The Abuse Which Comes From Subsidiarity Alone

A common abuse was restriction of the use of hospital facilities to residents of a particular locality or region. This was probably a measure intended to exclude false beggars and vagabonds. The result, however, was that hospitals were no longer open to all victims of misfortune and served only fixed ‘quotas’ of certified paupers. In Valencia hospitality turned into hostility against foreigners, who were accused of stealing bread from the mouths of the city’s poor.

Michel Mollat, The Poor in the Middle Ages: An Essay in Social History. Trans. Arthur Goldhammer (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1986), 270.

Subsidiarity, as a principle, must never be used as an excuse to neglect charity, to ignore the needs of others, and this is why it can only be practiced in cooperation with the principle of solidarity. Subsidiarity aims to make access to goods and services easier and more dignified, but what must be understood, what must not be forgotten, is that it is a means, not the ends, for charitable activity. Charity, true charity, seeks the good for the other, and will seek to change society so that the good can be had for all. Those who fear a change in society, making it more just, would eliminate charity have yet to learn what charity is about.