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Global Perspectives on Subsidiarity pp 29–47Cite as

Subsidiarity in the Tradition of Catholic Social Doctrine

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Part of the book series: Ius Gentium: Comparative Perspectives on Law and Justice ((IUSGENT,volume 37))

Abstract

The violent efforts of the eighteenth and nineteenth century revolutionaries to dissolve the social order led the Catholic Church to discern and articulate the principle of subsidiarity. In Catholic social doctrine, social justice is the demand that the common good be realised through societies, institutions, and groups. Derivative of social justice is the principle of subsidiarity or subsidiarity function, which has two aspects. Negatively, it is a principle of non-absorption of lower societies by higher societies, above all by the state. Positively, subsidiarity demands that when aid is given to a particular society, it be for the purpose of encouraging and strengthening that society. Societies are opportunities for activities by which rational agents achieve perfections proper to their nature, specifically by causing good in others through solidarity. The activities of the heterogeneous and pluriform whole that is the commonwealth must be harmonized with regard to the common good. In Catholic social doctrine, subsidiarity is not a principle of devolution or smallness of scale.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See Dickinson’s (1927). Berman (1983, pp. 276–288).

  2. 2.

    Schama (1989, p. 906).

  3. 3.

    Weber (1981).

  4. 4.

    Pope Pius XI (1931a). See also Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace (2004).

  5. 5.

    Pope John Paul II (1987, emphasis original).

  6. 6.

    Id. (emphasis original).

  7. 7.

    Compendium, supra note 4, at No. 74 (emphasis omitted).

  8. 8.

    Compendium, supra note 4, at No. 77.

  9. 9.

    Pope Pius XII quoted in Hittinger (2008). Note 5.

  10. 10.

    Compendium, supra note 4, at No. 85 (emphasis omitted).

  11. 11.

    Id. at No. 79.

  12. 12.

    Pope Leo XIII (1891).

  13. 13.

    It is telling that the widely respected Catholic Encyclopedia published in 1917 does not so much as contain an entry for subsidiarity (though it does include one for suburbicarian dioceses), but the New Catholic Encyclopedia (second edition 2003) does devote an entry, of not quite three pages, to the term.

  14. 14.

    On the history of the usage of “subsidium” in ancient times, see Lewis and Short, A Latin Dictionary, 1781. On its usage during the Middle Ages, see DuCange et al. (1883–1887).

  15. 15.

    On earlier uses of the neologism, see Leys (1995, pp. 75–78).

  16. 16.

    Specifically, he recommends Taparelli’s textbook Saggio teoretico di Diritto Naturale (A Theoretical Treatise on Natural Right, Based on Fact) (1840–1843), “a work never sufficiently praised and recommended to university students.” No. 50 n.33. Saggio has not been translated into English, and very little has been written about Taparelli in English. On the various influences behind Quadragesimo Anno, we have the detailed first-hand report of the leading ghostwriter, von Nell-Breuning (1986).

  17. 17.

    Behr (2003, p. 100). See also Behr (2000).

  18. 18.

    Manent (1998, p. 124).

  19. 19.

    Behr, supra note 17, at p. 100.

  20. 20.

    Behr, supra note 17, pp. 102–03.

  21. 21.

    Rao (1999, pp. 32–33).

  22. 22.

    Rao (2011, p. 475).

  23. 23.

    Rao, Removing, supra note 21, at p. 34. W.E. von Ketteler (1811–1877), Bishop of Mainz, also converged on the social principle that would later be called subsidiarity. Rather than from a neo-scholastic analysis, von Ketteler reached the principle through a combination of Romantic and liberal thought. See Leys, Impacts, supra note 15, at pp. 25–40.

  24. 24.

    Behr, supra note 17, at p. 105.

  25. 25.

    Behr, supra note 17, at p. 105.

  26. 26.

    Behr, supra note 17, at pp. 104–05.

  27. 27.

    Hittinger (2006, p. 23).

  28. 28.

    Hittinger, Introduction, supra note 27, at p. 23.

  29. 29.

    Pope Pius XI (1931b).

  30. 30.

    Pope Pius XII, La elevatezza e la nobilita (February 20, 1946), quoted in Hittinger, Introduction, supra note 27, at p. 23 n. 63.

  31. 31.

    Pope John XXIII (1961). See also Pope John Paul II (1991). See also Calvez and Perrin (1961, pp. 328–337).

  32. 32.

    Stewart (1951, p. 114).

  33. 33.

    Chapelier Law, 14 June 1791. Stewart, supra 32, at p. 165.

  34. 34.

    Shields (1941,, pp. 26–73).

  35. 35.

    Hittinger (2002, p. 393).

  36. 36.

    The larger context includes distinguishing “social justice” from the more familiar concept of commutative justice. See Pope Pius XI (1937).

  37. 37.

    Hittinger, Pluralism, supra note 35, p. 394.

  38. 38.

    MacLear (1995, p. 77).

  39. 39.

    MacLear, supra note 38, at pp. 294–95.

  40. 40.

    Brennan (2009, pp. 30–33).

  41. 41.

    Quoted in Brennan, supra note 40.

  42. 42.

    Quoted in Brennan, supra note 40.

  43. 43.

    Pope Pius XI (1924).

  44. 44.

    Pope Pius XI (1926, emphasis added). Pius certainly did not imply that the Carthusians’ or Trappists’ only function and gift were the ones he emphasised.

  45. 45.

    Rommen (1947, pp. 302, 303).

  46. 46.

    Johannes Messner is in accord: “The reality of the common good, therefore, is impaired insofar as it is pursued by means of a diminution of the spheres of responsibility and of competence belonging to the members of society.… Here, then, is the fundamental task of social reform today: to reform society with a view to the organization of strong autonomous bodies, both regional and occupational.…” Messner (1965, pp. 210, 214).

  47. 47.

    Id. at p. 210.

  48. 48.

    Id. at p. 213.

  49. 49.

    Id. at p. 212.

  50. 50.

    Id. at p. 214.

  51. 51.

    Id. at p. 215.

  52. 52.

    Maritain (1935).

  53. 53.

    Maritain, Integral, supra 52, at p. 256. See also Maritain (1951, pp. 11, 22, 23, 123, 150).

  54. 54.

    Hittinger, Coherence, supra note 9, at p. 108.

  55. 55.

    Maritain, Integral Humanism, supra note 52, at p. 261.

  56. 56.

    Maritain, Integral Humanism, at pp. 267–68.

  57. 57.

    Compendium, supra note 4, at Nos. 192, 193 (emphasis and internal quotations omitted).

  58. 58.

    Rerum Novarum, supra note 12, text at nn. 36 and 37.

  59. 59.

    Hittinger (2003, p. 271).

  60. 60.

    Hittinger, First grace, supra note 59, at p. 272.

  61. 61.

    Hittinger, Coherence, supra note 9, at p. 92.

  62. 62.

    Simon (1993, p. 64).

  63. 63.

    For a beautiful phenomenology of association, see Rao, Blindfold, supra note 21, at Ch. 2. Available via http://www.romanforum.org/wp-content/uploads/rem_02.pdf

  64. 64.

    Hittinger, Coherence, supra note 9, at p. 86.

  65. 65.

    Hittinger, Coherence, supra note 9, at p. 115.

  66. 66.

    Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, Bk. II, Ch. 3.

  67. 67.

    Pope John Paul II, Centesimus Annus, supra note 31, at Nos. 48–49.

  68. 68.

    Pope Benedict XVI (2005).

  69. 69.

    http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2008/may/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20080503_social-sciences_en.html

  70. 70.

    Pope Benedict XVI (2009).

  71. 71.

    Catechism of the Catholic Church (1991).

  72. 72.

    Pope Pius XI (1922).

  73. 73.

    Hittinger, Pluralism, supra note 35, at p. 401.

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  1. School of Law, Villanova University, 299 North Spring Mill Road, Villanova, Pennsylvania, 19085, USA

    Patrick McKinley Brennan

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  1. Curtin University Law School, Bentley, Perth, West Australia, Australia

    Michelle Evans

  2. Murdoch University School of Law, Perth, West Australia, Australia

    Augusto Zimmermann

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Brennan, P.M. (2014). Subsidiarity in the Tradition of Catholic Social Doctrine. 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_3

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