The National Catholic Register portal reports on an article by Solène Tadié (April 17, 2026) that presents medieval Catholic thinkers—particularly Franciscan friars and theologians of the School of Salamanca—as proto-capitalists who “anticipated” modern economic principles such as supply and demand, capital formation, and market-determined pricing. The piece frames these teachings as timeless wisdom for families and entrepreneurs today, seamlessly integrating them into contemporary capitalist discourse. This is not merely a historical curiosity; it is a deliberate ideological operation that baptizes the very economic liberalism condemned by the Church’s Magisterium, reducing Catholic social teaching to a mere precursor of Adam Smith and Milton Friedman.
The Heresy of “Catholic Capitalism”: A Modernist Distortion of Doctrine
The article’s central thesis—that Catholic thinkers “already articulated the principles that would later define [capitalism]”—is not only historically inaccurate but doctrinally dangerous. It commits the modernist error condemned in Lamentabili sane exitu (1907) by St. Pius X: “Truth changes with man, because it develops with him, in him, and through him” (Proposition 58). To claim that Aquinas or Olivi “anticipated” capitalism is to impose a 20th-century ideological framework onto pre-modern theology, thereby corrupting its supernatural finality. As the Syllabus of Errors (1864) unequivocally states: “The injustice of an act when successful inflicts no injury on the sanctity of right” (Proposition 61)—a direct refutation of the utilitarian logic underlying capitalist apologetics.
Moreover, the article omits any reference to the Church’s explicit condemnation of unbridled economic liberalism. Pope Leo XIII in Rerum Novarum (1891) defends private property—but only insofar as it serves the common good and remains subordinate to divine law. He warns: “The rich man is the administrator of God’s bounty… he must not consider his wealth as his own, but as common to all.” The article reduces this profound moral teaching to a mere endorsement of entrepreneurial stewardship, stripping it of its supernatural context and reducing charity to a function of market efficiency.
The Idolatry of the Market: When “Just Price” Becomes Market Price
Perhaps the most egregious distortion lies in the treatment of the “just price.” The article claims that theologians like Luis de Molina and Leonard Lessius argued that the just price “emerges organically within the market itself.” While it is true that the School of Salamanca recognized the role of supply and demand in determining price, they never divorced the concept of pretium iustum from objective moral law. As Lessius himself wrote, the just price must conform to commutative justice—a virtue rooted in natural law, not market equilibrium. To suggest otherwise is to commit the error condemned by Pius XI in Quas Primas (1925): “When God and Jesus Christ… were removed from laws and states… the foundations of that authority were destroyed.”
The article’s celebration of market mechanisms as morally neutral—or even divinely ordained—echoes the liberal heresy that the state (and by extension, the economy) can operate independently of Christ’s kingship. Yet the same Pius XI declared: “His reign… extends not only to Catholic nations… but His reign encompasses also all non-Christians, so that most truly the entire human race is subject to the authority of Jesus Christ.” There is no autonomous “economic sphere” exempt from divine sovereignty. The market is not a sacrament; it is a human institution subject to the moral law.
The Franciscan Alibi: Voluntary Poverty as Market Correction
The article invokes Franciscan friars like Peter John Olivi and Duns Scotus as early theorists of capital and value, claiming their “voluntary poverty” inadvertently revealed market dynamics. This is a grotesque inversion of their witness. The Franciscan charism was not an economic experiment but a radical imitation of Christ’s poverty—a prophetic sign against the idolatry of wealth. As St. Bonaventure wrote, the Franciscan life was a via perfectionis, not a proto-Keynesian stimulus package.
To reduce Olivi’s insight on capital to a justification for investment portfolios is to commit the sin of acedia—spiritual sloth that blinds one to the supernatural meaning of asceticism. The article’s assertion that “wealth must circulate to bear fruit” sounds pious, but in context, it serves to sanctify capital accumulation. Yet Scripture warns: “You cannot serve both God and mammon” (Matt. 6:24). The Church has always taught that wealth is a trust from God, not a self-justifying end. As St. Thomas Aquinas clarifies, private property is permitted for the sake of order and peace, but its use must be directed toward the common good—not the maximization of profit.
The Omission of Condemned Errors: A Silent Apostasy
What the article does not say is as damning as what it does. There is no mention of the Church’s condemnation of usury—a doctrine upheld for centuries and only quietly abandoned by the conciliar sect in the 19th century. There is no reference to Vix Pervenit (1745), where Benedict XIV condemned lending at interest as intrinsically unjust. There is no acknowledgment that the “market” celebrated in the article is the same system that exploits the poor, fuels inequality, and undermines the family—precisely the evils denounced in Rerum Novarum, Quadragesimo Anno, and Centesimus Annus.
Instead, the article promotes a vision of economics stripped of sin, grace, and final judgment. It speaks of “stewardship” but never of restitution. It praises “circulation” but ignores the parable of the rich fool (Luke 12:16–21). It invokes Aquinas but omits his teaching that “the love of money is the root of all evil” (1 Tim. 6:10). This is not Catholic social teaching—it is baptized liberalism, a synthesis of faith and mammon that the Church has always rejected.
Conclusion: The West’s Treasure or Its Poison?
The article concludes by urging the West not to “deprive itself of such a treasure.” But what treasure? The treasure of Christ’s Gospel—or the treasure of Babylon? The Catholic tradition is not a museum of economic curiosities to be mined for capitalist legitimacy. It is a living deposit of faith, entrusted to the Church for the salvation of souls—not the optimization of markets.
As long as articles like this continue to appear in ostensibly Catholic media, the faithful must remain vigilant. The true “Catholic economics” is not found in the writings of Olivi or Molina as reinterpreted by modernists, but in the unchanging Magisterium: the primacy of the supernatural, the social kingship of Christ, and the duty of all nations to submit to God’s law. Anything less is not tradition—it is treason.
Source:
Economics 101 — From Catholic Priests, Monks and Theologians (ncregister.com)
Date: 17.04.2026