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This is absolutely the best thing I've seen written on the teachings of the Church and human rights. In light of all the misstatements on this subject that have emanated from the media, the government and not least of all the USCCB, this critique of the Catholic understanding of rights should be required reading for all of us that comment on this vexing issue.
"Now the Church definitely rejects the radical libertarian position that government can never, even in principle, justly intervene to help even the neediest citizens to acquire services of this sort. Catholic social teaching affirms the principle of solidarity, according to which we have, by nature, positive obligations to one another that we did not consent to and that the state as a natural institution can in principle step in to assist us in fulfilling when necessary. But the Church also firmly rejects the leftist tendency to regard governmental action as the preferred or even the only appropriate means of fulfilling our obligations to others. And she firmly rejects too the egalitarian tendency to regard our obligations as extending to all other human beings in an equal way. Contrary to what the libertarian supposes, the individual is not the basic unit of society; contrary to what socialists, communitarians, and many liberals suppose, “society” or “the community” as a whole is not the basic unit either. The family is the basic unit, and it is to our family members that our obligations are the strongest and most direct, with positive obligations to other human beings, though deriving from natural law rather than consent, becoming less strong and less direct the further they are from the family. Hence my obligations to the local community are stronger and more direct than they are to the nation as a whole; and my obligations to the nation as a whole are stronger and more direct than they are to the community of nations.
This approach is enshrined in another central principle of Catholic social teaching, the principle of subsidiarity, according to which the needs of individuals, families, and local communities ought as a matter of justice to be met as far as possible by those individuals, families, and communities themselves...
...There can be no question, then, that while the Church allows that government can legitimately intervene in economic life and in other ways come to the assistance of those in need, she also teaches that there is a presumption in justice against such intervention, a presumption which can be overridden only when such intervention is strictly necessary, only to the extent necessary, and only on the part of those governmental institutions which are as close as possible to those receiving the aid in question. This surely follows from the principles of subsidiarity and the priority of the family. And it surely rules out not only libertarianism but also the sorts of policy preferences typical of socialists, social democrats, and egalitarian liberals."
Edward Fesser
H/T Musings of a Pertinacious Papist
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This is correct. Where Libertarians and Randians go wrong is in assuming the individual is the basic unit. It can't be. There must be means of propagating the species. So the family is the basic unit. You're quite right - this is the best explanation yet. But I still balk at govt interfence.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteGovernment interference always concerns me not because it is always invalid but because it is always a temptation to those that wield it to exceed their authority. I'd rather err on the side of caution.
ReplyDeleteI had to think about this some more. Here are my thoughts:
ReplyDeletehttp://commentarius-ioannis.blogspot.com/2010/04/human-rights-and-teachings-of-church.html
Can there be any question that one of the goals of the "Intelligentsia" is the destruction of the family unit? I think not. Look what happens when the family is destroyed. The surrogate that steps in is invariably the State - and lo and behold, without a cohesive marriage, the family is unable to resist its interference.
ReplyDeleteThe leader of the "Intelligentsia" on the left (oh, what the hell, on the right, too) is Satan; of this I am firmly convinced. Because of his understanding of human nature, which I'm sure far surpasses ours, he sees what the Church sees; the basic unit of humanity is the family. I think, and I've been thinking a lot about this lately, that our true nature as individuals can only be expressed inside the family unit. Just as God, the perfect individual, is made up of multiple persons with the same divine nature, so must the individuality of man be expressed in the same way. The idea of rugged individualism, so much a part of the American myth, is a false construct of those that believe all good comes from self interest. This is a prevailing theory on the right, particularly among the followers of Ayn Rand.
ReplyDeleteAnd, while the idea that yes, a man can be an island, is counter to our true nature, so is the idea so prevalent on the left, that of collectivism. They would take the family and extend it to the point that it no longer has any meaning or authority, creating a vacuum that must, by necessity, be filled by the state.
It seems that Satan is pulling at both ends of the political belief spectrum to destroy the family while the Church, as usually seems to be the case, finds a middle ground of truth and balance. It realizes the absolute need for the family as a means to express our true individualism while at the same time using subsidiarity to restrain it's size and affect on other individuals, allowing families to maintain a healthy and necessary degree of autonomy, not as an all encompassing collective but as an individual.
The Church realizes that we are all connected through marriage, one individual (family) to another. However, because of subsidiarity that connection does not allow for anything but a small amount of power to exist outside the immediate family structure.
The American Founding fathers understood this, not as Catholics but as philosophers and men of reason. This societal structure, because it is of God, is part of the natural law. I don't think they understood it clearly because they do seem to refer to the particular man as an individual but they also recognize the importance of family and community and the fact that all power should stay as close to the individual (family?) as possible.
Sorry for being so long winded here but I've been trying to work through this in my somewhat drug scarred brain (child of the '70's).