ASSOCIATION. — An 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 their forces. It thus consists of two constitutive elements: a more or less large number of rational subjects and a psychological bond arising from a consensual act of will; a purposive element which, in the ideal order, provokes consent and, in the practical order, stands as the end of 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 multiple differences render artificial or secondary the oppositions usually drawn between social assistance founded on charity or on justice, between governmental or private social assistance, and between religious or secular social assistance. There is no conflict between justice and love: both are always necessary and complement each other.
Love does not prevent justice nor does it seek to replace it: “No one,” says Pius XI, “can give by charity what is owed by justice” (*encycl. Divini Redemptoris*). Justice does not eliminate love: St. Augustine writes, “We must not desire that there be wretched people so that we may perform works of mercy. But if works of mercy were suppressed, would the fire of love be extinguished? More authentic is the love that gives to a being who cannot in any way be helped to be happy; purer and more genuine is this love. For when you help a poor man, you desire elevated things for him and that he be beneath you. You desire that he be your equal.” Likewise, there is no conflict between state and private social assistance: both are necessary. Certain problems can only be resolved on a national scale, while others are more effectively resolved by small groupings. Finally, there is no conflict between religious and secular social assistance, provided that by “secular” one does not mean a worldview that disregards human rights and dignity.
If one were to disregard these ethical and religious values, social assistance would become merely the “long arm” of production and public order. Social assistance cannot be exercised without a dramatic and Christian concept; it may, without doubt, be practiced by those who, lacking a full grasp of such a concept, cannot explicitly justify human dignity within a broader metaphysical and religious vision of the universe. But there is no conflict between the implicit and the explicit, and no one can deny that explicit awareness gives greater force and incisiveness to action.
Social assistance falls within the competence of the Church because it involves the human person and is essentially educational; it falls within the competence of the State as well, since, as Toynbee notes, no community can survive when it produces within itself “proletarians of its own civilization.” When a community includes groups of men who do not widely share in the material and cultural goods available within it, it runs the risk of disintegration, and St. Thomas Aquinas notes that it is among the responsibilities of good government to ensure a proper distribution and circulation of these goods. Social assistance, as we have seen, consists precisely in ensuring this circulation of goods. It works, therefore, to address the particular causes of poverty, the relative means to each, and their necessity in relation to the more universal ends of human life.
While the cause of association consists solely in a voluntary act of its members, which is not morally necessary because determined by a contingent and variable purpose, the cause 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 that impels man to seek his fellow man, to weave social relations that allow him to attain the total good of life. Since these latter causes are natural and the ends for which they act are universal and inescapable, the family and the State are marked as natural and necessary societies, in contrast to association, which is a voluntary and contingent union.
Nevertheless, association must also ultimately be traced back, to find the objective foundation upon which to establish its related right, to the need that the human person has to be integrated in his natural deficiencies by the help of his fellows, so that he may not only achieve physical, intellectual, and moral perfection but also attain a sum of particular private or public ends that require the conjunction of individual forces. Leo XIII, in *Rerum Novarum*, teaches on this point that “the feeling of one’s own weakness impels man to wish to unite his work with that of others... The instinct of this natural inclination moves him, as to civil society, so to other particular societies, small indeed and not perfect, but still true societies.”
Upon this natural inclination, activated by the need for mutual aid, is founded the right of each individual to unite his forces with those of others, giving life to an association. This right is nothing other than the faculty to group together in active centers of collaboration for the attainment of certain particular ends. The family, on the one hand, though intrinsically perfect, is not sufficient to provide man with all that is necessary for his full development, and the State, on the other, although it aims at the total well-being of human life, cannot extend its direct action to all particular ends; hence, within it there arise interests that cannot be safeguarded without particular unions, and there present themselves religious, cultural, economic, and political purposes better achieved through collaboration. Hence the utility and often the necessity of groupings and thus the natural right of association for individuals.
It follows, as Leo XIII teaches again in the cited encyclical, that “although these private associations exist within the State and are like so many of its parts, the State cannot prohibit their formation. For man’s right to assemble in society comes from nature, and the State must protect, not destroy, natural rights.” This right, however, is not absolute but finds its limits both in the ends that associations may set for themselves and in the superior and prevailing rights of the common good.
An association is not legitimate if its ends are contrary to the most fundamental laws of rational human nature, to morality, and to justice. Moreover, being a group within the State of which it is a part, it cannot be considered legitimate if its purpose and related action are in conflict with the prevailing duty of collaboration for the common good of the entire social body. Against such forms of association, civil authority has the right—and indeed the duty—to intervene for the protection of the public good.
“There are, however, cases,” adds Leo XIII after affirming the natural right to associate, “which render the prohibition legitimate and indeed obligatory. When particular societies set themselves aims openly contrary to honesty, to justice, or to the security of civil society, the State may lawfully oppose them either by forbidding their formation or by dissolving them once formed.” He warns, however, that in this matter the utmost caution must be exercised so as not to encroach upon the rights of citizens or 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 form particular associations, while always exercising its higher directive function so as to channel and direct all forces toward the common good.
This duty becomes even more urgent when religious associations are in question, for these, aiming at an honest end, are entirely legitimate and highly beneficial to society and its true good. Moreover, precisely by virtue of the higher purpose to which they direct their activity, they remain outside the direct jurisdiction of civil power and fall exclusively within the sphere of the Church’s authority, to which alone it belongs to regulate their birth and life by its own laws.
Antonio Messineo
YOUNG MEN’S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION:
V. Y.M.C.A.