Catholic Social Teaching and the Welfare State

Found in Centesimus annus 48:

"Excesses and abuses, especially in recent years, have provoked very harsh criticisms of the Welfare State, dubbed the "Social Assistance State".  Malfunctions and defects in the Social Assistance State are the result of an inadequate understanding of the tasks proper to the State.  Here again, the principal of subsidiarity must be respected: 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 and help to coordinate its activity with the activityies of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good.

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 cints, and which are accompanied by an enormous increase in spending.  In fact, it would appear that needs are best understood and sarisfied by people who are closest to them and who act as neighbors to those in need.  It should be added that certain kinds of demands often call for a response which is not simply material but which is capable of perceiving the deeper human mind."