The Catholic times. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1951-current, 1961-08-04
PART II
Explanation and Development
of the Teaching IN

Il AhNatG AAAAtA0SAfG III AhANNA t@iA
ton of the Public Authorities in
the Field of Economics.
First Of all. il should be affirm
ed that the economic order is the
creation of the personal initiative
of private citizens themselves.
working either individually OF in
association with each other in vari-
pos ways for the prosecution of
common interests.
But here, for the reasons Our
predecessors have pointed out, the
public authorities must not remain
inactive if they are to promote
productive development in a prop
er way on behalf of social progress
for the benefit of all citizens. Their
action, whose nature is to direct,
stimulate, coordinate, supply and
integrate, should be inspired by
the principle of subsidiarity" for
mulated by Plus XI in the encycli-
cal "Quadragesimo Ammo:
This is a fundamental principle
of social philosophy, mistaken and
Interchangeable. Just as it is wrong
to withdraw from the individual
and commit to the community at
large what private enterprise and
industry al accomplish, SO too it
is an injustice, a grave evil and
a disturbance of right order for
a larger and higher organization
to arrogate to itself functions
which can be performed efficient
ly by smaller and lower bodies, of
its very nature, the true aim of all
social activity should be to help
individual members of the social
body, but never to destroy or alb
SOrb them"
IT CANNOT be denied that to-
day the development of scientific
knowledge and productive tech
nOlogy offers the public authori-
ties concrete possibilities of reduc-
ing the inequality between the
various sectors of production, be-
tween the various areas of political
communities and between the va
rious countries themselves on a
worldwide scale.
This development also puts it
within their capability to control
fluctuations in the economy and,
with hope of success, to prevent
the recurrence Of massive unem-
ployment. Consequently, those in
authority, who r responsible for
the common good, feel the need
not only to exercise in the field
of economics a multiform action,
at once more vast, more profound
and more organic but also it is re-
auired, for this same end, that they
give themselves suitable struc-
lures, tasks, means and methods.
But the principle must always
be reaffirmed that the presence
of the state in the economic field,
no matter how widespread and
penetrating, must not be exercised
SO as to reduce evermOre the
sphere of freedom of the personal
initiative of individual citizens, but
rather so as to guarantee in that
sphere the greatest possible scope,
by the effective protection for
each and all, of the essential per-
sonal rights, among which is to be
numbered the right that individu-
al persons possess of being always
primarily responsible for their own
upkeep and that of their own FAM
lily, which implies that in economic
systems the free development of
productive activities should be per-
mitted and facilitated.
For the rest, historic evolution
itself puts into relief ever more
clearly that there cannot be a we'll
ordered and fruitful society with
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