CSDC 349

The Church's social doctrine, while recognizing the market as an irreplaceable instrument for regulating the inner workings of the economic system, points out the need for it 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.⁷²⁹ Cf. Paul VI, Apostolic Letter Octogesima Adveniens, 41: AAS 63AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 63 (1971) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1971), 429-430. The idea that the market alone can be entrusted with the task of supplying every category of goods cannot be shared, because such an idea is based on a reductionist vision of the person and society.⁷³⁰ Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, 34: AAS 83AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 83 (1991) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1991), 835-836. Faced with the concrete “risk of an ‘idolatry' of the market”, the Church's social doctrine underlines its limits, which are easily seen in its proven inability to satisfy important human needs, which require goods that “by their nature are not and cannot be mere commodities”,⁷³¹ John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, 40: AAS 83AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 83 (1991) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1991), 843; cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2425. goods that cannot be bought and sold according to the rule of the “exchange of equivalents” and the logic of contracts, which are typical of the market.