Just as it is gravely wrong to take from individuals what they can accomplish by 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 lesser and subordinate organizations can do. For every social activity ought of its very nature to furnish help to the members of the body social, and never destroy and absorb them (no. 79).
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).
Two principles are particularly important: solidarity and subsidiarity. Solidarity recognizes that each of us is connected, and we all have the responsibility to care for one another, particularly for those who are poor and vulnerable. The principle of subsidiarity recognizes that issues should be addressed at the appropriate level of society with the capacity to do so. The community charged with promoting human life and dignity should be willing and able to meet its obligations as we collectively work for the common good (USCCB letter to U.S. Senate, dated March 3, 2017).
Solidarity without subsidiarity can easily degenerate into a ‘Welfare State’, while subsidiarity without solidarity runs the risk of encouraging forms of self-centred localism. In order to respect both of these fundamental principles, the [government’s] intervention in the economic environment must be neither invasive nor absent, but commensurate with society’s real needs (Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, no. 351).