theologians of the School of Salamanca, such as Francisco de Vitoria and Domingo de Soto, and the twentieth-century popes, such as Pius XII, use this argument in favor of allowing foreigners to move through political borders.
Throughout Scripture, Christians identify as pilgrims themselves. For instance, in the first letter of Clement, Bishop of Rome, to the Christian community of Corinth, he refers to the Church of God as “sojourning in Rome.” Later in the second century, the Letter to Diognetus portrays Christians as resident aliens who dwell in every city yet belong fully to none, living as citizens of heaven while journeying through earthly societies.
This theme reaches a mature theological expression in St. Augustine’s City of God, where Augustine emphasizes that the Christian, as a peregrinus and viator, is a sojourner whose true homeland lies with God. By cultivating an identity rooted not in territorial possession but in spiritual citizenship, early Christians learned to see their own condition mirrored in the vulnerable outsider. This longstanding recognition that we ourselves are “strangers and sojourners” should provide a moral foundation for identifying with, and extending generous care to, migrants in need.
A more direct reference to migrant care can be found in the letters of St. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage. In a letter to his own clergy, he said:
Please, take diligent care of the infirm and all the poor. And if some of the travelers should be in need, you may obtain what you need from my personal funds. Out of fear that they might have been fully spent already, I have sent another sum, in order that the effort for the suffering might take place with greater generosity as well as more promptly.
In this letter, we can see Cyprian’s concern for vulnerable travelers, many of whom face struggles that resemble those of today’s migrants. Still, it is unclear whether Cyprian is just talking about travelers or foreigners, or if he meant care for a short time or permanent relocation. The use of his letter later on by Domingo de Soto will situate it in the issue of international migration.
Care for Migrants in Medieval Law
Other hallmark documents of Christian migration ethics in tradition are found in late antiquity and medieval legal documents. The first is a decree in Justinian’s civil law code, the Novel 80, in which the emperor nominates a public official to deal with the migrants who arrived at the royal capital of Constantinople in the year 539. It was motivated by the scarcity of resources in the capital and the constant flow of migrants from all over the empire and elsewhere. The migration official, a type of Byzantine ICE officer with judicial powers, is supposed to make sure that outsiders are employed and contributing to the common good of the city. Individuals who refuse employment or engage in criminal activity should be expelled from Constantinople. Those who cannot work, such as the elderly and the sick, are to be provided for and treated humanely. The decree implicitly acknowledges the possibility of welcoming economic migrants, providing work for them, and supporting those who cannot work. However, Novel 80 also admits the possibility of legitimate regulation of migration in order to protect the common good of the host in extreme cases of scarcity. This decree is at the center of the argument in favor of migrants developed by theologian Domingo de Soto in the sixteenth century.
The Second Council of Tours in 567 addressed the migration crisis of its time in a different way. It called on local communities to care for their poor so they would not be forced to travel to foreign cities in search of help. The Council stated that “each and every city should provide its poor and needy inhabitants with sufficient nourishment in accordance with its own ability. Both priests and citizens should take care of feeding the poor in their own region. In this manner, the poor will not have to engage in tiresome traveling and dwell in foreign cities.” For the Council, public officials and members of society ought to support the poor so that they are not constrained to move away to foreign lands. This is similar to the modern idea in CST of the right to stay, also called by John Paul II the right not to migrate.
Another medieval legal document that addresses migrant care is the Decretum of Gratian, an influential compilation of the Church’s canon law of the twelfth century. In a part of the text dealing with the requirements for Holy Orders, one of the criteria to select men to become bishops and priests is that candidates must be hospitable; they must model hospitality to their congregations and encourage them to welcome strangers and travelers. Welcoming strangers was deemed so crucial that it became a legal requirement for ordination.
The School of Salamanca on Migration Ethics
Both Justinian’s code and Gratian’s Decretum were very influential in the West in shaping the concept of law, justice, and rights, especially in the work of scholastic theologians like St. Thomas Aquinas and later in the early modern theologians of the School of Salamanca. The teachings of the Spanish theologians provide the strongest evidence of the Catholic Church’s ethical stance on migration.
Dominican theologians Francisco de Vitoria and Domingo de Soto were the main representatives of this school in the sixteenth century, one of the centers of Catholic thought in Europe. They used the concept of right to travel and dwell to address the mass migration crisis of their time. While advocating the care of migrants, they used solid legal argument and theological grounding in both Scripture and Tradition. Although they pushed for a generous support of migrants, they did admit the possibility of regulating migration. What makes them special is that they are the first theologians to directly address the problem of whether people have a right to cross political borders.
Francisco de Vitoria presents the right to travel and dwell in a nation in a 1539 public lecture, De Indis. Vitoria was the leader of the movement of theological renewal that flourished at the University of Salamanca. In this public lecture, he assesses whether the Spaniards had a just title to conquer the natives in the Americas. He argues that people have a right to travel and dwell peacefully in another land, and that if the host community violates this peace, it may give rise to a legitimate right to self-defense. This right is based on legal categories such as the law of nations and natural law, and theological ideas such as hospitality and the original common ownership of goods. He also argues that the right to travel and dwell is not just about a right of passage or freedom of movement, but includes the possibility of relocating and settling in a foreign country.
References to natural law and the law of nations dominated Vitoria’s argument. Even where there is a reference to divine law, Vitoria connects it to natural law and the law of nations. These two types of law are rooted in human nature. Hence, using them as a framework is an effort to show the universality of the right to travel and dwell and to give natives and Europeans the same legal standing.
But this right to travel and dwell is not absolute. Vitoria makes frequent reference to the possibility of “harm” to the host community and “due cause” for host nations setting limitations on the right to travel and dwell. In fact, his argument implies that Europeans violated the no-harm limitation of the right to travel by actions mentioned by Vitoria, such as violent coercion to the faith, massacres, and pillages. For this reason, he concludes, Spaniards did not have the right to settle in the Americas.
Domingo de Soto, a disciple of Vitoria and his successor as a theology professor at Salamanca, does not expressly mention the phrase “right to travel and dwell” but deals with a similar concept under the idea of a right to “beg.” In his treatise Deliberation on the Cause of the Poor, Soto offers a critique of the laws regulating the poor in Europe, which prohibited beggars from traveling and asking for alms in public. Many cities enacted norms saying that beggars from other cities and countries should be prevented from receiving alms and should be sent away. He argues that divine law, natural law, and the law of nations provide the bases for a “right of passage to any road and city, the right to stay wherever one wants, and the right to spend one’s life where one wishes.”
Soto relies on the theological concepts of hospitality and the mystical body of Christ to ground his argument. However, he was not defending an open borders policy: Soto pointed to legitimate restrictions to restrict migration in order to protect the common good of the host community, specifically, in cases of crime, espionage, heresy, and extreme scarcity.
Both Vitoria and Soto use the concept of ordo amoris in their arguments, but in a different way than Vance does. Vitoria took the idea of ordo amoris from St. Augustine’s On Christian Doctrine. Here, Augustine argues that even the angels ought to be considered our neighbors. Vitoria uses this argument to claim that treating immigrants with dignity is obedience to the Lord’s command to love one’s neighbor. This suggests that if even cosmic beings like angels can count as neighbors, then so, too, can immigrants from other lands and cultures.
Soto addresses ordo amoris as a common objection to his argument in favor of migrants. He explains that ordo amoris is an exception to the general duty to do good to all, such as we see in Paul’s letter to the Galatians, and that in extreme cases of scarcity, the individuals should be able to decide whether to help the needy. But even in those situations, he claims, migrants should still be allowed to move and try their best to appeal to the members of the community in compassion for their plea.
In sum, the Church has a long tradition of generous care for migrants, while allowing room for legitimate regulation. This tradition encompasses general theological principles that can be applied to the migration crisis, such as the universal destination of goods and hospitality, but also specific treatments of the migration rights, such as the idea of the right to travel and dwell that is discussed in the works of Vitoria and Soto. It also acknowledges the need to regulate migration in situations where the community might be harmed. Within this tradition, one finds neither an open-borders policy nor a call for overly strict controls, but rather, an attitude of compassionate concern toward migrants that also considers the good of the host community.