Subsidiarity
Subsidiarity keeps decisions as close as possible to the people they affect. Pius XI put it plainly in Quadragesimo Anno, and the Compendium repeats him: “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 lesser and subordinate organizations can do” (Compendium, no. 186).
The principle runs both ways. Higher authorities must leave families, parishes, businesses and towns their proper work, and they must also offer help, “subsidium,” when those smaller bodies cannot manage alone (Compendium, no. 186). Subsidiarity “protects people from abuses by higher-level social authority” (Compendium, no. 187), and it leads straight into participation, the citizen’s share in public life (Compendium, no. 189). The pieces below apply it to the question of who should decide.
Quotations are from the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, 2004), cited by paragraph number.
From The Catholic Citizen
The Catholic Citizen takes up this principle in Module 4 of its curriculum.