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Wednesday 9 September 2009

Hurray for Subsidiarity!

Doesn't it touch your heart to read about how many Catholic bishops are advocating the principle of subsidiarity in their opposition to a government coordinated healthcare plan?  Subsidiarity means:

"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." -Pius XI, Quadragesimo Anno (1931)

Apparently the bishops believe that "private enterprise and endeavor" has provided adequate healthcare for all even though 50 million poor are without it here in the good old U.S. of A. which ranks 37th among nations in healthcare.  Are these bishops out-of-touch? 

More striking is their blindness to the lack of subsidiarity in their own back yard.  Do they truly believe that it is "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", when it comes to their own governance, i.e. parish closings, openness and accountability, etc.?  Are they not controlled by the Vatican ("a greater society of higher rank") on all matters liturgical, secrecy and rules of administration?  Is a parish allowed to deviate from chancery mandates?

Subsidiarity is a truly Christian principle.  We call upon our good and well-meaning Catholic bishops to check out the beam in their own eye before trying to help with the healthcare speck in our country's.

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