Joseph Cardinal Höffner CHRISTIAN SOCIAL ... - Ordo Socialis

§ 2 The Foundation of the Principle of Subsidiarity
1. The principle of subsidiarity finds its foundations in the freedom and dignity of man as
well as in the structure and characteristic features of smaller social circles, to which tasks and
rights are due that cannot be fulfilled in a meaningful way by the more comprehensive social
bodies. Here two considerations serve as a point of departure:
a) On the one hand, the subsidiarity principle protects the personal being and life of individual
people and of smaller social circles from encroachments by the more comprehensive social
organizations so that, in this respect, it implies a certain defining emphasis on their autonomy.
b) On the other hand, subsidiarity means ‘help from above,’ which at times is tendentiously
overlooked. This helping intervention of the larger social units can be necessary for two reasons:
first, because individual people or smaller social circles can fail culpably or inculpably
in the field of duties proper to them; second, because it is a question of tasks that can only be
mastered by the more comprehensive social units. Since individual people and smaller social
circles are not self-sufficient, but are incorporated into more extensive social structures, not
only do their own duties devolve upon them, but community duties as well.
2. Even if the name ‘subsidiarity principle’ is relatively new and is found neither in Heinrich
Pesch nor in the second to last edition of the Staatslexikon (1932), in its content this principle
is an ancient piece of human wisdom. „The impetus of liberalism“ was not necessary, as A. F.
Utz affirms, in order „to thrust forward“ towards the subsidiarity principle at all. 1 In the book
of Exodus Moses was given the counsel: „You cannot do it alone...set officers over groups of
thousand, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens ...Thus your burden will be lightened, since they
will bear it with you“ (Ex 18:18-22). Thomas Aquinas also touches on the matter of subsidiarity
when, in reference to Aristotle, he explains that an exaggerated standardization and conformity
threatens the existence „of the body politic composed of different members,“ just „as
the symphony and harmony of voices disappear when all sing the same note“(In Pol II,5).
Dante also emphasizes in his De Monarchia (I, 14) that „not every little regulation for every
city“ should be decided directly by the emperor, for „nations, states, and cities have their own
internal concerns which require special laws.“ Subsidiarity then played an important role in
the disputes between the curialists and their opponents in the fourteenth century.
In the nineteenth century - long before the social encyclicals - Bishop Ketteler not only formulated
the principle of subsidiarity accurately, but was probably the first to speak of ‘subsidiary
right’: reason and truth give the people the right „to attend to and also accomplish
themselves what they can do in their homes, in their communities, and in their native lands.
Of course, this is in no way compatible with the principle of centralized government authority...For
then shared government and the fabrication of laws would soon come to an end.“
Vis-a-vis the family, for example, the state has „certain tutelary right only in those cases
where parents seriously violate their rights and duties.“ It is, however, a „harsh absolutism, a
true slavery of spirit and soul, when the state misuses this subsidiary right, as I should call it.“
„My view proceeds from the simple proposition that every individual should itself exercise
the rights that it can exercise itself. For me, the state is not a machine, but a living organism
with living members in which every member has its own right, its own function, and shapes
its own free life. Such members are for me the individual, the family, the community, and so
on. Every lower member moves itself freely in its sphere and enjoys the right of the freest
self-determination and self-government. Only where the lower member of this organism is
itself no longer capable of achieving its end or of itself averting dangers that threaten its development
does the higher member enter into action for it“ (Kettelers Schriften,I:403; II:21,
162). The Second Vatican Council emphasized the importance of the principle of subsidiarity
especially for educational and school systems (Gravissimum educationis, 3) and for interna-
1 A. F. Utz, Das Subsidiaritätsprinzip. Heidelberg 1953, S.7.
34