In Does Catholicism Still Exist, p 176-177, Fr James V Schall, S.J., points to what has been wrong in some analyses:
“In contemporary ideological analysis, the so-called maldistribution of the world’s goods seemed to be explained in terms of envy by the poor alongside the moral corruption of those economic systems that did in fact produce existing wealth in the modern world. The result of such a theory was that instead of examining the many cultural, political, economic and especially religious causes of why the poor were poor, the poor were told that they were poor because they were exploited by the rich, by those who knew how to produce wealth.
“As a result of this analysis, the poor need not learn how to produce wealth but instead they should insist, even violently, that what was rightfully ‘theirs’, on the basis of some exploitation theory, be ‘returned’ to them. Such theories not only proved statistically impossible – the world needs more wealth, not a redistribution of existing wealth – but justified decades of wasted energy and effort by the poor peoples themselves seeking a false solution to their own problems and blaming theories that did work to solve their own problems.”
Pius XI declared emphatically in Quadragesimo Anno, 1931, #120: “If Socialism, like all errors, contains some truth (which, moreover, the Supreme Pontiffs have never denied), it is based nevertheless on a theory of human society peculiar to itself and irreconcilable with true Christianity. Religious socialism, Christian socialism, are contradictory terms; no one can be at the same time a good Catholic and a true socialist.
“And so, Venerable Brethren and Beloved Sons, having surveyed the present economic system, We have found it laboring under the gravest of evils. We have also summoned Communism and Socialism again to judgment and have found all their forms, even the most modified, to wander far from the precepts of the Gospel.” (#128).
Bl Pope John Paul II is very careful to reaffirm the principle of subsidiarity and to ensure that we understand the excesses that should be avoided. He warned that: “By intervening directly and depriving society of its responsibility, the Social Assistance State leads to a loss of human energies and an inordinate increase of public agencies, which are dominated more by bureaucratic ways of thinking than by concern for serving their clients, and which are accompanied by an enormous increase in spending.
“In recent years the range of such intervention has vastly expanded, to the point of creating a new type of State, the so-called ‘Welfare State’. This has happened in some countries in order to respond better to many needs and demands, by remedying forms of poverty and deprivation unworthy of the human person. However, excesses and abuses, especially in recent years, have provoked very harsh criticisms of the Welfare State, dubbed the ‘Social Assistance State’. Malfunctions and defects in the Social Assistance State are the result of an inadequate understanding of the tasks proper to the State. Here again the principle of subsidiarity must be respected: a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to coordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good.” (Centesimus Annus, 48, Bl John Paul II, 1991).
The Social Teaching of the Popes certainly does not encourage State Welfare but does support some State assistance – the ideas of taxation relief for families with dependent children, family allowances etc. and assistance for the unemployed.
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