D.J. Tice is to be thanked for wrestling with Pope Francis’ statements on the importance of the economy serving the well-being of persons, and not the other way around (“Great pope, that Francis, but as an economist …” Dec. 21).

However, it seems that Tice, like many, is focusing on the media’s favorite Francis sound bites and shoehorning them into the usual left-right framework, instead of diving into the rich tradition of Gospel-centered social commentary upon which Francis’ statements build.

Catholic teaching on the economy defies categorization and transcends the false dichotomy of markets vs. a managed economy. The church’s basic premise is that commerce is a means of fostering the dignity of the human person and, at its best, helps create conditions that enable a diversity of institutions to fulfill their vocation to serve others.

Two key themes from the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church’s section titled “Economic Institutions at the Service of Man” (Nos. 346-60) help provide the necessary background for understanding Francis’ and the Catholic Church’s long-standing insistence that we must not create an “economy of exclusion,” in which people do not have access to jobs, capital or the proper remuneration for their work.

The first important theme is that “[t]he free market is an institution of social importance because of its capacity to guarantee effective results in the production of goods and services.” Similarly, “[a] truly competitive market is an effective instrument for attaining important objectives of justice.”

The church recognizes that, in the words of Francis’ predecessor John Paul II, “the free market is the most efficient instrument for utilizing resources and effectively responding to needs.” Market mechanisms and free economies have lifted people out of poverty and have contributed greatly to the global increase in prosperity and standards of living.

The second major theme of the church’s understanding of the market qualifies the first: “The Church’s social doctrine … points out the need for [free markets] to be firmly rooted in its ethical objectives, which ensure and at the same time suitably circumscribe the space within which it can operate autonomously.”

How should this be understood? Put simply, the church is always calling us to understand economics in terms of relationships between persons and institutions, and not just as a grab-bag of supposedly empirical laws. Those relationships must be governed by justice and charity — what Francis’ predecessor Benedict XVI called “the logic of gift.”

In other words, the “bottom line” must never be the bottom line.

Though seemingly common-sense, such claims are radical. At root they mean judging (and ordering) our economic system not around empirical standards such as “growth” or “GDP” but instead on how they promote the flourishing of individuals, families and communities.

We must ask ourselves: Do our economic structures foster virtue and happiness? Do they provide for the sustenance of all people, most particularly those at the margins of society? Do they allow people access to meaningful work, which is a cornerstone of personal development and authentic human dignity? Do they commodify persons, treating them as mere consumers and preying on their most base desires?

The fact that our debates about markets, regulation and the economy rarely ask these questions show just how countercultural Christian teaching on the economy really is. These are the questions Francis, like his predecessors, wants us to ask.

Surely, critiques of the free market or capitalism, particularly from the church, are sometimes understood to mean that more government intervention is required. And yes, as Tice acknowledges, state intervention is sometimes necessary to, among other things, alleviate suffering, create access to goods and services, regulate working conditions, and ensure a minimum wage.

The state also has a responsibility to intervene so that the great “structures” of the economy — the banking and financial system, regulated industries, large companies, and even the state itself — do not foster injustice and become “structures of sin.”

But what critics often miss is that what the church always calls for first is a conversion of heart. And structures of sin begin in the human heart.

When those with access to capital and who create or run businesses recognize that they have a vocation to serve, there is less need for state intervention. Though they may have built successful companies, they need to embrace the logic of gift and recognize that their success is rooted in the many gifts that they have been given — by God and others. Therefore, those who have received gifts must embrace the great responsibility of sharing them with others by fostering an economy of participation, not exclusion.

When the hearts of both commercial leaders and consumers are moved to fight an economy of exclusion, we may have less need for knee-jerk reactions to papal pronouncements that appear to the uninformed as an embrace of socialism.

Jason Adkins is executive director of the Minnesota Catholic Conference, the public-policy voice of the Catholic Church in Minnesota.