Catholic Social Teaching Principles April, 2000
The Principle of Subsidiarity
Article by Fr. Byron
Lesson Plans
Primary (K-2)
Intermediate (3-5)
Middle School (6-8)
Secondary (9-12)
Facilitator's Guide
Background/Supporting Quotations:
from Romans 12:13, 16, 20
"Look on the needs of the saints as your own; be generous in hospitality…"
"Put away ambitious thoughts and associate with those who are lowly…"
"But if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirty, give him something to drink…"
from Sharing Catholic Social Teaching: Challenges and Directions
"This principle deals chiefly with 'the responsibilities and limits of government, and the essential roles of voluntary associations." (p.6)
from Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992)
True development concerns the whole man. It is concerned with increasing each person's ability to respond to this vocation and hence to God's call. (#2461)
Widespread participation in voluntary associations and institutions is to be encouraged. (#1893)
In accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, neither the state nor any larger society should substitute itself for the initiative and responsibility of individuals and intermediary bodies. (#1894)
from The Catholic Northwest Progress, publication of the Archdiocese of Seattle, 4/6/2000, article by Rev. William Byron, SJ, Subsidiarity.
from the papal encyclical, Gaudium et Spes (The Church in the Modern World), Vatican Council, 1965
"Economic development must…not be left to the sole judgement of a few men or groups, possessing excessive economic power, or of the political community alone, or of certain powerful nations. It is proper, on the contrary, that at every level the largest number of people have an active share in directing that development." (#65)
from the papal encyclical, Quadragesimo Anno, Pope Pius XI, 1931
"Just as it is wrong to withdraw from the individual and commit to the community at large what private enterprise and endeavor can accomplish, so it is likewise unjust and a gravely harmful disturbance of right order to turn over to a greater society of higher rank functions and services which can be performed by lesser bodies on a lower plane. For a social undertaking of any sort, by its very nature, ought to aid the members of the body social, but never to destroy and absorb them."