Continuing to draw on the richness of Catholic Social Teaching tradition, I wanted to share some thoughts on a lesser known, but equally important, concept of subsidiarity. It often gets lost in the workings and emphases of our Church, but it is crucial in building the Kingdom of God that is grounded in justice, fairness, respect for every person and in modelling power structures that are accessible, inclusive and revolutionary. It is often linked with the concept of participation as well, and this link is significant and broad. I will cover this in a future edition.
Firstly, the resources!
I love the resources from Caritas Australia on our Catholic Social Teaching:
https://www.caritas.org.au/learn/cst/subsidiarity-and-participation
PovertyCure is an initiative of the Acton Institute that seeks to ground the battle against local and global poverty in a proper understanding of the human person and society, and to encourage solutions that foster opportunity and unleash the entrepreneurial spirit that already fills poverty-stricken areas of the developed and developing world.
https://www.povertycure.org/learn/issues/human-person/subsidiarity
Secondly, I wanted to share some thoughts (some of the best I have ever experienced) from one of my favourite lecturers and teachers while I was in the Philippines, Francisco Castro. Here are some of his thoughts on subsidiarity that really explain and engage the concept.
In the early centuries of most of our countries, people were grouped in small units. There was still no such thing as big nations with centralized states. Political power, which was in a very minimum, was mostly involved with making sure there was peace and order among people. The different groups and individuals were made to unify peacefully, more or less. So what we would find, at that time, was the dominance of small social units like the family and the village.
2. Slowly, over time, societies became more complex…and slowly centralized States were organized. In passing, it may be interesting look at the history of the Church. What we can notice is that the Church played a social role that later will be done by the State. Affairs like education and health care were more in the hands of Church activities than in the States. If one had any problems, it was mainly the Church who was consulted. Even Kings and Princes consulted the Church.
3. Later on, societies became really complex and the State became more important. Then began the problem of State rule and domination. Some philosophers and even theologians began to promote the idea of freedom in front of centralized State authorities. So there was the beginning of moving out of the “organic” living in society to a more individual living in society. Surely we see the effects even today.
4. Over the course of history more and more societies tried to look for autonomy of local groups. More and more the government was understood as “helping out” the local levels. The totalitarian way was discouraged. Taking care of the whole society should not be the exclusive competence of the State. People, in individual and small units, had to have a voice. This was the start of “subsidiarity”.
5. So this idea of subsidiarity is not anything new in history. During the time of Pope Leo XIII the big problem was industrialisation—many people were in very hard work conditions. Many individuals and families did not have a voice in their work conditions. So Catholics called for help—how to help the voiceless workers of industrialism.
6. Years later, with the “Cold War”, the human rights were so violated by governments. Pope John XXIII for example, had to worry about how to limit the power of States over individuals. He raised the question of how to let everyone have a voice in governance of whole societies.
7. Society is basically composed of people. This is easy to see. But how are people living together—socially? The Compendium gives us an idea of this “living together” by discussing civil society (see Compendium #185). Civil society involves all and everyone in society related as individuals and as groups. Individuals are not isolated from one another. Individuals are social beings—they live “in” a social setting. Each individual is really within a network of relationships with others.
8. As each individual (and we can also add the small social group like the family) lives within a wider social setting, each one can take an initiative regarding how to live and how to pursue happiness. It is not wise to remove this capacity to take initiative. Every social activity must keep in mind the place that each one can have—the role that each one can play for the good of the whole. In society we find more complex and more assembled areas…but we also find individuals. We find the “higher orders” and also the “lower orders”. An example of a higher order is “the economic world” or “the market” or “the State”. An example of the “lower order” is me and my family, me and my circle of friends, or even myself. Social life is not just run by the “higher orders” …it is also run by the “lower orders”.
9. Compendium 186 would insist that a society must have the “attitude of subsidiarity”. This is the attitude of supporting, promoting and developing the “lower orders” of society. Let this not look so abstract. What the document is saying is that people—even in their own levels of social life—must have the chance to say something about the way the whole society should run. Let people—individuals and small social units—have a role. Let people in the “lower level” have a voice.
10. Why is this important? This is important because very often in society the small individual level—the “lower level”—is “absorbed and substituted”. Only the higher order makes decisions. Only the higher order says how society should run…and everyone else just follows. The individual, therefore, is so absorbed in the group and it is the group that substitutes for the individual.
11. So we read that subsidiarity is a way of “assistance offered to lesser social entities” (186). Now because the lower order is respected, the higher order—like the State—should “refrain from anything that would de facto restrict the existential space of the smaller essential cells of society” (186). The initiative, freedom and responsibility of social members in their own realms must not be supplanted.
12. Is this important? Yes, it is. If individuals and very small social units have no voice, they can be easily abused by the higher levels. It is also important because t reminds the higher orders to give space for the lower orders. Again, as we said above, give voice to the people. “This principle is imperative because every person, family and intermediate group has something original to offer to the community” (187). The absence of subsidiarity would result to the ruin of initiative and freedom. There will be the domination of bureaucracy, for example. There will be the domination of big monopolies of higher levels.
13. So how will subsidiarity be put to effect? The Compendium proposes the following (187):
· “respect and effective promotion of the human person and the family;
· ever greater appreciation of associations and intermediate organizations in their fundamental choices and in those that cannot be delegated to or exercised by others;
· the encouragement of private initiative so that every social entity remains at the service of the common good, each with its own distinctive characteristics;
· the presence of pluralism in society and due representation of its vital components;
· safeguarding human rights and the rights of minorities;
· bringing about bureaucratic and administrative decentralization;
· striking a balance between the public and private spheres, with the resulting recognition of the social function of the private sphere;
· appropriate methods for making citizens more responsible in actively “being a part” of the political and social reality of their country”.
14. Be careful. The document is not saying that the higher order be dropped. The higher order must be present and active. But it should always stimulate the lower order. For example, there is the need to “stimulate the economy because it is impossible for civil society to support initiatives on its own” (187). Once the lower order is stimulated and given the chance to take initiatives, then the higher level will again have to refrain from intervening. The Compendium tells us that “institutional substitution must not continue any longer than is absolutely necessary, since justification for such intervention is found only in the exceptional nature of the situation” (187).
Finally, I wanted to share again some glimpses of some of the wisdom of the Church that engage and explain the concept of subsidiarity in a concise manner.
Still, that most weighty principle, which cannot be set aside or changed, remains fixed and unshaken in social philosophy: Just as it is gravely wrong to take from individuals what they can accomplish by their own initiative and industry and give it to the community, so also it is an injustice and at the same time a grave evil and disturbance of right order to assign to a greater and higher association what lesser and subordinate organizations can do. For every social activity ought of its very nature to furnish help to the members of the body social, and never destroy and absorb them.
Quadragesimo Anno (“After Forty Years”), Pope Pius XI, 1931, #79.
State and public ownership of property is very much on the increase today. This is explained by the exigencies of the common good, which demand that public authority broaden its sphere of activity. But here, too, the “principle of subsidiary function” must be observed. The State and other agencies of public law must not extend their ownership beyond what is clearly required by considerations of the common good properly understood, and even then there must be safeguards. Otherwise private ownership could be reduced beyond measure, or, even worse, completely destroyed.
Mater et Magistra (“Mother and Teacher”), Pope John XXIII, 1961, #117.
Private enterprise too must contribute to an economic and social balance in the different areas of the same political community. Indeed, in accordance with “the principle of subsidiary function,” public authority must encourage and assist private enterprise, entrusting to it, wherever possible, the continuation of economic development.
Mater et Magistra (“Mother and Teacher”), Pope John XXIII, 1961, #152.
The same principle of subsidiarity which governs the relations between public authorities and individuals, families and intermediate societies in a single State, must also apply to the relations between the public authority of the world community and the public authorities of each political community. The special function of this universal authority must be to evaluate and find a solution to economic, social, political and cultural problems which affect the universal common good. These are problems which, because of their extreme gravity, vastness and urgency, must be considered too difficult for the rulers of individual States to solve with any degree of success.
Pacem in Terris (“Peace on Earth”), Pope John XXIII, 1963, #140.
It is for the international community to coordinate and stimulate development, but in such a way as to distribute with the maximum fairness and efficiency the resources set aside for this purpose It is also its task to organize economic affairs on a world scale, without transgressing the principle of subsidiarity, so that business will be conducted according to the norms of justice. Organizations should be set up to promote and regulate international commerce, especially with less developed nations, in order to compensate for losses resulting from excessive inequality of power between nations. This kind of organization accompanied by technical, cultural, and financial aid, should provide developing nations with all that is necessary for them to achieve adequate economic success.
Gaudium et Spes (“The Church in the Modern World”), Vatican II, 1965, #86(c).
The primary norm for determining the scope and limits of governmental intervention is the “principle of subsidiarity” cited above. This principle states that, in order to protect basic justice, government should undertake only those initiatives which exceed the capacities of individuals or private groups acting independently. Government should not replace or destroy smaller communities and individual initiative. Rather it should help them contribute more effectively to social well-being and supplement their activity when the demands of justice exceed their capacities. This does not mean, however, that the government that governs least, governs best. Rather it defines good government intervention as that which truly “helps” other social groups contribute to the common good by directing, urging, restraining, and regulating economic activity as “the occasion requires and necessity demands”.
Economic Justice for All, U.S. Catholic Bishops, 1986, #124.
The “principle of subsidiarity” must be respected: “A community of a higher order should not interfere with the life of a community of a lower order, taking over its functions.” In case of need it should, rather, support the smaller community and help to coordinate its activity with activities in the rest of society for the sake of the common good.
Centesimus Annus (“The Hundredth Year,” Donders translation), Pope John Paul II, 1991, #48.
It is true that the pursuit of justice must be a fundamental norm of the State and that the aim of a just social order is to guarantee to each person, according to the principle of subsidiarity, his share of the community’s goods. This has always been emphasized by Christian teaching on the State and by the Church’s social doctrine.
Deus Caritas Est (“God is Love”), Pope Benedict XVI, 2005, #26.
Love—caritas—will always prove necessary, even in the most just society. There is no ordering of the State so just that it can eliminate the need for a service of love. Whoever wants to eliminate love is preparing to eliminate man as such. There will always be suffering which cries out for consolation and help. There will always be loneliness. There will always be situations of material need where help in the form of concrete love of neighbour is indispensable.[20] The State which would provide everything, absorbing everything into itself, would ultimately become a mere bureaucracy incapable of guaranteeing the very thing which the suffering person—every person—needs: namely, loving personal concern. We do not need a State which regulates and controls everything, but a State which, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, generously acknowledges and supports initiatives arising from the different social forces and combines spontaneity with closeness to those in need. The Church is one of those living forces: she is alive with the love enkindled by the Spirit of Christ. This love does not simply offer people material help, but refreshment and care for their souls, something which often is even more necessary than material support. In the end, the claim that just social structures would make works of charity superfluous masks a materialist conception of man: the mistaken notion that man can live “by bread alone” (Mt 4:4; cf. Dt 8:3)—a conviction that demeans man and ultimately disregards all that is specifically human.
Deus Caritas Est (“God is Love”), Pope Benedict XVI, 2005, #28b.
The strengthening of different types of businesses, especially those capable of viewing profit as a means for achieving the goal of a more humane market and society, must also be pursued in those countries that are excluded or marginalized from the influential circles of the global economy. In these countries it is very important to move ahead with projects based on subsidiarity, suitably planned and managed, aimed at affirming rights yet also providing for the assumption of corresponding responsibilities. In development programmes, the principle of the centrality of the human person, as the subject primarily responsible for development, must be preserved. The principal concern must be to improve the actual living conditions of the people in a given region, thus enabling them to carry out those duties which their poverty does not presently allow them to fulfil. Social concern must never be an abstract attitude. Development programmes, if they are to be adapted to individual situations, need to be flexible; and the people who benefit from them ought to be directly involved in their planning and implementation.
Caritas in Veritate (“Charity in Truth”), Pope Benedict XVI, 2009, #47.
A particular manifestation of charity and a guiding criterion for fraternal cooperation between believers and non-believers is undoubtedly the principle of subsidiarity, an expression of inalienable human freedom. Subsidiarity is first and foremost a form of assistance to the human person via the autonomy of intermediate bodies. Such Underlying the principle of the common good is respect for the human person as such, endowed with basic and inalienable rights ordered to his or her integral development. It has also to do with the overall welfare of society and the development of a variety of intermediate groups, applying the principle of subsidiarity. Outstanding among those groups is the family, as the basic cell of society. Finally, the common good calls for social peace, the stability and security provided by a certain order which cannot be achieved without particular concern for distributive justice; whenever this is violated, violence always ensues. Society as a whole, and the state in particular, are obliged to defend and promote the common good.
Laudato Si’ (“Praise Be”), Pope Francis, 2015, Chapter 4, #157.
[T]he principle of subsidiarity is particularly well-suited to managing globalization and directing it towards authentic human development. In order not to produce a dangerous universal power of a tyrannical nature, the governance of globalization must be marked by subsidiarity, articulated into several layers and involving different levels that can work together. Globalization certainly requires authority, insofar as it poses the problem of a global common good that needs to be pursued. This authority, however, must be organized in a subsidiary and stratified way[138], if it is not to infringe upon freedom and if it is to yield effective results in practice.
Caritas in Veritate (“Charity in Truth”), Pope Benedict XVI, 2009, #57-58.
The principle of subsidiarity must remain closely linked to the principle of solidarity and vice versa, since the former without the latter gives way to social privatism, while the latter without the former gives way to paternalist social assistance that is demeaning to those in need.
Caritas in Veritate (“Charity in Truth”), Pope Benedict XVI, 2009, #57-58.
It is the responsibility of the State to safeguard and promote the common good of society.[188] Based on the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity, and fully committed to political dialogue and consensus building, it plays a fundamental role, one which cannot be delegated, in working for the integral development of all. This role, at present, calls for profound social humility.
Evangelii Gaudium (“Joy of the Gospel”), Pope Francis, 2013, Chapter 4, #240
Let us keep in mind the principle of subsidiarity, which grants freedom to develop the capabilities present at every level of society, while also demanding a greater sense of responsibility for the common good from those who wield greater power.
Laudato Si’ (“Praise Be”), Pope Francis, 2015, Chapter 5, #196.