"Woods argues that there is a strong “hostility toward the market” in the social encyclicals, notwithstanding the favorable comments made by John Paul II in Centesimus Annus. This hostility has led Catholic supporters of the market to endorse compromised positions on a variety of issues including labor unions, wage rates, and monopoly. Interventionism is accepted in principle, the issue being only one of degree. Woods, on the other hand, is writing a principled defense of the free market which directs its response toward Catholics on the “right” who mistrust the market because they believe that Church teaching requires it. [...] Woods certainly demonstrates that a defense of the free-market (Austrian or otherwise) is not compatible with many aspects of Catholic social teaching at the prudential level, and that disagreement at that level does not constitute disobedience for a Catholic economist. I would be especially interested in Woods’ response to the question of whether his book contains the implicit argument that Austrian economics as a wertfrei discipline is compatible only with a libertarian ethics, and that libertarian ethics should form the basis for Catholic social teaching."

"By targeting conservative Catholics and engaging them in a constructive dialogue for the very purpose of bringing them to adopt a more solid economic theory, The Church and the Market fills a gap. A reader who is intellectually honest cannot take its points with indifference. If disagreements on economic matters are the rule, and rightly so, within the Catholic Church, Catholic advocates of the free market surely have a valuable instrument in this book."