If you own a home, how many guests do you have to welcome? Most normal people would say, “As many or as few a I want. There is no obligation to have guests.” If you asked those people, “And how many of those guests should be allowed to move in with you?” the likely response would be to usher you out the door — and lock it, lest the crazy guy get back in.

We decide how many or how few guests we want. Some people are very sociable and throw parties all the time. Some are introverted and prefer their space alone. Some might want to throw parties but don’t have the space for it. Etiquette, reciprocity, networking, and personality all figure in. But having X number of guests is not an obligation. Most normal people would find this to be common sense.

So, if we can regulate who comes into our home without incurring some kind of moral obligation, why are we not allowed to do the same regarding the home we call our country?

It was, I think, the Reformed theologian Karl Barth who said that the difference between Catholics and Protestants is that Catholics are “both/and” people while Protestants are “either/or” folk. Both faith and good works. Both Word and Sacrament. Either grace or nature. Either Scripture or tradition. Barth was right and Catholics were right in holding things together. But I think some modern Catholics seem to have forgotten that.

It’s very much in vogue in Catholic circles today to speak of “our common home.” It’s a legitimate concept: Because we hold that there is one human race, we are all children of Adam and potentially all brother and sisters in Christ, the new Adam. What unites us is important.

But, at the same time, our “common home” is not a global kibbutz. It’s divided into sovereign entities called “countries.” And the Church did not consider nation-formation to be something bad. In fact, she encouraged it. When civil government was thrust upon her with the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Church — as the only alternative institution available — assumed some civil governance roles. But it was also the Pope that identified a certain Charlie among a bunch of tribes as having leadership potential and made him Charlemagne, Holy Roman Emperor.

Yes, extreme nationalism can be toxic. But pride and patriotic love of one’s country is not “extreme” nationalism. Wanting your country to rule itself is not “extreme” nationalism.

All this seems obvious until you consider modern and post-modern thinking. Usually, it’s better described as a feeling or a vibe: The fact that we have countries feels like a bad thing. Justin Trudeau, for example, raised eyebrows when he once pronounced Canada “a post-modern state.” (In practice, that term usually means diluting the attributes of statehood.)

If the world is our common home — and in basic ways, it is — then that home is divided up into “private property” called states. And that’s not bad. But when it comes to private property, different ownership rules apply. One is “king of his castle.”

As a child, I’d spend my summer vacations at my grandfather’s in Connecticut when my father went to see his father. My grandfather had a big, long house he bought from the town company when it was selling them off. He subsequently divided it into smaller apartments. Three housed my aunts. One was a tenant’s. Good parents taught kids you can’t act in somebody else’s house like it’s yours. Sure, there were behavioral variations: my aunts let me get away with more stuff than I dared with my 6’ 2”, 250-pound grandfather (who, now that I think about it, probably would have been the most indulgent). But there were rules. And I never was in the tenant’s home. I apply these principles analogically to countries. Yes, I know that analogies often run short, but some basic parallels apply. I could run around more in Aunt Mary’s house than I could in Aunt Bertha’s, but neither was my home back in New Jersey.

I offer these common-sense observations amidst the cacophony over immigration and our “moral duty” to “welcome” refugees, asylum seekers, and immigrants legal and illegal.

Yes, America is a prosperous homeland. Yes, noblesse oblige. Yes, it’s natural people want to share in prosperity. But America, like every other country, is a “homeland” because it is a home. And homeowners get to decide about guests, temporary and permanent. There is no moral obligation to throw block parties to which the whole neighborhood is invited.

I say this because, in many ecclesiastical statements, the bishops and Pope Francis — after giving lip service to received Catholic teaching that countries are sovereign, can regulate immigration and its size, and may control their borders — usually negate all those theoretical commitments by pushing de facto open border, mass immigration policies. It’s a kind of procedural Karl Barthism: after having checked the “both/and” box by acknowledging a country’s rights, we revert in practice to “either/or”-ism and promote policies that render those rights nugatory, in practice if not in theory.

One must ask what is the motive behind such behavior? Charity suggests it is driven by humanitarian concern and generosity of spirit. A more critical judgment might suggest it is fueled by accommodation of certain modern viewpoints, the money that comes from immigration assistance grants, and a still-somewhat-unspoken assumption this is how we can pick our crops, clean our buildings, get workers, and fill our pews. Yes, the practical implications allow all sides to shift and slant the immigration debate to the advantage of the outcome they desire, sometimes seemingly without those arguments being why they support that outcome. That’s why I want to shift this debate back to the first, clearest, most elementary principles. Like, if you own a home, how many guests do you have to welcome?