Tony Magliano’s left-wing ramblings would be comical if not for the fact that CNS, and in turn The Catholic Review, consistently affords him a platform for misrepresenting the faith.
Magliano stated (“Health Care: Yes Abortion: No,” CR, Dec. 10) that the Church’s teaching of subsidiarity “insists that higher levels of government and social organizations must take action and do what individuals and smaller groups cannot do for themselves.” This is manifestly false; in fact, he has it exactly backwards. Subsidiarity properly understood is not a mandate for government action; it is a warning against government interference.
Pope John Paul II described subsidiarity as follows: “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” (Centesimus Annus, 48).
If Magliano is confused about the difference between “support” and “take-over” that’s his problem, but when he is allowed to distort the Catholic faith in a diocesan newspaper, it is an affront to the entire Body of Christ.