Abstract
The principle of subsidiarity holds that matters of social management ought to be handled by the smallest and least centralised authority whenever possible because those closest to a problem are more likely to understand and be well situated relationally to deal with the issue effectively. This idea is a central guiding principle in the corpus of papal social encyclicals, and yet it is strangely neglected in much writing on Catholic social thought. As we face the mounting pathologies of the modern welfare state and seek meaningful reforms rooted in love of neighbour, the principle of subsidiarity (an idea with deep roots in Christian thought in and beyond the Catholic Church) can and should function as a guidepost for a new direction in the provision of social welfare and charity. Subsidiarity must take its place alongside the principle of solidarity at the center of serious reflection on social ethics and social structure, since it offers crucial guidance for our understanding of the role of the state, the family, the individual, the church, educational institutions, and the enterprising economy.
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Notes
- 1.
Par. 14: “The contention, then, that the civil government should at its option intrude into and exercise intimate control over the family and the household is a great and pernicious error. True, if a family finds itself in exceeding distress, utterly deprived of the counsel of friends, and without any prospect of extricating itself, it is right that extreme necessity be met by public aid, since each family is a part of the commonwealth. In like manner, if within the precincts of the household there occur grave disturbance of mutual rights, public authority should intervene to force each party to yield to the other its proper due; for this is not to deprive citizens of their rights, but justly and properly to safeguard and strengthen them. But the rulers of the commonwealth must go no further; here, nature bids them stop. Paternal authority can be neither abolished nor absorbed by the State; for it has the same source as human life itself.”
- 2.
Caritas in Veritate (2009) par. 57.
- 3.
Mueller (1984, p. 73).
- 4.
Rerum Novarum, par. 14.
- 5.
Neuhaus (1992, p. 243).
- 6.
Novak (1982, p. 178).
- 7.
Quadragesimo Anno, 1931, par. 79–80.
- 8.
Cited in Franz Mueller, p. 121.
- 9.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, par. 1883.
- 10.
Deus Caritas Est, par. 28(b)
- 11.
Benestad (1990, p. 30).
- 12.
Coleman (1991).
- 13.
Curran (1985, p. 85).
- 14.
Curran, p. 231.
- 15.
Curran, p. 274.
- 16.
Curran, p. 167.
- 17.
Rodger Charles and MacLaran (1982, p. 209).
- 18.
Charles et al., p. 294.
- 19.
Centesimus Annus, par. 15.
- 20.
Hayek (1972).
- 21.
Bryk et al. (1993).
- 22.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, par. 2207.
- 23.
Rawls (1971, pp. 136–137).
- 24.
Centesimus Annus, par. 48.
- 25.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, par. 2208.
- 26.
Aristotle (1976, p. 1263b7).
- 27.
Roepke (1992, p. 164).
- 28.
Olasky (1992).
- 29.
Olasky, pp. 27–34.
- 30.
Olasky, p. 80.
- 31.
Olasky, p. 24.
- 32.
Olasky, pp. 27–32.
- 33.
Olasky, pp. 27–32.
- 34.
Conyngton (1909).
- 35.
Conyngton, pp. 26–29.
- 36.
Conyngton, p. 36
- 37.
Conyngton, p. 36.
- 38.
Conyngton, p. 36.
- 39.
Conyngton, p. 36.
- 40.
Deschweinitz (1924).
- 41.
Williams (1982).
- 42.
For more on this topic and subsidiarity generally, see Sirico (2012).
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Sirico, R.A. (2014). Subsidiarity and the Reform of the Welfare of the Nation State. In: Evans, M., Zimmermann, A. (eds) Global Perspectives on Subsidiarity. Ius Gentium: Comparative Perspectives on Law and Justice, vol 37. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8810-6_7
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