Page 29: Apostles and Markets, continued

Catholic social teaching might be likened to our personal and societal MPS, or "moral positioning system." Fathers of the Church from St. Augustine to St. Aquinas reflected long and hard about what justice means in the social context. Popes, saints, bishops, theologians, and councils have also illuminated this aspect of the Church’s expertise. Educators and their students today have access to this moral positioning system. Catholic social teaching is a part of the Magisterium’s satellite system that assists us in locating where we are and where we can go. And, as we are free to exercise the divine gifts of free will and reason ("by the freedom wherewith Christ has made us free," Galatians 4:31), we are expected to deliberate on which routes make more sense, given our goal of achieving a final destination, a safe arrival in the arms of our loving God.

Economics is a social science that provides analytic tools for clarifying the advantages and disadvantages of alternative courses of action. The analyses may be addressed to large issues of public policy or to the choices individuals face in their everyday lives. In either context, economic theory provides focus and direction for inquiry aimed at determining how people might cope with the problems of scarcity that underlie the need, in a particular case, to make one choice or another . In these cases, economics is not what identifies the most important element in our moral positioning system, namely, the goal. Only God’s grace, Scripture, and the Magisterium can do that. But economics does sharpen the powers of reason by which people can distinguish more from less sensible routes. In efforts to make such distinctions, people informed by a basic grasp of economics benefit from the help it provides in identifying obstacles, dead ends, congestion, and construction zones. It turns out, for example, that socialism, as the Magisterium (e.g., Centesimus annus, n. 13) and some key economists pointed out along the way, was one such dead end.

Like our moral positioning system, Garmins, Megellans, and other global positioning systems must update map information to keep route options current. Space-based satellites compensate for changing atmospheric conditions and on-the-ground factors. Without current location information related to actual surroundings, it is conceivable a GPS could unwittingly direct a car into a recently constructed barrier. The updating process involves continuous trilateration, which is similar to triangulation, or the use of three points to determine location. For our MPS, we need reference points to help locate real opportunities, not fanciful ones, to work for justice in a context of economic realities. Our moral trilateration—our ongoing effort to keep track of where we are—relies on Church documents, Scripture, papal encyclicals, and the Catechism, plus intelligent interaction with social sciences like economics. This is not to say Church teaching is relative or malleable; it is not. The truth of Jesus Christ is ageless and the relevant truth for all ages. Jesus is the way, but earthbound routes that get us on our way need calculated updating. The inquiry procedures and language of economics can help educators communicate the truth to our age and in our classrooms in an intelligible manner.