In the opening
passages of Leo XIII’s pivotal 1891 encyclical, Rerum Novarum, there is something that has puzzled many people to
the point that their only response is to ignore it. This is the pope’s rather odd comment about
the role the State should take in everyday life. As His Holiness declared, “There is no need
to bring in the State. Man precedes the State, and possesses, prior to the
formation of any State, the right of providing for the substance of his body.” (§7)
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| State Save Us! |
“But . . . but .
. . but . . .” today’s social justice expert or advocate burbles in baffled bewilderment,
“isn’t the State’s job to take care of our every need from cradle to grave, to
right every individual wrong, make us all feel safe and secure, and in general
be the Hobbesian ‘Mortall God’ that rules on Earth as the Immortal God rules in
Heaven? Isn’t that what social justice and
subsidiarity are all about?”
Not exactly. The principle of subsidiarity implied here is
not a virtue, per se, but a principle
guiding the application of virtues. Thus,
as CESJ co-founder Father William Ferree explained in his uncompleted
manuscript, Forty Years After . . . A
Second Call to Battle,
[T]he Law of Subsidiarity has two parts: First, that no higher
organization may arrogate to itself a function which a lower organization can
adequately perform; and secondly, that no lower organization may “capture” a
higher one for its own particular purposes.
Many people who profess great interest in the Law of Subsidiary
Function don’t want to hear about the second part of the Law of Subsidiarity. This
leads to such outlandish formulations as one I ran into personally in trying to
dialogue with some students in the hectic passage from the Sixties to the
Seventies: this earnest young man was even condescending in the patience with
which he tried to explain to me that “the lower level was always right!”
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| CESJ co-founder Fr. William Ferree, S.M., Ph.D. |
Not surprisingly,
it also leads to similarly “outlandish formulations” such as “the State is
always right!” that also pervades the interpretation of Catholic social
teaching, and thus the whole of the modern understanding of natural law,
whatever your faith or philosophy. This
leads us to the “Fifth Law of Social Justice” —
Higher Institutions Must Never Displace Lower Ones
Another law of Social Justice which stems from the institutional
character of the Common Good is that no institution in the vast hierarchy which
we have seen can take over the particular actions of an institution or person
below it. This is well stated in Paragraph 80 of Quadragesimo Anno:
The supreme authority of the State, ought, therefore, to
let subordinate groups handle matters and concerns of lesser importance, which
would otherwise dissipate its efforts greatly. Thereby the State will more
freely, powerfully, and effectively do all those things that belong to it alone
because it alone can do them. . . . Therefore those in power should be sure
that the more perfectly a graduated order is kept among the various
associations, in observance of the principle of “subsidiary functions,” the
stronger social authority and effectiveness will be and the happier and more
prosperous the condition of the State.
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| Pope Pius XII |
In his Encyclical, Summi
Pontificatus, Pope Pius XII applies this principle to the State both as
regards its subordinate institutions, and as regard the whole human family of
which it is a part.
If, in fact, the State lays claim to and directs private
enterprises, these, ruled as they are by delicate and complicated internal
principles which guarantee and insure the realization of their special aims,
may be damaged to the detriment of the public good, by being wrenched from
their natural surroundings, that is, from responsible private action.
Then again, to show the relation of the State to the whole human
community:
The idea which credits the State with unlimited
authority is not simply an error harmful to the life of nations, to their
prosperity, and to the larger and well-ordered increase in their well-being,
but likewise it injures the relations, between peoples, for it breaks the unity
of supra-national society, robs the law of nations of its foundation and vigor,
leads to the violation of others’ rights, and impedes agreement and peaceful
intercourse.
A disposition in fact of divinely sanctioned natural order
divides the human race into social groups, nations or states, which are
mutually independent in organization and in the direction of their internal
life. But for all that, the human race is bound together by reciprocal ties,
moral and juridical, into a great commonwealth directed to the good of all
nations, and ruled by special laws which protect its unity and promote its
prosperity.
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| Pope Pius XI |
What is
particularly interesting in the cited passage from Quadragesimo Anno is that
Pope Pius XI may have been responding directly to the interpretation that
Monsignor John A. Ryan (1869-1945) of the Catholic University of America put on
certain passages of Rerum Novarum
that directly contradicted explicit statements earlier in the encyclical
itself! As analyzed by the solidarist
economist Dr. Franz Herman Mueller (1900-1994), a student of Father Heinrich Pesch,
S.J. (1854-1926), Msgr. Ryan just assumed — with no basis for his assumption — the
whole message of Rerum Novarum is summed up in a single sentence from § 36:
“Whenever the general interest or any particular class suffers, or is
threatened with harm, which can in no other way be met or prevented, the public
authority must step in to deal with it.”
As Dr. Mueller commented,
Ryan relates that the first time
he read Rerum Novarum he was most impressed by the
passage in Section 28. [Mueller used another edition of the encyclical with different
numbering than the current official Vatican translation.] Actually this passage is a
clear statement of the principle of subsidiarity, but at that time Ryan seems to have been fascinated
by the pope’s acceptance of State intervention and overlooked
the important qualifications made by Leo. . . . Ryan all through his life felt
that what governments normally do, and what appears to be practically
necessary, may be regarded as belonging to the proper functions of government —
a rather pragmatic point of view. (Franz H. Mueller, The Church and the Social Question. Washington, DC: American
Enterprise Institute for Policy Research, 1984, 96.)
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| Pope Leo XIII |
Msgr. Ryan simply ignored natural law, individual rights,
sovereignty, free will, and more — all “the important qualifications made by
Leo” in §§ 12-14 of Rerum Novarum to
protect the individual and the family.
In common with earlier “democratic” or “Christian” socialists, Msgr. Ryan redefined salvation in terms of State-provided or supported
universal wellbeing. As Dr. Mueller explained Msgr. Ryan’s orientation,
Ryan started out with the question
whether the then prevailing trend toward wider State intervention should be
permitted to continue until it has embraced the full program of socialism or whether it should be countered
by, and confined to, a program which will keep it within the bounds of feasible
and rational social reform. . . . He then proceeded to outline such a program
which should aim at “regulating the limits, both upper and lower, of industrial
opportunity,” by securing to the laborers a reasonable minimum of wages and
other economic goods. (Ibid., 104.)
Msgr. Ryan’s program included minimum
wage and maximum hours laws, compulsory arbitration, State employment bureaus. and unemployment
insurance. (Ibid.) In a paper titled “A
Program of Social Reform by Legislation,” Msgr. Ryan also advocated “State labor colonies” for recalcitrants and hardcore
unemployables that
“could be of great benefit to certain classes of the unemployed.” Regimentation of the workforce would be
accompanied “by gradual nationalization of railroads, power companies, water
works, municipal transportation, and telephones.” (Ibid., 105.)
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| Fr. Heinrich Pesch, S.J. |
The American
Bishops’ Program of 1919 contained many of the elements of Ryan’s proposal. In particular, “The industry in which a man
is employed should provide him with all that is necessary to meet all the needs
of his entire life.” (Ibid., 107.) As one “labor judge” commented at the height
of Msgr. Ryan’s popularity, “I would rather see a man employed in private
industry. But if he can’t find that kind of a job, the government should give
him one.” (“Restaurant Union Hears Judge Smith,” The Pittsburgh Press, June 20, 1939, 6.)
As Dr. Mueller commented, “It is hard to understand why
neither Ryan nor the Catholic War Council realized, or so it seems, the ‘corporatist’ [i.e., Fascist] implications of this statement.” (Mueller, The Church and the Social Question, op. cit.,
107.)
Msgr. Ryan’s chief accomplishment, then,
was to make Rerum Novarum mean exactly the opposite of what Leo XIII intended.
He used an encyclical directed against socialism and fascism in support of socialism and fascism. Nevertheless, despite its heterodoxy and
deviations from papal teachings, Msgr. Ryan’s analysis eventually became
the authoritative interpretation of Catholic social teaching.
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