Paying Attention To The Sky

One of the things I worried about when I converted was how my new found faith would impact my political convictions. For I had often thought of Catholics as being a breed of liberal Democrats. While when I was growing up that was a kind of truth, I discovered through the examples of Father Richard John Neuhaus that the politics of the sixties had moved many from the Democratic party and the liberal left into the conservative right. Ronald Reagan, it should be recalled was a Roosevelt Democrat all through the forties and early fifties. He proclaimed himself as so in “The Speech,” a national telecast he made on behalf of Barry Goldwater in 1964.
While most of my efforts to understand my faith have been directed towards the theological, I have not ignored learning Catholic Social Theory, which forms the basis of the thinking Catholics approach to the political. One of the core beliefs of the latter is “subsidiarity.” Catholics oppose ObamaCare on two fronts. The first, and perhaps most important, is its attempt to enshrine abortion as a core value of health care. The second is its violation of subsidiarity. What is that you say? Well here are some readings to illuminate this fundamental plank of Catholic Social Theory.

From The Catechism
1882 Certain societies, such as the family and the state, correspond more directly to the nature of man; they are necessary to him. To promote the participation of the greatest number in the life of a society, the creation of voluntary associations and institutions must be encouraged “on both national and international levels, which relate to economic and social goals, to cultural and recreational activities, to sport, to various professions, and to political affairs.” This “socialization” also expresses the natural tendency for human beings to associate with one another for the sake of attaining objectives that exceed individual capacities. It develops the qualities of the person, especially the sense of initiative and responsibility, and helps guarantee his rights.

1883 Socialization also presents dangers. Excessive intervention by the state can threaten personal freedom and initiative. The teaching of the Church has elaborated the principle of subsidiarity, according to which “a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to co- ordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good.”

From Seven Principles of Catholic Social Teaching by Christopher Kaczor, Ph.D.

V. Observe the Principle of Subsidiarity
Some Christian thinkers conceive of the state or government as being established simply to repress evil desires and evil people. In Catholic thought, the government also has a more positive role, namely to help secure common good. Pope John Paul II put the point as follows:

It is the task of the state to provide for the defense and preservation of common goods such as the natural and human environments, which cannot be safeguarded simply by market forces. Just as in the time of primitive capitalism the state had the duty of defending the basic rights of workers, so now, with the new capitalism, the state and all of society have the duty of defending those collective goods which, among others, constitute the essential framework for the legitimate pursuit of personal goals on the part of each individual. (Centesimus Annus 40)

The government has many necessary and indispensable functions to play, roles that cannot be accomplished by individuals acting alone or even by smaller groups in society.

Yet states and governments often exceed their legitimate role and infringe upon individuals and groups in society so as to dominate rather than to serve them. To combat this tendency, Catholic social thought emphasizes the principle of subsidiarity. Non-Catholics also have discovered this principle. Abraham Lincoln wrote: “The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but cannot do at all or cannot so well do, for themselves — in their separate and individual capacities.” Government should be as small as possible, but as big as necessary to accomplish whatever needs to be accomplished that cannot be accomplished in any other way. National defense, interstate cooperation, and treaties with other nations are obvious examples of matters properly undertaken by the federal government. Administration of the criminal justice system is another example of a matter that properly pertains to government.

On the other hand, the government should not intervene to attempt to alleviate all problems. A welfare or “nanny” state, offering cradle-to-grave security and attempting to provide for all human needs, expands the state beyond its proper scope and violates the principle of subsidiarity. Pope John Paul II explained:

Malfunctions and defects in the social assistance state [or welfare state] are the result of an inadequate understanding of the tasks proper to the state. Here again the principle of subsidiarity must be respected: A community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to coordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good. (Centesimus Annus 48)

This overreaching by the state leads to situations that are both inefficient and detrimental to human welfare:

By intervening directly and depriving society of its responsibility, the social assistance state leads to a loss of human energies and an inordinate increase of public agencies, which are dominated more by bureaucratic ways of thinking than by concern for serving their clients, and which are accompanied by an enormous increase in spending. In fact, it would appear that needs are best understood and satisfied by people who are closest to them and who act as neighbors to those in need. (Centesimus Annus 48)

When should the state intervene and when should governmental authority refrain? Such questions are difficult to answer outside of the concrete situation, for they depend upon prudential judgments about particular situations. People of good will, including Catholics who are attempting to put into action Catholic social teaching, may legitimately disagree about whether a given piece of legislation or governmental intervention is warranted to alleviate a social problem. Many social questions, such as, “Should this welfare benefit be offered to people in this particular situation?” do not admit of an answer that would be binding upon all Catholics. Nevertheless, all Catholics are obliged to work to find solutions to contemporary social problems in light of the Gospel and their best practical wisdom.

Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church: Chapter Four by Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace

IV. THE PRINCIPLE OF SUBSIDIARITY

a. Origin and meaning
185. Subsidiarity is among the most constant and characteristic directives of the Church’s social doctrine and has been present since the first great social encyclical. It is impossible to promote the dignity of the person without showing concern for the family, groups, associations, local territorial realities; in short, for that aggregate of economic, social, cultural, sports-oriented, recreational, professional and political expressions to which people spontaneously give life and which make it possible for them to achieve effective social growth. This is the realm of civil society, understood as the sum of the relationships between individuals and intermediate social groupings, which are the first relationships to arise and which come about thanks to “the creative subjectivity of the citizen”[397]. This network of relationships strengthens the social fabric and constitutes the basis of a true community of persons, making possible the recognition of higher forms of social activity.

186. The necessity of defending and promoting the original expressions of social life is emphasized by the Church in the Encyclical ‘Quadragesimo Anno’, in which the principle of subsidiarity is indicated as a most important principle of “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”.

On the basis of this principle, all societies of a superior order must adopt attitudes of help (“subsidium“) – therefore of support, promotion, development – with respect to lower-order societies. In this way, intermediate social entities can properly perform the functions that fall to them without being required to hand them over unjustly to other social entities of a higher level, by which they would end up being absorbed and substituted, in the end seeing themselves denied their dignity and essential place.

Subsidiarity, understood in the positive sense as economic, institutional or juridical assistance offered to lesser social entities, entails a corresponding series of negative implications that require the State to refrain from anything that would de facto restrict the existential space of the smaller essential cells of society. Their initiative, freedom and responsibility must not be supplanted.

b. Concrete indications
187. The principle of subsidiarity protects people from abuses by higher-level social authority and calls on these same authorities to help individuals and intermediate groups to fulfil their duties. This principle is imperative because every person, family and intermediate group has something original to offer to the community. Experience shows that the denial of subsidiarity, or its limitation in the name of an alleged democratization or equality of all members of society, limits and sometimes even destroys the spirit of freedom and initiative.

The principle of subsidiarity is opposed to certain forms of centralization, bureaucratization, and welfare assistance and to the unjustified and excessive presence of the State in public mechanisms. “By intervening directly and depriving society of its responsibility, the Social Assistance State leads to a loss of human energies and an inordinate increase of public agencies, which are dominated more by bureaucratic ways of thinking than by concern for serving their clients, and which are accompanied by an enormous increase in spending”. An absent or insufficient recognition of private initiative – in economic matters also – and the failure to recognize its public function, contribute to the undermining of the principle of subsidiarity, as monopolies do as well.

In order for the principle of subsidiarity to be put into practice there is a corresponding need for: 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.

188. Various circumstances may make it advisable that the State step in to supply certain functions[401]. One may think, for example, of situations in which it is necessary for the State itself to stimulate the economy because it is impossible for civil society to support initiatives on its own. One may also envision the reality of serious social imbalance or injustice where only the intervention of the public authority can create conditions of greater equality, justice and peace. In light of the principle of subsidiarity, however, this 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. In any case, the common good correctly understood, the demands of which will never in any way be contrary to the defence and promotion of the primacy of the person and the way this is expressed in society, must remain the criteria for making decisions concerning the application of the principle of subsidiarity.

From “The Principle of Subsidiarity and The Governance of Schools” by Bernard Cullen

An Example Of Subsidiarity
It is not often that a piece of legislation, let alone an international treaty, gives particular prominence to a philosophical principle. This was the case, however, with the Maastricht Treaty (1992), which attributed special importance to the principle of subsidiarity. In the Preamble to the Treaty on European Union, the signatories resolved ‘to continue the process of creating an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe, in which decisions are taken as closely as possible to the citizen in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity’. As this constitutional aspiration indicates, the principle of subsidiarity is a philosophical principle concerned with the mechanisms of democratic decision-making. It was much emphasized by the supporters of the Treaty (principal among them its chief architect, the French President of the European Commission Jacques Delors), as they combated the widespread resistance to ratification of the Treaty, which resistance was itself based on a popular feeling that the European Union was becoming a centralizing super-state. “Save our pint” and much concern about the shape of bananas were some of the popular expressions of resistance (then as now) to ‘interference from Brussels’. In this paper, I shall examine the principle of subsidiarity, including something of the history of the principle and how it has been applied to constitutional theory and practice within the European Union in recent years. Finally, I shall argue for the application of some of its insights to the issue of the governance of schools, with particular reference to Northern Ireland.

Subsidiarity Has A Long History In Catholic Social Philosophy
So what exactly is the principle of subsidiarity? Although it first came to the widespread attention of the public around the time of the Maastricht Treaty, it has a long history in Catholic social philosophy, with its lineage commonly traced back to the social teaching of Thomas Aquinas. While it is almost universally acknowledged that the principle is an ambiguous one, it is broadly concerned with the limits of the right and the duty of the public authority (however understood) to intervene in the social and economic affairs of individual citizens or groups of citizens.

Quadragesimo Anno
In the last century, against the background of bolshevism in the Soviet Union and fascism in Italy, the principle was taken up again and defined by Pope Pius XI in his encyclical letter Quadragesimo Anno (1931):

It is an injustice, a grave evil and a disturbance of right order, for a larger and higher association to arrogate to itself functions which can be performed efficiently by smaller and lower societies. This is a fundamental principle of social philosophy, unshaken and unchangeable. Of its very nature the true aim of all social activity should be to help members of the social body, but never to destroy or absorb them … Let those in power, therefore, be convinced that the more faithfully this principle of subsidiary function be followed, and a graded hierarchical order exist between various associations, the greater will be both social authority and social efficiency, and the happier and more prosperous the condition of the commonwealth (paras 79-80, pp 34-5)

A Particular View Of The Nature Of The Human Person
The principle of subsidiarity is based upon a particular view of the nature of the human person, the nature of the state and society and the relation between them, and the role of the individual citizen within the state. It addresses fundamental issues of democracy, and in the way in which I wish later to apply it, interesting issues of local democracy. In the philosophical tradition established by Aristotle, the human being is essentially a social person (zoon politikon), who achieves his or her perfection only in being enmeshed in a society. In the modern industrialized world, individuals all live within states. But in its mode of being, the state is accidental, not substantial. The state has no primary role in human existence; it exists only to help the persons who live within the territory to realize their potential as human beings. This is the meaning of the Latin word subsidium: aid, help or support. Normally, this aid is indirect: the state enables human flourishing by tending to the complex of conditions that enable the subordinate societies and the individuals to care for themselves. This complex of conditions is what has been traditionally referred to in Catholic social teaching as ‘the common good’.

Pope John XXIII
This theme was taken up again by Pope John XXIII in his encyclical letter Mater et Magistra (1961): the common good embraces: -. all those social conditions which favour the full development of human personality” (para 65). The encyclical Pacem in Terris (1963) explains more explicitly and concretely what is involved in the total of these conditions: it is agreed that in our time the common good is chiefly guaranteed when personal rights and duties are maintained. The chief concern of civil authorities must therefore be to ensure that these rights are acknowledged, respected, co-ordinated with other rights, defended and promoted, so that in this way each one may more easily carry out his duties” (para 60).

Positive And Negative Emphases
The Catholic tradition recognizes that the principle of subsidiarity can have a positive as well as a negative emphasis. To emphasize the negative side, it enjoins the public authority not to intervene in the ‘private’ affairs of citizens unless it is necessary in order to safeguard the common good, however that is understood. On the other hand, the principle recognizes (especially as the twentieth century progressed) that in many instances in which good and conscientious citizens (for whatever reason) are unable to fend for themselves, the public authority has an obligation to assist human flourishing by the establishment of an appropriate infrastructure that will enable everyone to thrive. The encyclical Pacem in Terris offers (para 64, perhaps with one eye on the spreading attractions of communism in the Third World in the 1960s) an extensive list of physical and social benefits to be guaranteed by the state and to which every citizen is entitled: the list includes roads, transportation, communications networks, water supply, housing, health and education services, facilitation of the practice of religion, recreational facilities, social insurance schemes, and participation in cultural life. It can be seen that this list of benefits mirrors quite closely the United Nations International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966). However, it should be emphasized that the role of the state is seen as a strictly enabling one, supplementing and complementing private endeavour and providing the infrastructure upon which individuals can attain their full development. In principle, any individual or social good that can be attained by individuals or groups of individuals (so-called lesser societies) should be left outside the sphere of state intervention or control.

The principle has clear applicability to a wide range of issues of social organization. For example, a centrally planned (or so-called command) economy determining prices, wages, production and investment quotas and the like, violates the principle of subsidiarity, for the public authority would thus be making decisions that should more properly be the concern of individuals or private groups. On the other hand, a regime of central economic planning that determines monetary and fiscal policy, complete with anti-monopoly regulations and the like, which undoubtedly determines the general economic environment within which individuals and groups can flourish, is clearly consistent with subsidiarity.

The Tension Between The Individual And The Community
The principle of subsidiarity addresses the age-old issue of the tension between the freedom of the private individual and the public demands of the wider community. In the modern constitutional state, individual citizens use their own free initiative to form themselves into social, cultural, economic, educational, religious or other kinds of associations, large and small. The proper role of these associations is distinguished from that of the state authority by application of the principle of subsidiarity, according to which the state should not control or regulate all aspects of individual and social life, but is obliged to enable groups at levels below the state to achieve their democratically expressed ambitions.

The lesser groups should be assisted to achieve their legitimate objectives in their own fashion, rather than have one single straitjacket imposed on all. This presumption in favour of non-intervention is based upon a fundamental respect for the dignity or the worth of each individual citizen, very much along the lines of human rights theory. But it is easily recognized that an individual acting alone can in most cases do little: in the realms of health, education, transport infrastructure, etc., substantial achievements are only possible when individuals band together. In this process of banding together, there are inevitable compromises between the wishes of individuals and what become the collective wishes or aspirations of groups.

The wishes of some groups, and the impact of acting on those wishes, will be purely local. Some group decisions will impact upon many others who are not local. In thinking about the application of the principle of subsidiarity in this way, it can be used to determine which decisions are most fruitfully to be made by the mechanisms of local democracy and which are rather to be made by a more widely based collective (be it a state or a trans-national body). In the United States, for example, there is a strong tradition of very local democracy. The citizens of a township will typically vote on whether they wish to raise a specific local tax for the precise purpose of repairing the potholes in a local road. They sometimes vote not to. If the state of those local roads has little or no impact on others living outside the locality, this seems an appropriate level of decision-making: as close as possible to the citizens affected by the decision. Such a very local approach makes much less sense when the roads in question are used by a lot of travellers just passing through. And for this reason, interstate freeways, designed to facilitate travel through many localities and across great distances, are federally planned and financed out of federal taxes.

The appropriate level of democratic decision-making depends on the issue in question and specifically the way in which the issue impacts upon people. For example, it was agreed a long time ago by the member states of the European Community that environmental pollution recognizes no state boundaries, and that therefore environmental legislation should be a decision of the entire Community, binding on all Community citizens. But the principle of subsidiarity recognizes that many issues of policy should be matters for decision by each ‘sovereign’ member state, so as to reflect as accurately as possible the wishes of the citizens of that state. By extension, the issue in question could be for each region within states to decide, or for each local council area; or it could reasonably be decided (and most accurately reflect the democratic wishes of the citizens affected) by testing the preferences of a quite small locality, however that locality is to be delineated. Apart from the US example quoted above, France, for example, has a tradition of elected assemblies for local communes; while England has a tradition of parish councils.

The Most Appropriate Level Of Sovereignty And Democratic Decision-Making Can Be Challenging
It can be seen that the debate within the EU, and specifically at this time within the United Kingdom, about adoption of the euro as a common currency superseding national currencies, is a debate about the most appropriate application to the issue of monetary policy of the principle of subsidiarity. This debate is a good illustration of the fact that the principle in itself cannot solve all disputes about the most appropriate level of sovereignty and democratic decision-making. In this regard it is no different from other philosophical principles. What it can do is establish a principled context within which the policy issue can be discussed and the dispute resolved. The debate on the adoption of the euro or the retention of sterling also illustrates well that such disputes about the application of subsidiarity very often involve an emotional attachment to the exercise of power, whether that exercise is real or illusory, rather than the dispassionate and rational weighing up of the balance of advantages and disadvantages for the generality of citizens affected.

The principle of subsidiarity is based on the principle (or assumption) that individual citizens prima facie (i.e. unless the contrary can be demonstrated) know best what is good for them. There are, of course, many uncontroversial exceptions to the principle of the primacy of individual choice: everything from the legal requirement to drive round Belfast City Hall in one direction only to the whole panoply of planning laws and regulations. In each such case, Parliament has agreed on behalf of the citizens that there are indeed good reasons for overriding the wishes of the individual.

The area of education is a special category of decision-making by citizens, insofar as parents conventionally decide on behalf of their children (in the case of primary and secondary schooling). Notwithstanding the emerging acknowledgement of children’s rights in recent years, the principle of the primacy of parental choice is well embedded in European culture and is fairly uncontroversial. The principle is frequently overridden by representatives of the state (i.e., the citizenry as a collective). For example, children are commonly removed from their neglectful or cruel parents and taken into state care’ by statutorily authorized social workers. There was also the recent case in which the conscientious wish of the parents to allow their Siamese twin children to die was overridden by the High Court, which ordered surgery to separate them. But the fact that this case prompted such widespread moral head-scratching only goes to demonstrate the strength of the general presumption in favor of parental choice in the disposition of their children.