Subsidiarity

They think that they are onto a winner with that one.

 

But in fact, it means decision-making at the lowest appropriate level, not at the lowest imaginable level.

 

Just look at Catholic voting patterns in the traditionalist Golden Age of the 1950s.

 

President Eisenhower and Sir Robert Menzies were dominant. But not on the backs of Catholic votes, they weren't.

 

The Conservatives won three General Elections. But not with seats, and there were many, full of weekly and even daily attendees at the Latin Mass.

 

Yet none of those winners was exactly Margaret Thatcher.

 

Never mind Rick Santorum, Paul Ryan, Tony Abbott or Iain Duncan Smith.

 

It is they and their supporters who are aberrant, and who are historically and theologically illiterate.

 

Throwing in the only word from Catholic Social Teaching that they know, as if it were some kind of trump card, will not cut it.