ASSOCIATION. - The association may be defined as a group of men freely constituted within the State for the attainment of a common purpose through the union of forces. It therefore consists of two constitutive elements: a greater or lesser number of rational subjects and a psychological bond caused by a consensual act of will; and a finalistic element, which in the ideal order brings about the consent and in the practical order stands as the end of the cooperation.
The content of the concept of association might lead one to assimilate it with other social formations, such as the family and the State; but manifold differences, relating especially to the productive causes, to the purpose proper to each of them and to their necessity in relation to the more universal ends of human life, prevent such an assimilation.
While the cause of the association consists solely in a voluntary act of the members, morally not necessary, because determined by a contingent and variable purpose, the cause, on the other hand, of the family resides in the natural instinct of procreation, for the continuation and propagation of life and the education of offspring, and that of the State in the equally natural law of solidarity, which impels man to seek his fellow man, in order to weave social relations that allow him to attain the total good of life. Since these latter causes are natural and the ends for whose realization they act are universal and indefeasible, there follows for the family and the State the character of natural and necessary societies, in opposition to the association, which is a voluntary and contingent union.
Nevertheless the association too must remotely be traced back, in order to find the objective foundation on which to establish the right relating to it, to the need that the human subject has to be integrated in his natural deficiencies by the help of his fellow men, so that he may not only attain physical, intellectual and moral perfection, but also reach a sum of particular private or public ends, which require the conjunction of individual forces. Leo XIII in Rerum Novarum teaches in this regard that "the feeling of one's own weakness impels man to want to unite the work of others with his own... The instinct of this natural inclination moves him, as toward civil society, so toward other particular societies, small certainly and not perfect, but nonetheless true societies."
On this natural inclination, activated by the need for the help of others, is founded the right of each individual to unite his own forces with those of other subjects, giving life to the association. Such a right is nothing other than the faculty of grouping together into active centers of collaboration for the attainment of certain particular ends. The family, on the one hand, although intrinsically perfect, is not sufficient to procure for man what is necessary for his full development, and the State, on the other, although it has as its purpose the total well-being of human life, cannot extend its direct action to all particular ends, and therefore within it there arise interests that cannot be protected without particular unions; there present themselves religious, cultural, economic and political purposes, better attainable through collaboration. Hence the usefulness and often the necessity of groupings and therefore the natural right of association for individual persons.
It follows, as Leo XIII still teaches in the cited encyclical, that "although these private associations exist within the State, and are as it were so many parts of it, the State cannot prohibit their formation. For the right to unite in society man has from nature; and natural rights the State must protect, not destroy." Nevertheless this right is not absolute, but finds limits both in the ends that associations may set for themselves and in the superior and prevailing rights of the common good.
The association is not legitimate if its ends are contrary to the most fundamental laws of rational human nature, to morality and to justice. Moreover, since the association is a group within the State of which it is a part, it cannot be called legitimate either if its purpose and the action relating to it are in conflict with the prevailing duty of collaboration for the common good of the entire social body. Against such forms of association the civil authority has the right and also the duty to intervene for the protection of the public good.
"There are, however, cases - adds Leo XIII, after having affirmed the natural right to unite in society - that make prohibition legitimate and obligatory. When particular societies set for themselves an end openly contrary to the honesty of justice, to the security of the civil commonwealth, the State legitimately opposes them, either by forbidding them to form, or by dissolving them if formed." He warns, however, that in this it is necessary to proceed with the utmost caution, so as not to invade the rights of citizens and not to do evil under the pretext of the public good. Outside the cases mentioned, it is the duty of the State to respect and protect the freedom of citizens to group together in particular associations, while nevertheless always exercising its high directive function, in order to channel and convey all forces to the collective good.
Such a duty becomes still more urgent when it is a question of religious associations, which, setting for themselves an honest end, are entirely legitimate and highly advantageous to society and to its true good. Moreover, precisely by virtue of the superior purpose to which they direct their activity, they remain removed from the direct jurisdiction of the civil power and fall within the exclusive ambit of the power of the Church, to which alone it belongs to regulate their birth and life by its laws.