Everything In Its Place
On December 9, 2008, as I read through the federal criminal complaint against the latest Illinois governor to be indicted for the merest portion of his crimes, I could not help but feel uneasy. Sure, it was great fun to imagine Governor Hot Rod sweating it out in his holding cell, awaiting arraignment later in the day. Even the most casual observer of Illinois politics knew that Milorad Blagojevich, our S.O.B., had to be corrupt. After all, you don’t get elected governor of Illinois as a reformer if you actually are one.
The unease did not abate as Aaron Wolf and I watched a webcast later that morning of the press conference held by U.S. District Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald. The assembled reporters danced around the obvious questions, and Fitzgerald followed their lead. What is the actual federal crime of which Blagojevich is accused? Is there one? Aren’t Blagojevich’s transgressions, both those named in the criminal complaint and those for which he will probably never be indicted, state matters? Isn’t this a bit like prosecuting Al Capone for income-tax evasion, the main difference being that income-tax evasion was a federal crime, and Capone was guilty of it?
If there were an actual federal crime involved, that might be one thing; but the two counts leveled against Blagojevich stretch federal law so far as to make it meaningless. Or, rather, they stretch it so far as to make it absolute—any crime committed by an elected official of a state, and virtually any crime committed by a mere citizen, could be covered under their penumbra.
The first count alleges that Blagojevich and John Harris, his chief of staff, “did, [sic] conspire with each other and with others to devise and participate in a scheme to defraud the State of Illinois and the people of the State of Illinois, of the honest services” of Blagojevich and Harris. It is easy to see how this could be a state matter, but it only becomes a federal crime through a subordinate clause: “in furtherance of which the mails and interstate wire communications would be used,” in violation of various sections of Title 18 of the United States Code.
The second count alleges that the governor and his chief of staff “corruptly solicited and demanded a thing of value, namely, the firing of certain Chicago Tribune editorial members responsible for widely-circulated editorials critical of” the governor, in exchange for which they allegedly intended to provide
millions of dollars in financial assistance by the State of Illinois, including through the Illinois Finance Authority, an agency of the State of Illinois, to the Tribune Company involving the Wrigley Field baseball stadium.
This is certainly worthy of state prosecution, but why should it be considered a federal crime? Because Blagojevich and Harris are
agents of the State of Illinois, a State government which during a one-year period, beginning January 1, 2008 and continuing to the present, received federal benefits in excess of $10,000.
In a line sure to send a chill down the spines of evangelical dispensationalists and rad-trad Catholics, this second count notes that these actions violate “Title 18, United States Code, Sections 666(a)(1)(B) and 2.”
In the end, though, the Blagojevich arrest and indictment present a more mundane, yet perhaps more far-reaching, concern than the coming of the end times and the rise of the Antichrist. As contributing editor Clyde Wilson noted on the Chronicles website, “the idea of the FBI arresting a governor is disturbing” and “a very bad precedent.” The U.S. Constitution has long been a dead letter; federalism exists today in name only; yet it is hard not to sense that a broader principle even than the traditions of the American political system has been violated here.
In the Catholic tradition, we call that principle subsidiarity—the idea that a larger, higher, or more centralized authority should not usurp the rightful duties and responsibilities of a smaller, lower, or decentralized one. The framers of both the Articles of Confederation and the U.S. Constitution did not use the term, but the systems of federalism established under both documents adhered to the principle, each in its own way.
Subsidiarity is poorly understood. Many Catholics who claim to support the principle characterize it as the idea that higher authorities should never step in unless lower authorities fail to fulfill their responsibilities. I once had a debate with a Catholic traditionalist who argued that, under subsidiarity, overturning Roe v. Wade was not good enough, because some states would fail to protect the unborn. Therefore, nothing short of a Human Life Amendment to the Constitution was acceptable. Similarly, leaving the regulation of marriage to the states was out of the question, now that some states have legalized “gay marriage.” Their failure to exercise their responsibilities in accordance with Christian teaching on marriage meant that the federal government not only could step in, but must step in.
Since vocal Catholic “defenders” of subsidiarity make such arguments, it is not surprising that another common misconception, especially among those who are skeptical of the influence of the Catholic Church on politics, is that (in the recent words of one European journalist) subsidiarity means “that the power rests at the top . . . but the power at the top will let some of it trickle down as it sees fit.”
Both sides are wrong. The most cogent summary of the principle of subsidiarity is found in Pope Pius XI’s 1931 social encyclical, Quadragesimo anno. Building on the work of his predecessor, Pope Leo XIII, in Rerum novarum (1891), Pope Pius writes (paragraph 79):
As history abundantly proves, it is true that on account of changed conditions many things which were done by small associations in former times cannot be done now save by large associations. Still, that most weighty principle, which cannot be set aside or changed, remains fixed and unshaken in social philosophy: 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.
Phrases such as “fixed and unshaken,” “gravely wrong,” “injustice,” “grave evil,” and “disturbance of right order” do not allow for a whole lot of wiggle room. Even more important, however, is the Holy Father’s choice of verb to describe the responsibilities of subsidiary organizations: He speaks of what they “can do,” without qualification. He does not go on to say that if they deliberately fail to do that which they can do, it is no longer “a grave evil and disturbance of right order” for a larger, higher, or more centralized authority to usurp the power that rightly belongs to a smaller, lower, or decentralized one.
This isn’t sloppiness on Pius XI’s part, nor is it a deliberate attempt to hide some dark Catholic belief that power flows from the center and is held by families and local governments and other intermediary institutions only at the whim of the centralized state, which owes its power to the Supreme Pontiff. Rather, it is a classic statement of the traditional Christian understanding of moral and social order: There is a place for everything, and everything in its place.
The proper authorities in the state of Illinois could have handled the Blagojevich problem, as the impeachment proceedings in the Illinois General Assembly prove. They chose not to. And the citizens of Illinois, who could have demanded that their elected officials fulfill their sworn responsibilities to uphold the Illinois constitution, chose to look the other way, too. Neither failure represents an inability to carry out their responsibilities, and thus neither justifies the “grave evil and disturbance of right order” of a federal intervention.
Pius XI wrote Quadragesimo anno at a time of unprecedented centralization and destruction of Edmund Burke’s “little platoons” that are “the first principle . . . of public affections . . . the first link in the series by which we proceed toward a love to our country and to mankind.” Today, to quote the typically pithy assessment of Burke’s latter-day disciple Russell Kirk, the situation is “much worse.” Subsidiarity, Pius XI saw, was the key to the return to right order, which would mean the limitation rather than the expansion of the centralized state:
When we speak of the reform of institutions, the State comes chiefly to mind, not as if universal well-being were to be expected from its activity, but because things have come to such a pass through the evil of what we have termed “individualism” that, following upon the overthrow and near extinction of that rich social life which was once highly developed through associations of various kinds, there remain virtually only individuals and the State. This is to the great harm of the State itself; for, with a structure of social governance lost, and with the taking over of all the burdens which the wrecked associations once bore, the State has been overwhelmed and crushed by almost infinite tasks and duties.
Should Governor Hot Rod be convicted on federal charges, I won’t shed a tear for him—he deserves far worse than a few years lounging around a federal country club, with a weekly “Get Out of Jail Free” card to meet his family and political cronies on Saturday morning at a local restaurant for breakfast. But the successful prosecution of a governor who was indicted while still in office would set, as Dr. Wilson rightly stated, a very bad precedent.
While the American constitutional order may have all but crumbled into dust, subsidiarity, as a broader principle, still stands—for the moment. Defending it, even in—or perhaps, especially in—distasteful situations such as the strange case of Milorad Blagojevich, is the first step toward restoring a sane political order in the United States.
And think of the delicious irony if a reinvigorated federal system were to spring forth from the Land of Lincoln.
This article first appeared in the March 2009 issue of Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture.
Entries(RSS)
Scott, Many thanks to you for your excellent and much needed exposition of subsidiarity. A hopeless Protestant myself, but how I do wish that Catholics would be MORE Catholic.
Or, I should have said, more Catholic and less "American."
I wonder whether the only chance for Constitutional government in America would be if the current governmental system in America implodes. The whole American federal governmental enterprise can not be reformed and certainly shouldn't be conserved. Do we need a 476 or a 1789? Is that too radical?
Unfortunatly Derek, the rebellion would probably spiral out of control into a 1789. The fear of that reality makes a true rebellion/civil war all the more unlikely. Folks don't want to be bothered to be woken from their self imposed stupors to have to fight for anything. The elimination of the Church from being a true defender of the faith and liberty along with the Romans 13 and Rapture mantras keep the gullible Christians in line. I am beginning to think the rise of the "New Right" in Europe is what we need here in the states, which is unfortunate, since the European new right is rethinking the role of Christianity in the makeup of Western civilization.
Dr.CW,to the extent that Catholics become "more" Catholic -a better word might be "integral" Catholics or "integralisti" as the Italians would say-they must become more European.Europe is the Faith and the Faith is Europe,remember?And at the heart of that Faith and that Europe is that old,decrepit,slovenly,sensual,incorr- igible and corrupt,Latin civilization.The pars occidentalis of the ancient orbis Romanus.
Catholics have become less Catholic and less European,and therefore more American,largely under the influence and power of their Protestant masters.Their Americanitas is an expression of their assimilation to the Protestant regime.
As James Burnham was fond of saying:"He who wants A wants B."
Aut Caesar aut nihil!
6. Yes, but the question is, why has Americanism proved more powerful with the immigrant Catholic masses than has the Faith?
Yes RB,that is exactly what we need.And dont worry about those naughty New Right boys.Didnt Christ declare that He would be with His Church until the end of times,and that the gates of hell would not prevail against Her (the Church)?The New Right will be far more congenial to authentic Christianity than any other contender on the scene.In fact,the New Right may turn out to be the Church's salvation.
Yes, but the question is, why has Americanism proved more powerful with the immigrant Catholic masses than has the Faith?
Dr. Wilson,
You always ask the best questions. Hector was a better man than Paris and Achilles was a different kind of man than Hector. Hector is really the natural christian in the bunch and Southerners and Catholics of all people, should know why this is so -- but so many do not. The vale of tears is something foreign and despised by youngsters, winners and utopians just as despair is something weak and insipid to the strong of heart. This permanent condition of fallen humanity, more than any other, gives me great hope for both Southerners and Catholics in the long run. In the short run it isn't even worth discussing.
Great article Scott. Dr.Wilson, Americanism would seem to be one of those things that is a part of popular culture therefore is unnoticed and is embraced (unknowingly) by the vast majority of populace. If only Catholics were more Catholic it might help some.
Catholics came into the American public square and assumed rightful citizenship, unfortunately, in the context of the Spanish Civil War, the Cold War, and JFK. Although we were overwhelmingly on the right side in the first two, the Kennedy phenomenon, combined with the progressive hijacking of Vatican II, made us too American, too national, too protestant. Fulton Sheen, whose "Life Is Worth Living" was the most popular television series of the early fifties, spoke the language of subsidiarity in almost every one of his programs (which is why his audience was over half conservative protestants and Jews). Had the Illinois machine not handed the 1960 election to the evil Kennedys, maybe Sheen's version of Catholic America would have turned out to be the one that Scott writes about, in which case subsidiarity would be a much less misunderstood principle. Great essay, Scott.
Yes, but the question is, why has Americanism proved more powerful with the immigrant Catholic masses than has the Faith?
I think it has been said here before that Catholic bishops in the South were supportive of the Confederacy? We can only look at the failure of Catholic schools in the late 19th and 20th centuries to pass on the Church's intellectual heritage. The masses don't know any better, and their catechesis has been poor.
The harsh reality is that the immigrant Catholics might have come to America to escape Catholicism itself, not just the eroding of the Catholic tradition in America. Hard to keep the kids in the house, when they all want to go out and play.
Excellent question,kind sir.I can only provide a partial answer.For the sake of brevity I'll compose a simple list.
Because of the economic motives for most Catholic immigration,plebeian elements and a plebeian mentality dominated the body of Catholic Americans.
Because as with a detached column or cohort,separation from the main body leaves the unit vulnerable to encirclement and defeat.
Because Catholic culture is substantially Latin.But in America the Irish dominate the Catholic scene.This results in certain deficiencies and distortions.The connections to the main fount of Catholic culture on the Continent are attenuated and strained.On that account they are easily broken.
Because national/ethnic divisions between Catholics have weakened their resistance to a common enemy.
Vatican II and a worthless clergy in disarray have not helped.
Mr. Scott,
Your words:
"Defending it, even in—or perhaps, especially in—distasteful situations such as the strange case of Milorad Blagojevich, is the first step toward restoring a sane political order in the United States."
It is precisely in "distasteful situations" that fundamental principles such as subsidiarity must be defended. The temptation to defer to the "noble cause" under the color of which the "higher association" usurps and subsumes the ancient duties and obligations of the lesser is very great indeed.
Maybe the whole reason for getting rid of Blago was to clear the way for the "stimulus" graft to the home state of Obama. Reports Chicago Business: "Illinois is getting a jump on the federal stimulus program, claiming more than 12% of the road and bridge projects approved so far by the U.S. Department of Transportation." Yet Illinois has only 4% of the U.S. population.
And that's just the start. The pork is going to flow faster than in a Hormel® ALWAYS TENDER® Flavored Pork slaughterhouse.
California got all that defense spending under Reagan and Texas got it under the Bushes and LBJ. Why put a homey in the Oval Office if you can't profit from it?
Obama can't send too much moolah to his home state of Indonesia, so it looks like you in his adopted state of Illinois will enjoy it.
Clyde, thank you for your kind words, and for your original remark that helped inspire this piece.
On the question of being more Catholic and less "American," I heartily agree. And before some of the anti-Catholic commenters who have attacked me in the past redouble their efforts, I note that you put American in quotation marks, by which I take you to mean American nationalists, rather than patriots. In fact, I believe that subsidiarity is the principle that allows Catholics to be patriots in a land in which they remain, in some sense (politically and culturally) strangers.
And that is why those triumphalist Catholics who claim that you cannot be a good Catholic and an American patriot are wrong as well. The trouble is that they have lost the proper understanding of subsidiarity themselves, and they confuse patriotism with nationalism. All too many American Catholics are, and have been for close to a century, American nationalists--which means that they are neither patriots nor good Catholics.
Mr. Leaberry, I think that you're right that the "whole American federal governmental enterprise can not be reformed and certainly shouldn’t be conserved." But I think that we're well beyond the question of whether there's a chance for constitutional government in America. A collapse today won't bring about something new; more likely, it will result in the magnification of certain preexisting conditions--and by no means the best ones.
That's not to say that I believe that we should attempt to conserve or reform the current system. Rather, I think that we need to act as if it is increasingly irrelevant to our daily lives, focusing our efforts on those other parts of our lives where we still have considerable control.
That can mean something as simple as reconfiguring my garden beds (as I'm doing right now) to give me 70-percent more growing space in the same area. It should be increased involvement in our children's education and in our parishes and neighborhoods.
In other words, it means reclaiming the authority that we have all too often given up voluntarily to more centralized authorities. Then, when the collapse does come, there will be something to build upon.
Mr. Richert,
I beg your pardon for having referred to you as Mr. Scott in a previous post, although a title and a first name are considered quite polite in these climes.
I am afraid that it is not just Catholics who have confused patriotism with nationalism. Although subsidiarity is particularly well understood in Catholic circles, it is ultimately how the cosmic order works period. It is the fundamental principle in the relationships of the commonwealths -family, church, local community - which make up an organic society and its polity. Subsidiarity flows out of the very nature of the Trinity and permeates the cosmic order. That is why an attack on subsidiarity is such a great sin, a sin of both omission and commission today, omission because men, the spiritual heads of the family, have not defended their obligations, and because the Church has allowed the world to become embedded in the world and she in it; and commission because the Hobbesian state in league with the aggregate of "autonomous" individuals, actually estranged and alienated individuals or shriveled selves, have attacked the family and the church and have effectively usurped their roles. This is also true of the "sovereign" states which once made up the union of constitutionally federated republics which no longer exists.
Clyde, you ask: "why has Americanism proved more powerful with the immigrant Catholic masses than has the Faith?"
I've tried to examine this in a number of essays in both the magazine and on the website over 11 years now. I think that a large part of it has to do with the condition that Catholic immigrants to the United States saw little distinction between their (European) national identity and the Catholic Faith--which, in fact, is as it should be.
But when they came here, an already declining Anglo-American elite class viewed identification as a threat to their continued political dominance--which, in some ways, it was.
Hence the Americanization campaigns of the early 20th century, particularly between the two World Wars, which were designed to destroy such immigrants' attachment to their European national identity and to replace it with an "American" one.
But while such campaigns can succeed in destroying immigrants' connection to their past--rob them of their ancestral language, convince them to give up their garlic and their dumplings--they can never succeed in making them Americans in any real (patriotic) sense. All they can do is substitute an abstract "Americanism" for the real national identity they are uprooting.
Yet part and parcel of the national identity that was being destroyed was the Catholic Faith. Catholic immigrants didn't become Protestants (at least not wholesale), but they tended to conform themselves to the most American version of Catholicism--that Catholicism represented by the Irish priests and hierarchy in the United States.
And I'll stop there, because I'll likely simply end up angering some Irish-American Catholic if I continue. Suffice it to say that the Irish may have saved civilization, but they destroyed the Catholic Church in America.
Obama can’t send too much moolah to his home state of Indonesia, so it looks like you in his adopted state of Illinois will enjoy it.
Not us in Rockford, Mr. Seiler. We've already been warned that we will see precious little of the stimulus money being sent to Illinois for improvements to infrastructure. Our politicians here are simply machine wannabes; the real power is in Springfield and Chicago, and that's where the money will flow.
Well said, Mr. Peters--so well said that I have nothing to add.
John Willson, I don't disagree with what you've written, other than to add this caveat (which you may see coming on the basis of my earlier comment): The Kennedy phenomenon wasn't the downfall of the American Catholicism, but the logical outcome of the control of the Catholic Church in America by an Irish-American hierarchy. Things collapsed so quickly in the 1960's because the edifice had already been hollowed out.
I am in agreement with you, Mr. Richert. Our salvation can come only from non-governmental institutions- family, church, neighborhood, committment to one's historic culture. Owning a piece of land, however small, and working it can be part of the equation. On my own two acres we are expanding the garden, we keep enough chickens that we give out several dozen eggs every Sunday after Mass, and plan on raising turkeys for family consumption. Wendell Berry, and not Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckaby, Mitt Romney or Sarah Palin, is a lodestar for the traditionalist remnant.
Re: #11:
"I think it has been said here before that Catholic bishops in the South were supportive of the Confederacy? We can only look at the failure of Catholic schools in the late 19th and 20th centuries to pass on the Church’s intellectual heritage. The masses don’t know any better, and their catechesis has been poor."
Mr. Chan, regarding the failure of Catholic schools to properly maintain a traditional catechism, isn't it possible that many Catholics have been exposed, as children, to public school indoctrination? The fact that not all Catholic families send their children to Catholic schools, and that instructors and administrators in Catholic schools are likely to be products of the public schools could be a factor.
#19. I think there is something to the business of the Church being warped by the shanty Irish. You can find in the 19th century struggles in many parishes and dioceses between the original English and French Catholic settlers and the Irish immigrants. It is most certainly true that the Yankee WASPs worked hard to hollow out Catholic culture in the U.S. On the other hand, a great many Catholics even today seem to aspire with all their might to be good Yankees---the nuns who invaded the South during the "Civil Rights" era, as just one example.
Mr. Richert, an interesting article. I'd never heard the term "subsidiarity" before, and you so skillfully strike its relationship between central and local power.
I'm also interested in later comments @19 about the Irish-Catholic effects on the tradition of the Church in America. To a certain extent, all things much change when brought to new places, but I don't think that's what you're saying.
As a 3/4 Irish Catholic and 1/4 WASP myself, I've witnessed a little friction even on down the line in my own family. (Eventually, my fair and judicious grandfather converted to Catholicism not too long before his death, having overcome his problems with the Pope and with Mary's place in the Church and being drawn, probably as a lawyer, by the lineage of Christ through the Popes.)
But I've always thought that Catholics and WASPS should stay good friends as we would make great allies in a fight. Protestants will do anything to others to win, while Catholics will do anything to themselves to win.