I was surprised this weekend to find resistance against the extent of modern welfare states from the late Pope John Paul II of all people.

He apparently wrote in his encyclical Centesimus annus:

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 accompanies by an enormous increase in spending. (CA48)

He was also concerned for the wellbeing of those who work in the bureaucracy:

[Dignity is] extinguished within him in a system of excessive bureaucratic centralisation, which makes the workier feel that he is just a cog in a huge machine moved from above, that he is for more reasons that one a mere productive instrument rather than a true subject of work with an initiative of his own. (LE71)

That was from his first social encyclical, Laborem exercens.

I say Pope John Paul II "of all people" simply because, in England, one is so used to Christian leaders being cheerleaders for big government. It is a surprise to find the most senior Christian leader of all taking a very different view.

The quotations I cite come from a book I was dipping into: "Catholic Social Teaching and the Market Economy" edited by Philip Booth and published by the Institute of Economic Affairs. The quotations were in an essay by Robert A. Sirico called, "Re-thinking welfare, reviving charity: a Catholic alternative."

Posted by James Bartholomew • Indexed in Welfare benefits

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