D.C. Schindler (Communio, 2013, 600-1) argues that the Catholic appeal to subsidiarity isn’t adequate on its own to meet the challenge of totalitarian liberalism. Subsidiarity assumes “a strong conception of what are referred to as ‘intermediate communities,’ such as the family.” The problem that Schindler discerns is that we have to answer the question, “What communities do we designate as intermediate” and “What do we identify as the poles between which they stand?” The typical answer is that “one describes... Read more

In a brilliant 2013 article in Communio, D.C. Schindler examines the “totalitarian logic of self-limitation” within liberal order. He argues that any actual common good must precede a particular person’s share in the good; the whole precedes sharing by the parts. A ruse appears at the heart of liberal order here. As Schindler says, “the political good understood in liberal terms explicitly refuses to make reference to an actual, comprehensive human good in relation to which it would be a... Read more