Liberal critics often discount both the role of charity in helping meet the needs of the poor (and public opinion and behavioral research consistently show that self-identified conservatives donate a higher percentage of their income to charity than do self-identified liberals), and the importance of local and state programs. Subsidiarity is an important tenet of the Catholic Church, which is the belief that, as John Paul II said, “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 activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good.” In the realm of political debate, conservatives apply this as federalism.
Devout Catholics can argue about how the church’s teachings on social justice are best reflected in a federal budget, but there’s no argument when it comes to the church’s teaching on the intrinsic value of human life. Yet Dionne posited a moral equivalency between a congressman proposing less spending on social programs (so that they might be saved for future generations) and a president who: reinstated taxpayer subsidies for foreign nongovernmental organizations that promote and perform abortions overseas in his first week in office; enacted a health-care reform bill opposed by Catholic bishops and others on the grounds that federal dollars would be used to fund abortions; and narrowed Bush administration regulations enforcing the “conscience clause,” which allows Catholics and other health-care workers who find abortion morally abhorrent to abstain from providing such services without their hospital being denied federal funding.
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