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Professor Stephen Schneck, director of the Institute for Policy Research & Catholic Studies at Catholic University, has a post up at the Institute's website explaining the ways the venerable idea of subsidiarity in Catholic social thought is being hijacked by conservatives, what the concept really means and how it relates to other key concepts such as solidarity and the common good.
Schneck knows Catholic social thought as deeply as virtually anyone writing in America today. It will be fun to see if any of those worshipping the false idol of the market - and you know who you are Fr. Sirico, Mr. Weigel and Professor George - will care to engage Schneck in debate. And, poor Congressman Ryan looked up from his copy of "The Fouontainhead" long enough to conclude that subsidiarity and federalism are really the same thing: They aren't. Federalism has to do with the allocation of power in a political system. Subsidiarity, as Schneck demonstrates, is rooted not in concerns about power but concerns about humanity in all its fullness and relationships.
