Free markets are only as free as the people who participate in them. That might sound trite, but I don't recall ever reading it before, though I'm sure it's been written.

Unpacking Pope Francis's Evangelii Gaudium is mostly passé at this point; it's been reinvigorated from time to time by new remarks on the state of the economy, as well as through partisan points scoring. Yet the document as a whole is not something we should fail to take seriously quite so soon, even if it has proven to be tactically unhelpful. (Oh, the irony.)

Maybe the greatest value EG has nowadays is to serve as a hermeneutic baseline for Francis's frequent interviews, which invariably include some reference to globalized markets. A more specific area requiring interpretive background is the Holy Father's understanding of freedom, which colors his economic commitments and which so beautifully shines in his pastoral apostolate.

I get the sense that freedom is a concept only vaguely engaged by most economic theorists, and certainly hardly ever in the same sense it's engaged by Francis. (Dylan Pahman shows a similar tendency in responding to John Paul II's Centesimus Annus.)

An underlying theme in EG is the interface between the freedom of God and the "unruly freedom of the world." In fact, Francis mentions this unruliness twice: once as describing that "which accomplishes what it wills in ways that surpass our calculations and ways of thinking" (i.e., arationality); and another time as contrary to "an attentiveness which considers the other 'in a certain sense as one with ourselves'" (i.e., impersonality). On the other hand, genuine freedom includes an intensive dimension that overcomes unruliness, and that guarantees integrity. Two examples of Christian freedom are pure love for God ensured by the moderation of legal precepts (EG 43) as well as the proclamation of the Gospel to the poor (48).

Commentaries from politico-economic camps tend to miss something of the holistic Christian freedom Francis espouses. Of course, the left misses the centrality of the love of God while prioritizing the arational; and the right overlooks an intentional, evangelical, and personal encounter with the poor.

As for free markets, their insufficiency is directly a result of their inability to account for the full intensity of Christian freedom. Who would really expect that they could? But that shouldn't thwart a more careful reading of this disjointedness. The economy of exclusion "kills"—in Francis's words—precisely so far as its participants are not free; and they are not free so far as they operate on an arational or impersonal basis. While both rationality and personality are de facto characteristics of human nature, their presence can be masked or suspended. Any virtual whitewashing of man's nature—whether by legitimate or illegitimate means—is something that taints an economic system for the worse; and ultimately something that lessens the "free" participation of affected individuals. (Of course, this has a retrograde effect, too, since hampered freedom for some participants makes options available to others in the same matrix equally less personal and rational.)

A concise summary might say simply that free markets are exclusive, and therefore lethal, insofar as the type of free choices they facilitate are merely extensive rather than intensive. (You see why I don't write apostolic exhortations.)

If we hope to make inroads in appreciating Pope Francis's critique of prevailing economic structures, we need to do more serious digging into Christian anthropology (i.e., spend some real time with the thinkers of the tradition) rather than emphasize a purist separation of economics from theology. It's quite clear that such distinctions don't exist in the mind of the Holy Father; and that a robust sense of freedom is key to connecting and weighing particular prudential options. To apprehend Francis's thought—and dare I say the thought of the Church—requires a more tepid disposition toward modern notions of freedom than most Christians are willing to provide.

Andrew M. Haines is the editor and founder of Ethika Politika, and co-founder and chief operating officer at Fiat Insight.