First, we need to understand that true patriotism isn’t nationalism. In his first encyclical, Redemptor Hominis (The Redeemer of Man), Pope St. John Paul II listed “exaggerated nationalism instead of genuine love of country” among the several varieties of “selfishness” that he saw threatening social harmony in many places then – and would also find today if he returned for another look. But if patriotism isn’t nationalism, what is it? According to St. Thomas Aquinas, it’s a kind of piety.