Joseph Cardinal Höffner CHRISTIAN SOCIAL ... - Ordo Socialis

without reference to his free choice, to the unique and exclusive responsibility which he exercises
in the face of good or evil” 13, 1 ).
In democratic societies, he wrote, the „subjectivity of society“ reveals itself in the „creation
of structures of participation and shared responsibility“ (46,2). This was prevented, however;
if a majority principle, when applied absolutely, were to undermine the dignity and rights of
the individual and the autonomy of social groups and institutions, especially the family, existing
within the framework of the public weal (Cf.13,2).
A sublime erosion of the subjectivity of society and of the principle of subsidiarity it stands for
is the „new type of state“ that was described as the „welfare state“ or „Social Assistance
State“(48,4). „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
...accompanied by an enormous increase in spending“ (48,5).
In many instances, according to „Centesimus annus“, it is the people themselves who are to
blame on account of their growing entitlement mentality and their tendency to „shift“ personal
responsibility onto the state. This, it says, is partly provoked by the fact that the market
only rewards purchasable services but not those non-material goods that are provided especially
by the family in the form of child-raising and care inputs, that are also in society’s economic
interest. Thus „the individual today is often suffocated between two poles represented
by the State and the marketplace”(CA 49,3 ). All this hampered and jeopardized the „subjectivity
of society” as a free community of persons, families and social groups responsible for
their own actions.
SECTION TWO: THE PRINCIPLES OF SOCIAL ORDER
CHAPTER ONE: THE SOLIDARITY PRINCIPLE
§ 1 The meaning of the Principle of Solidarity
1. The laws of order governing the life of a society are grounded in the socio-philosophical
and socio-theological modes of being that were presented in the section entitled ‘Individual
and Society.’ The principle of solidarity follows as the next and immediate conclusion from
these modes of being (from solidare= to fit firmly together). It begins simultaneously with the
personhood and sociality of man and implies mutual connection and obligation. Individualism,
which denies the social nature of man and sees in society only a utilitarian association for
the mechanical balancing of individual interests, as well as collectivism, which robs man of
his personal dignity and degrades him to a mere object of social and especially economic
processes, are thereby rejected as principles of order. The principle of solidarity does not
stand somewhere in the middle of individualism and collectivism, but, since it begins simultaneously
with the personal dignity and the essentially social nature of man, represents a new
and unique statement about the relation between man and society. On the one hand, this principle
is grounded in the ontologically pregiven mutual connection of the individual and society
(common involvement); on the other hand, it implies the moral responsibility resulting
from this mode of being (common liability). It is therefore an ontological and an ethical principle
simultaneously.
2. The solidarity principle was scientifically expounded and grounded by Heinrich Pesch,
Gustav Gundlach, and Oswald von Nell- Breuning above all. These scholars gave the name
‘solidarism’ to their socio-scientific system - no doubt with the intention of opposing a short
and striking catchword to individualism and socialism - so that „solidarism“ would be synonymous
with ‘Christian social teaching’. But not even all Catholic social scientists accept
this, even if they do recognize the fundamental idea of the solidarity principle. In fact, it is
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