Wow.  From John Paul II’s encyclical “Centesimus Annus,” about utopian dictatorship:

“When people think they possess the secret of a perfect social organization which makes evil impossible, they also think that they can use any means, including violence and deceit, in order to bring that organization into being. Politics then becomes a ‘secular religion’ which operates under the illusion of creating paradise in this world.”

It’s quoted by Sandro Magister reporting responses by pro-capitalism Italians to a recent much-discussed pro-Marxist essay by a German Catholic political scientist “highly esteemed” by Benedict XVI, who is shortly to issue a socioeconomic encyclical.

Magister further quotes “Centesimus” as to whether capitalism is good for people:

“If by ‘capitalism’ is meant an economic system which recognizes the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property and the resulting responsibility for the means of production, as well as free human creativity in the economic sector, then the answer is certainly in the affirmative, even though it would perhaps be more appropriate to speak of a business economy, market economy or simply free economy.”

You can’t beat that.