Purpose
Comhar Criostai —The Christian Solidarity Party is dedicated to the causes of Life, the Family —understood as the family founded on the marriage of a man and a woman, and the Community. It accordingly promotes policies that are to safeguard the value of human life from conception to natural death, that will support the position of the family as the fundamental unit group of society and that allow human communities to flouiisli in a manner consistent witli human dignity. In pursuit of its noble causes, the purpose of the party is, accordingly, to engage in political activity encompassing the following;
(1) Study of Cliristian social doctrine, and of Christian political thought
(2) Monitoring of developments in the political economy tluoughout Ireland
(3) Observation of political events on the European, and on the World, stage
(4) Participation in the Culture War now raging throughout Western society
(5) Formulation of policy proposals that would address the situations revealed in Ireland, Europe, on the World stage, and in Western society’s Culture War; policies reflecting Christianity’s social doctrine and political thought in a balanced accord of The Four Core Principles – as outlined below
(6) Public advocacy of such CSP policy proposals in every accessible forum
(7) Other activities as decided by the national Executive Committee (ExCom)
The Four Core Principles
The four core principles shall be appreciated in their unity, interrelatedness and articulation. They are, as set out below, each with a brief explanation;
(1) The Dignity oft he HumanPerson
Ajustsocietycanbecomeareality only when it is based on the respect of the transcendent dignity of the human person. The human person represents the ultimate end of society – by which it is ordered to the person. Social divisions can offend the value and dignity of the human person.
(2) The Common Good
Theprincipleofthecommongood,towhichevery aspect of social life must be related if it is to attain its fullest meaning, stems from the dignity, unity and equality of all people. It is the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfilment more fully and more easily.
(3) Subsidiarity
Subsidiarity protects people from abuses by higher-level social authority and calls on these same autliorities to help individuals and intermediate groups to fulfil their duties. This principle is imperative because every person, family, and intermediate group, has sometliing original to offer the community. The characteristic implication of subsidiarity is participation in community life, Avith a resistance to totalitarianism. {CSP, and all Irish politics, had best operate from the bottom up and not from the top down.}
(4) Solidarity
Solidarity highlights in a particular way the intrinsic social nature of the human person, the equality of all in dignity and rights, and the common path of individuals and peoples towards an ever more committed unity. Solidarity is both a social principle and a moral virtue. It must be seen above all in its value as a moral virtue that determines the order of institutions. It is not a vague compassion, it is ones firm and persevering commitment to the common good.
The Constitution of Ireland —Bunreacht na h-Eireann.
Ireland’s written Constitution, Bunreacht na h-Eireann embodies principles of great worth in guiding the Irish state. Its observance, defence, and restoration are concerns of the party. The state tends to extend its own authority, too often without extending its responsibility, in curtailing the rights of human persons. The European Union, too, would extend its own authority. The core principle of Subsidiarity requires that CSP should, at least, examine, and when obliged to, resist each amendment to the Constitution, and of European treaties, that would diminish Subsidiarity, or indeed, violate any of the four core principles.
The Family
The Family shall always be a special concern of CSP. The Family has central importance in reference to the person. Its climate of natural affection unites the Family members, forming the natural community in which human social nature is experienced; thereby it also makes a unique, and irreplaceable, contribution to the good of society. A society built on a Family scale is the best guarantee against drifting off into individualism, or collectivism, because, within the Family, the person is always at the centre of attention as an end, and never as a means. In their relationships to the Family, society and the State are seriously obligated to obsewe the (core) principle of Subsidiarity. CSP affirms against Totalitarianism, against Dictatorship, the priority of the Family over society and over the State: Society and State exist for the Family.
Credit: Photo by Dorothee Kraemer on Unsplash