Pope St. John Paul II was no defender of Capitalism

In his encyclical Centesimus Annus, Pope John Paul II wrote some controversial words on the subject of capitalism, the interpretation of which has been the subject of much disagreement among Catholics interested in the economy. A common reading of this encyclical portrays Pope John Paul as a run-of-the-mill free market liberal, even a moderate libertarian of the socially conservative stripe. Pope John Paul is claimed by this reading as the great papal defender of capitalism. But I want to propose that this reading is deeply mistaken, and is based upon that classical mistake of reading out of context. Upon closer reading, including some of his other encyclicals, I might very well have thought JPII a straight-up socialist — had he not made it quite clear that he condones neither capitalism nor socialism (these terms being defined a certain way — keep in mind how equivocal words are), and for quite similar reasons.

In the famous paragraph 42 of Centesimus Annus, the Pope writes the following words:

42. Returning now to the initial question: can it perhaps be said that, after the failure of Communism, capitalism is the victorious social system, and that capitalism should be the goal of the countries now making efforts to rebuild their economy and society? Is this the model which ought to be proposed to the countries of the Third World…