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 principle of subsidiarity, which is really federalism,” Ryan said, “meaning government closest to the people governs best, having a civil society of the principal of solidarity where we, through our civic organizations, through our churches, through our charities, through all of our different groups where we interact with people as a community, that’s how we advance the common good. By not having big government crowd out civic society, but by having enough space in our communities so that we can interact with each other, and take care of people who are down and out in our communities.”
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