The grief that attended American political activist Charlie Kirk’s murder was not solely poured out by the political right. Liberal commentators also participated; journalist Ezra Klein expressed grief in an essay for The New York Times (“I was and am grieving for Kirk himself”), while Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew stated that “we have to have empathy for other people in our society.”
Kirk would likely be surprised, and perhaps a bit put off, by this display of empathy by his opponents: “I can’t stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made-up, New Age term that does a lot of damage, but it is very effective when it comes to politics. Sympathy I prefer more than empathy.”
Empathy, to Kirk, meant trying to feel someone else’s pain or sorrow as if it were your own. He cited Bill Clinton as an example of phony and opportunistic use of empathy. Sympathy, on the other hand, means acknowledging another’s pain without claiming to actually share or internalize that pain. Sympathy keeps the suffering of others at arm’s length.
What troubled Kirk about empathy was its fixation on people “out there” instead of those who should be the focus of Americans’ concern:
“The soldiers discharged for the jab, the children mutilated by Big Medicine, or the lives devastated by fentanyl pouring over the border. Spare me your fake outrage, your fake science and your fake moral superiority.”
Empathy, according to Kirk, ought to have limits; it should be directed to those being “mutilated” by vaccines and “devastated” by fentanyl.
Empathy as a vice
What does the rhetoric of one’s own versus another’s pain signal? And how can empathy for another’s pain possibly be conceived as a Christian vice, as it has been portrayed by political leaders in the United States?
For a more developed theological critique of empathy from the right, we need to turn to Kirk’s close friend, JD Vance, who offers what he takes to be a distinctly Catholic perspective on empathy. Vance cites the Catholic doctrine originating from Saint Thomas Aquinas, ordo amoris, or order of love or charity.
“Your compassion should first and foremost be with your fellow citizens,” Vance asserted. “That doesn’t mean you hate people from outside our borders, but your priority should be the safety and well-being of Americans.”
According to Vance, Americans on the left have inverted the ordo amoris:
“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.”
During a Fox News interview, Vance used Catholic theology to justify ICE’s cruel arrests and detention of undocumented immigrants, including children, in centres lacking basic standards of care or human rights.
True ordo amoris
As one of his last acts before his death, Pope Francis, observing the growing cruelty against immigrants in the U.S. and in response to Vance’s evocation of the teaching of ordo amoris, made a surprisingly direct intervention in American politics.
In a letter addressed to U.S. Catholic Bishops, Francis elaborated the true meaning of the ordo amoris:
“The true ordo amoris … is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the ‘Good Samaritan’ … by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception.”
In other words, the ordo amoris is a rooting of love in justice. Neither mere empathy nor a concern for one’s own first, mercy involves perception of the other’s pain no matter whose pain it is. It is open to all, without exception.
In his encyclical (a papal letter sent to Catholic bishops) titled Fratelli Tutti, Francis expands: “Mercy is a call to acknowledge the dignity of every human being and to build a society where that dignity is not only respected but honored.”
Mercy demands not only a feeling of sorrow for a person who is suffering, but a political response that is rooted in justice.
Empathy, mercy, justice
Empathy is indeed only partial in Catholic thought, but it is partial not because of the ordo amoris, as Vance understands it, but for the precise opposite reasons. Empathy must become mercy, and mercy involves justice for all. Mercy is not selective; indeed, according to Francis: “The name of God is Mercy.”
One may rightly counter that the Catholic Church has, like American politicians, been far too selective in the mercy it has shown. We would be right to question such mercy as it has gone so horrifically awry, as in the case of residential schools in Canada.
Read more: 'I am sorry' — A reflection on Pope Francis’s apology on residential schools
But perhaps, in this case, theology nevertheless is a reproof against the church’s own unmerciful acts. For mercy — construed as love and justice — calls the church, and its many errant members, to a profound and urgent moral reckoning.
As for the rest of us, in the aftermath of Kirk’s murder, we should refrain from mere empathy — we should display mercy instead. For mercy cries for justice, even while it weeps with those deprived of it.
Jane Barter does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
