ORDO WEEK 31 WEDNESDAY MORNING PRAISE
USCCB SUBSIDIARITY
The four main principles are the Dignity of the
Human Person, the Common Good, Solidarity,
and Subsidiarity. They are all interrelated.
The principle of Subsidiarity reminds us that larger institutions in society (such as the state or federal government) should not overwhelm or interfere with smaller or local institutions (such as the family, local schools, or the Church community). Yet larger institutions have essential responsibilities when local institutions cannot adequately protect human dignity, meet human needs, or advance the common good.1 Subsidiarity reflects the essential freedom and innate human dignity of each person while also recognizing the role higher authorities, such as government, can play to ensure that all people are able to thrive.
Respecting this principle promotes the flourishing of each individual person and the realization of the common good. As Pope Francis has explained, the principle of Subsidiarity “allows everyone to assume his or her own role in the healing and destiny of society.”2 By participating in public life locally, each person and the voluntary associations of civil society to which they belong can be “leaven,” bringing “enrichment” to neighbors, to communities, and to society as a whole.
Because each human person is created in the image and likeness of God, each one of us possesses innate and inviolable human dignity. This dignity is present in each person from the moment of their conception and throughout their lives. As Pope Francis has emphasized, human dignity is central to building a society in which we are “brothers and sisters all.”
Every human being has the right to live with dignity and to develop integrally; this fundamental right cannot be denied by any country. People have this right even if they are unproductive, or were born with or developed limitations. This does not detract from their great dignity as human persons, a dignity based not on circumstances but on the intrinsic
worth of their being. Unless this basic principle is upheld, there will be no future either for fraternity or for the survival of humanity.2
Pope Francis, Fratelli Tutti, no. 107
The dignity of the human person is the foundation for a moral vision of society. As we seek to imitate the Good Samaritan and become neighbor to all, we must work to protect the dignity of all, especially those who are most vulnerable.
The Common Good is “the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfillment more fully and more easily.”1 Human
dignity is respected and the common good is fostered only if human rights are protected
and basic responsibilities are met. Every human being has a right to life, a right to religious freedom, and a right to have access to those things required for human decency. corresponding to these rights are duties and responsibilities—to ourselves, to our fam
ilies, to the larger society, and to the earth
The Common Good In short, we should seek “to build that kind of society where it is easier for people to be good.”3
In the midst of a “throwaway world” in which some members of the human family “can
be readily sacrificed for the sake of others considered worthy of a carefree existence,” Pope
Francis urges us to build a “culture of encounter” in which those most in need receive our
greatest concern and attention. We must “place at the center of all political, social and eco
nomic activity the human person, who enjoys the highest dignity, and respect for the Common good.”4
USCCB SOLIDARITY
Solidarity is “a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to . . . the good of all and of each individual, because we are all really responsible for all.”1 We are one human family, whatever our national, racial, ethnic, economic, and ideological differences. The person is social in nature; we develop and flourish within a community. As baptized members of the community of the Church, we are part of one body in Christ and we are also part of one global human family.
In Fratelli Tutti (On Fraternity and Social Friendship) Pope Francis places solidarity at
the center of what it means to cultivate social friendship as one family:
Solidarity means much more than engaging in sporadic acts of generosity. It means thinking and acting in terms of community. It means that the lives of all are prior to the appropriation of goods by a few. It also means combatting the structural causes of poverty, inequality, the lack of work, land, and housing, the denial of social and labor rights.3 Thus, solidarity affects not only the goals we pursue in public life, but also the way we pursue them—ever mindful that we are all brothers and sisters, all children of God
Solidarity requires that in our prayer and in our political engagement, those who are weak, vulnerable, and most in need receive preferential concern.