Release of Benedict XVI’s newest encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, is anticipated within the next few weeks, perhaps to appear on June 29th, the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul. Already some hints about what to expect are coming to light.

A week ago Saturday the pontiff offered a very pointed indication of the central thrust of the impending encyclical. Speaking to the Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice Foundation, which concerns itself with advocating the Church’s social teachings, he argued that “the financial crisis that has struck the industrialized nations, the emergent nations and those that are developing, shows in a clear way how the economic and financial paradigms that have been dominant in recent years must be rethought.” Fundamental change in the economic order is required. Needed is “a new model of development that is more attentive to the demands of solidarity and more respectful of human dignity.” The market economy, he continues (referencing John Paul II’s Centesimus Annus), “can only be recognized as a way of economic and civil progress if it is oriented to the common good.” Moreover, it must be situated (citing section 42 of Centesimus Annus) “within a strong juridical framework which places it at the service of human freedom in its totality,” meaning a freedom “the core of which is ethical and religious.”

Let’s be very clear that this will not herald a rejection of market economics. But do expect a rejection of overly free markets. Expect from the pontiff a criticism of theories of market that have as their only dynamic the so-called magic of self-interest in competition. And expect an even stronger rebuke of free marketeer claims that market forces are themselves the solution for resolving what is good, just, or moral for society. Far from defining what is good for society, we will hear that markets must be governed by a vision of the common good as informed by the Church’s teachings. Mere self-interest in competition, we will be told, ought to be replaced by caritas in light of the common good. We should expect, then, a profound and path-breaking social encyclical that refocuses the long tradition of the Church’s social teachings on the moral and civilizational lapses that gave rise to the present economic crisis.

Expect too that the document will draw upon the classic encyclicals of the Church’s social magisterium, such as Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum (1891) or Pius XI’s Quadragesimo Anno (1931). But recent encyclicals, including Benedict XVI’s own two prior documents, will—in my opinion—be especially important for appreciating what will be a nuanced prescription for our time, one likely to confuse American pundits accustomed to pitted worldviews of red and blue.

The pontiff’s Spe Salvi (2007) and especially his first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est (2005) already offer important elements. Both encyclicals evidence a great appreciation for the Augustian concept of the priority of heart to head. What we think and what we do, Augustine thought, are guided by what our heart wants. A sinful heart is guided by selfish desire and the earthly loves of mere self-interest. Greed, which I suspect we will hear about often in the new encyclical, is one obvious form of this sinful selfishness. Faith, however, is the means to purify the heart and thereby also purify how the heart guides reason and action. “From God’s standpoint, faith enables reason to do its work more effectively and to see its object more clearly. This is where Catholic social doctrine has its place: it has no intention of giving the Church power over the State” or—we might now add—the economy. (Deus Caritas Est, 28.a)

The new encyclical will surely hold out for contemporary economies a turn to faith to shape the hearts of consumers, producers, and sellers from self-interested greed to solidarity in regard to love of neighbor and love of God. Can we call this common good economics?

Theologians and Catholic policy activists will undoubtedly parse the new encyclical very carefully, looking for changes of emphasis or shifts of interpretation from previous social encyclicals, with perhaps greatest attention to comparison with encyclicals of his predecessor, John Paul II, such as Laborem Exercens (1985) and Centesimus Annus (1991)—encyclicals thought by some to have opened the Church’s social teachings to market solutions. Will we see now more hesitation or a greater emphasis on limits? What will the new document say about individual property rights, about the logic of exchange, about subsidiarity, about the role of the state, about the preferential option for the poor? We’ll know soon.