Państwo opiekuńcze w ocenie katolickiej nauki społecznej

The paper presents the conception of the protective state as regards the socialist system. The paper takes into account the assumptions of such state, the way of putting them into practice, and an evaluation of both in the light of the Catholic social teaching. The author pinpoints two basic assumptions, namely, the perspective of putting social justice into practice by the central body which is the state itself, and the idea of progress taken in its narrow /material and economic/ meaning. The problems of social justice, especially those connected with the division of human needs into the basic and individual needs, have been pinpointed here as the way of putting the protective state into practice. It turns out that the socialist state which state is essentially protective, is unable to satisfy even the basic needs of society. Consequently, it reduces its protective function and deprives people of their social minimum. In the light of the Catholic social teaching one should demand that society be treated as subject, be granted a relative autonomy', initiative and responsibility, and with those things should be granted both human individuals and various communities living in the state. Fair wages and respect for human and civil rights, especially the right to private initiative, are most significant here. The socialist state is reformable on condition that its politics is separated from economy, and that some structural reforms are made on pluralistic grounds which pluralism had been achieved earlier in social and economic life.