This article first appeared as a Common Good Forum in the Catholics in
Alliance for the Common Good website. Distribution and reproduction of this
article is permitted where the source is credited. For more Common Good Forums,
visit www.catholicsinalliance.org
Ryan, Weigel, and Subsidiarity: Politicizing the
Social Magisterium
By Steve Schneck, director
of Catholic University’s Institute for Policy Research & Catholic Studies
and a CACG board member
So also we are many persons.
But in Christ we are one body. And each part of the body belongs to all the
other parts. Romans 12:5
A misunderstanding of
subsidiarity is being advanced insistently by those who oppose the American
bishops on protecting programs for the poor and vulnerable. Wrongly, this
misunderstanding presents Catholicism’s teaching about subsidiarity as at odds
with the principle of distributive justice. Wrongly, it presents subsidiarity
as allied with anti-government and pro-market ideology. Wrongly, it is employed
to minimize traditional teachings about government’s special responsibility to
preference the needs of the poor and vulnerable.
In truth, subsidiarity conforms
to the Church’s ancient teachings on distributive justice. Papal encyclicals
enframe subsidiarity within the moral duties of government to care for the
poor. Likewise, the magisterium’s understanding of subsidiarity is inseparable
from its oft-reiterated demand that markets must be regulated for the common
good and for the dignity of the human person.
The “subsidiarity
misunderstanding” pops up everywhere at the moment. George Weigel, at the
Ethics and Public Policy Center—whom I otherwise admire for his exposition of
Blessed John Paul II’s personalism—disappoints in describing subsidiarity as
“Catholicism’s anti-statist social justice principle.” Weigel imagines,
incorrectly that thanks to subsidiarity, government should wither away (or
concern itself only with muscular projections of American force abroad) and
that free market magic would then solve the problem of the poor by “breaking
the cycle of welfare dependency and unleashing the creativity the Church
believes God builds into every soul.”
Similarly, Representative Paul
Ryan (R-WI) claimed in recent weeks that the House-passed (and Mitt Romney
approved) budget he designed was somehow “Catholic” because of what he imagined
to be its conformity with the principle of subsidiarity. Illustrating the
misunderstanding, Ryan mused that subsidiarity “is really federalism, meaning
government closest to the people governs best.” Ryan promotes an approach to
poverty without “big government” wherein we all privately “take care of people
who are down and out in our communities.” From this, by his own account, he
felt justified in cutting Medicaid, Medicare, WIC, food stamps, school lunches,
and similar programs while at the same time advancing tax cuts for the richest
Americans.
Our bishops understand
subsidiarity somewhat differently. Without mentioning Ryan by name, they
rejected the idea that there was anything particularly Catholic about Ryan’s
employment of the idea to defend his budget. Sending letters to the Agriculture
and the Ways and Means committees they expressed their concerns.
Congress faces a difficult task
to balance needs and resources and allocate burdens and sacrifices. Just
solutions, however, must require shared sacrifice by all, including raising
adequate revenues, eliminating unnecessary military and other spending, and
fairly addressing the long-term costs of health insurance and retirement
programs. The House-passed budget resolution fails to meet these moral
criteria.
Letters from our bishops to
Congress asking for distributive justice are increasingly common. In the last
year or so about a half dozen have been sent to Congressional leaders. Over and
over these letters have maintained that the burdens of deficit reduction need
to be shared by everyone and that it was unfair to help the rich at the expense
of safety net programs for the poor. One take away for Ryan, Weigel, and others
should be that subsidiarity—correctly understood— is neither anti-government
nor at odds with distributive justice.
Church teachings about the
responsibilities of government, about distributive justice, and about
subsidiarity, all fit together in a seamless arrangement—along with allied
Catholic ideas concerning solidarity and the common good. The critical insight
for understanding this fit is to recognize that for the Church the human person
is NOT the hyper-individual in competition with others that Ayn Rand and
libertarians and Tea Partiers and some advocates of market thinking imagine.
Our teachings instead present the human person as part of what St Paul
described as a Mystical Body, which is in the fulsome sense the Church in the
world and en route to salvation. Distributive justice is giving each part of
that body its appropriate proportional share, as measured by the common good of
the whole (which is measured in part by the good of those “least” of our
brethren). Subsidiarity, which has as its root the idea of subsidy, is part of
the ethic of corporate distributive justice. It obliges us to empower and
promote all the lower parts of the corporate whole to their fullest extent so
that each part complements the other for the common good.
So, subsidiarity is not Tea
Party federalism translated into Latin. It’s not about simply preferring state
and local government (or private markets) over the national government. It’s
about having a just distribution of power, responsibilities, goods, and
privileges in society so that all the parts of society are fully dignified for
doing what is best for the whole. It’s about distributive justice in the
fullest sense.
Throughout the 20th century and up
through Benedict XVI’s Caritas in Veritate, papal encyclicals have described
responsibilities of government in light of this rich conception of the social
order. Government has a moral obligation to promote the common good of the
whole. It does this badly when it loses sight of distributive justice. It can
fail in distributive justice in light of subsidiarity if it exceeds its proper
role and takes too much power, responsibility, and so forth into itself (about
which Weigel and Ryan worry). It can also fail the test of distributive
justice—as our bishops are warning in regard to the budget—when it does not
rise to the responsibilities it bears for the poor, the vulnerable, or other
parts of the common good of the whole.
In so many ways, the ideals of
Catholic social teaching offer much guidance for addressing the crises of
contemporary American political life. Subsidiarity, properly understood in the
context of distributive justice, is especially pertinent to thoughtful
reflection on budget and tax priorities relative to the common good. But, the
social magisterium is compromised when shoehorned into the shallow ideologies
of today’s America. The Church’s teachings on subsidiarity— like similar
teachings on the common good, solidarity, and the dignity of the
person—transcend political ideologies. Therein lies their glory. That’s why
politicizing subsidiarity should concern us all.
Catholics in Alliance for the
Common Good • 1612 K Street NW, Suite 400 • Washington, DC 20006
This article first appeared as a Common Good Forum in the Catholics in
Alliance for the Common Good website. Distribution and reproduction of this
article is permitted where the source is credited. For more Common Good Forums,
visit www.catholicsinalliance.org
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