Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan was back in the news today, promoting his budget proposals and his take on Catholic social teaching in an interview with CBN. Critics, including the U.S.C.C.B., have assailed Ryan’s budget as too hard on the poor, but he apparently doesn’t see a contradiction in the proposals he will use in negotiation with Congressional Democrats and his Catholic faith. During his chat with CBN’s David Brody, Ryan equates subsidiarity with the American political concept of federalism and he limits Catholic concepts of subsidiarity and solidarity, which he seems to jumble together, to essentially individual and community based expressions of civic engagement.

“To me, the...