Catholic Principles and Welfare Reform

On September 19, 1995, the United States House passed a welfare reform bill with bipartisan support that promises to reform the federalized welfare system.¹ It is not known yet if the bill will pass the House, or a possible veto by the president, because it is an attempt to correct a welfare state now associated with various social maladies. Anyone at all familiar with the present system and the debate surrounding it is aware of the disturbing trend amongst the poor who receive welfare. There is a strange equation that has developed over the past 30 years between increased federal spending on the poor and a corresponding increase in various social ills. These ills include such things as broken families, illegitimate births, teenage violence, dependency on welfare and a proliferation of addictive behaviors, especially related to drug use. In the following paper I will present what Catholic social justice teaching has to contribute to the debate over welfare.

As a presentation of Catholic social justice teaching I will try to leave politics to the politicians and economic proposals to the economists. Various political and economic proposals are more or less compatible with Church teaching, but such proposals are secondary to the primary task of articulating key principles and teachings in the area of social justice. For purposes of brevity and focus I will present two Catholic principles that I believe are essential to any plan of welfare or social assistance to the poor and vulnerable. First, I will discuss the principle of private property as understood in Church documents. This will illustrate the Church's basis for the formation of a program of social assistance managed by the state for the sake of the common good. Second, I will discuss subsidiarity as a principle of organization in the formation of any social assistance or welfare programs. An analysis of welfare by means of the principle of subsidiarity will give particular focus to the present welfare reforms as they relate to both Catholic teaching and American constitutional thinking.

Any theology done without sacred Scripture, God's revelation to man, is like a house built on sand. For that reason I will begin with a brief look at Scripture's treatment of the corporal works of mercy. In the context of both the Old and New Testaments the command to provide care for the poor and vulnerable appears often. In Isaiah the prophet promises freedom, vindication and a participation in the glory of the Lord by "sharing your bread with the hungry,/ sheltering the oppressed and homeless:/ Clothing the naked when you see them,/ and not turning your back on your own."² In the New Testament our Lord brings this command into sharper focus. Those who act out the corporal works of mercy are compared to the sheep who will inherit the Kingdom of God, while those who do not, the goats, are reviled and sentenced to eternal punishment. In Mathew 25 Jesus speaks of the glorious end of the sheep, "Then the king will say to those on the right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my father. Inherit the kingdom that is prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.'"³ With so much at stake in our care for the poor and vulnerable, nothing less than our salvation, we ought to apply ourselves diligently to the task, even while our own age is different from that of the biblical epochs of the Old and New Testaments.

The Church has taught consistently since Rerum Novarum that the right to private property is a fundamental aspect of economic and social life. The teaching is not derived from a particular tenant of economics or sociology but from a recognition of the means by which man's dignity is secured. In Mater et Magistra John XXIII connects various goods, both spiritual and corporal, with private ownership. "In dealing with the family the Supreme Pontiff affirmed that private ownership of material goods has a great part to play in promoting the welfare of family life. It secures for the father of the family the healthy liberty he needs in order to fulfill the duties assigned him by the Creator regarding the physical, spiritual and religious welfare of the family."⁴ The passage clearly indicates the high esteem the Church has for private ownership. As an economic reality it intimately connected to social goods the Church promotes avidly. Private ownership is principally directed to physical, spiritual and religious goods that contribute to the proper ordering of family life and especially the role of the father.

The right to private property is directed to the dignity of man, who, through such ownership, participates in various goods understood broadly. Because of that qualification the Church does not treat the principle of private property as absolute or untouchable. John Paul II qualifies the teaching of private ownership in relation to the common use of goods that all men as children of God are entitled to. The Church "has always understood this right within the broader context of the right common to all to use the goods of the whole creation: the right to private property is subordinated to the right to common use, to the fact that goods are meant for everyone."⁵ John Paul II articulates here the complementary principle of the universal destination of the goods of creation. The teaching sets a standard against forms of the greedy consumerism and hoarding that would undermine basic Catholic morality and certainly the teachings of Jesus Christ.

Within the context of these complimentary principles one can definitely speak of the Church's support for some form of social assistance and public welfare. One can certainly see the state's role in counteracting forms of greedy consumerism to protect the poor and vulnerable by judiciously promoting a welfare program that secures the common good. Nevertheless the state cannot ignore that the principle means by which a person is to satisfy his or her needs is by industry, enterprise, and ownership, as these accord with his true dignity. As articulated above private ownership is an indispensable aspect of promoting goods in family life, not only on a material level but according to social and religious realities as well. Thus a significant danger for the welfare state is to supplant the autonomy of the person as an industrious enterprising player in his own personal, familial and economic life. The length of this paper does not permit an analysis of the welfare state in the United States, but the obvious problems of this "Great Society" project of the Johnson era make it a target for some criticism inasmuch as it has failed to direct the poor to private ownership and created various dependencies.

If the complimentary principles of private ownership and the universal destination of the earth's goods provides a basis for the necessary involvement of the state in social assistance or welfare, the principle of subsidiarity outlines in broad strokes the organizational structure that the state ought to promote in a social assistance program. Since Quadragesimo Anno the Church has consistently and explicitly held up the principle of subsidiarity as a standard by which to set policy in the interrelated spheres of family life, business enterprise and governmental institutions. Pope Pius XI articulates the principle by saying that "Just as it is gravely wrong to take from individuals what they can accomplish on their own initiative and industry and give it to the community, so also it is an injustice and at the same time a grave evil and disturbance of right order to assign to a greater and higher association what lessor and subordinate organizations can do. For every social activity ought of its very nature furnish help to the members of the body social, and never destroy and absorb them."⁶ It is somewhat shocking to read the Pontiff's harsh condemnation of higher organizations as a grave evil. Clearly what is at stake here is the very dignity of the person who relates to his material, social, and religious life. If, for instance, the state were to promote a form of social assistance that deters one from human work and private ownership, all dimensions of the person are undetermined, his intellectual life, his family life and his potential talents that could be developed as a worker. It is a grave evil to deny man the liberty and autonomy which God assigns to him to exercise individually for others and his God. The principle of subsidiarity protects against such a tendency to dismiss human freedom and autonomy.

The articulation of the principle of subsidiarity is not limited to its expression in Church social teaching. It appears to be a fundamental concern of the Founding Fathers of the United States. The work of Hamilton, Jefferson, and others reveals in them a profound concern on the topic of working out the relationship between the states and the federal government. It is not discussed by them as the principle of subsidiarity but they are nonetheless concerned with that very topic of organizing the body politic around the individual and the state with various immediate subsidiary institutions in between. The 10th Amendment of the Constitution expresses the Founder's teaching on subsidiarity that coincides with later Catholic teaching in Church documents. "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it, to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."⁷ Specific obligations, for instance national defense and commerce, are to be handled by the federal government. All other duties and liberties are reserved for the states and its individual citizens. The amendment assures the individuals and the localities, cities, states and regions a high degree of freedom to pursue the common good by various means so far as they do not conflict with federal law. The assumption is a very Catholic one. It is gravely wrong for the larger institution, in this case the national government, to assume the functions of lower institutions e.g., the states, voluntary associations, the family and the individual.

Unfortunately the welfare state that has emerged in the United States, first under Roosevelt's New Deal, and secondly under Johnson's Great Society, neglects the principle of political organization articulated in the 10th Amendment. One may go further and say that it contradicts the principle of subsidiarity as expressed by the Church in this century. A specific case of this neglect and contradiction to the Church teaching appears today in Michigan where the present Governor John Engler is attempting a reform of a historically muddled welfare system in that state.⁸ In Michigan, as is typical around the nation, the 10th Amendment has been turned on its head. Anywhere from 74% to 85% of local welfare spending comes from the federal government, even though the funding is initially taken from the pockets of various families and individuals in that state.⁹ Some 350 billion dollars are pumped into the States by federal welfare each year accompanied by various nationalized mandates and legislation that direct the states and localities to apportion that money in a way pleasing to the federal bureaucracy in Washington. No doubt there are many good intentions associated with such spending to help the poor and vulnerable. The problem is that it undermines the self-determination of local institutions, associations and persons in apportioning their money to the poor in a manner they see as truly just and effective. Simply put, the action of subsidiary bodies has been largely dismissed under the present system.

Governor Engler has himself made strides to reform this system. His efforts are apparently motivated by dismay with the conditions and future of the poor in Michigan under the present system. In other words he is not exceedingly concerned with 10th Amendment questions, or the principle subsidiarity as articulated by the Church. Nevertheless, Engler's pragmatic approach is more compatible with 10th Amendment issues and subsidiarity than present welfare organization. The reform centers upon the state receiving "no-strings block grants." In effect this means that the states will receive funding primarily from the federal government but run the programs free from the mandates and legislation that are a result of federal micromanagement of the welfare system. The logic that undergirds this system assumes that persons within the locality know the most effective and fair ways to spend their money, and thus they should have the freedom to do so. While not perfect, there is a definite tendency here to inject into the program a greater respect for the genius that can be realized in subsidiary bodies and associations. The welfare reform that did pass in the House did in fact contain reforms that insured a system of block grants to the states to allow for a greater degree of local determination in spending.¹⁰

Engler's program for welfare reform is not the only one now being forwarded by politicians. There are those who continue to believe in the Great Society project despite the program's failures over the past 30 years. To this end they would prefer to see greater spending on welfare by means of the traditional federal system. On the other extreme there are those who wish to dismantle welfare on the federal level entirely. This plan is forwarded by Representative Steve Chabot.¹¹ Welfare in his plan would primarily be a local state affair worked out between the individual taxpayer and the governor of the state. Chabot shows a marked faith in the principle of the 10th Amendment and of subsidiarity. In effect, his proposal eliminates the higher organizations that are not essential to the delivery of necessary goods to the needy poor.

As stated at the outset, the thrust of this paper is to present those principles of Catholic social justice teaching that contribute to the debate on the welfare state now underway in the Congress. The Church's teaching on private property and subsidiarity provide a principled basis to the political and economic task of organizing a welfare state that simultaneously helps the needy and promotes human dignity for all those involved, both the giver and the recipient of social assistance. The danger posed by state action in a welfare state is the erosion of human liberty and autonomy for the sake of an apparent good. The Church's teaching on property and subsidiarity offer to the politician and economist a rational foundation for state action in social assistance programs that ensures the wholesome exercise of human liberty in accord with concern for the poor and vulnerable.