The parable of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25 always shook me as a kid. I was (and am) terrified of finding myself with the goats on the Last Day. They have a bad time.
Although it is obviously tragic when people fixate on the dangers of hell and forget the mercy of Christ, I am personally grateful that this fear was instilled in me. Jesus makes it crystal-clear that caring for the poor in our lives is not a nice add-on or private pious practice; rather, it is how we love him while we live on earth. It is a duty that, if neglected, carries the ultimate penalty. It appears that the stakes are high.
The rest of Scripture and the Church’s consistent witness and teaching reinforces this. Much of the institutional fabric of our society that we take for granted, such as hospitals and charitable organizations, sprang from this Christian impulse to love Jesus by loving those he places in our lives. Ss. Elizabeth of Hungary, Peter Claver, Vincent de Paul, Frances Cabrini, and Teresa of Calcutta are just a small sampling of the heroes who shine as beacons and models in this pursuit.
What, then, is the role of the State in fulfilling this duty? Lay Catholics and clergy offer a whole spectrum of positions between two extremes. The “libertarian” side has those who hold that governments have no responsibility to care for the poor, and furthermore, attempting to do so is theft through taxation. Conversely, “Big Government” champions laud the good that welfare programs can do and then up the ante by accusing anyone who suggests cutting or changing those programs of being un-Christian or wanting the poor to starve.
Both of these descriptions approach being straw men, but they do give a “lay of the land” as to where many American Catholics fall.
So what does the Church have to say about the government and the poor?
Against the Libertarians
The Church has definitely emphasized that the State has a role in caring for the poor. Pope Leo XIII in Rerum Novarum put it this way:
The richer class have many ways of shielding themselves, and stand less in need of help from the State; whereas the mass of the poor have no resources of their own to fall back upon, and must chiefly depend upon the assistance of the State (37).
Leo, who wrote Rerum Novarum primarily to combat and condemn the rising interest in socialism, stresses that the more just and fair a nation’s laws are, the less direct aid its government will need to provide to those who are poor. However, he does not rule out taxpayer-funded assistance.
Taxation is not (necessarily) theft. Rerum Novarum does speak to how “the right to possess private property is derived from nature, not from man” and “the State would therefore be unjust and cruel if under the name of taxation it were to deprive the private owner of more than is fair.” However, that does not exclude the right of civil authorities to call upon their citizens for the resources needed to sustain their governance and fulfill their duties. The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church reminds us in paragraph 380 of St. Paul’s command in Romans to “pay all of them their dues, taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, fear to whom fear is due, respect to whom respect is due.” In accordance with the Church’s principle of solidarity, the State can legitimately levy taxes to support programs that help the poor if there is a dire need.
Against the Welfare State
One hundred years later, Pope John Paul II in Centesimus Annus reiterated this position but also clarified that
this should not . . . lead us to think that Pope Leo expected the State to solve every social problem. On the contrary, he frequently insists on necessary limits to the State’s intervention and on its instrumental character, inasmuch as the individual, the family and society are prior to the State, and inasmuch as the State exists in order to protect their rights and not stifle them (11).
He continued, sharply critiquing the rise of the “Welfare State” or “Social Assistance State,” where presumably well-meaning government officials had “inadequate understanding of the tasks proper to the State” and were taking over spaces that ought to be filled by local communities and organizations.
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 (48).
Just as cautions against unjust taxation do not negate legitimate taxpayer-funded aid, this admonition does not categorically preclude government welfare programs. However, it does insist that government aid is not the default means for helping those in need. Furthermore, plans or programs born of the best intentions can be ineffective or have unintended consequences or costs that must be considered.
Applying the Principles
The Church acknowledges that the State has the right and duty to take action to care for the needy when there is no other feasible way to help them. It simultaneously issues warnings that the State cannot take on all care for the poor, usurp the role of intermediary organizations in civil society, or replace Christian charity. Society has a duty to care for the poor, but the State is a part of, and cannot consume, society.
There are judgement calls on how to apply gospel principles where we can disagree in good faith, and where there is not necessarily a “Catholic position” binding on all believers. We must have a preferential option for the poor, but just because a particular welfare program is established in the name of helping the needy does not mean it is effective. Unintended consequences must be weighed when deciding what actions are truly aligned with the common good.
These are hard discussions, and the Church warns us in Gaudium et Spes paragraph 43 that “solutions proposed on one side or another may be easily confused by many people with the gospel message. Hence it is necessary for people to remember that no one is allowed in the aforementioned situations to appropriate the Church’s authority for his opinion.”
A Catholic’s individual duty to care for the poor may include the possibility of supporting those in government in their efforts to do so. Government programs to assist the poor are not always inherently tantamount to socialism. However, a Catholic also cannot conflate “society” with “government” and must remember that even a well-intentioned government intervention can snowball into a welfare state that harms the very people it seeks to help.
Our preference for a particular program or policy does not mean that those who critique or oppose it necessarily “hate the poor.” There is not a Catholic “third way” between the right and the left. Rather, we have a duty to apply the principles the Church lays out and work out the best policies and course of action in the circumstances we find ourselves in today. When we disagree on how to best make that work, we must argue with charity and humility, and “always try to enlighten one another through honest discussion, preserving mutual charity and caring above all for the common good.”