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Article

The Concept of the Common Good in Pope Francis’s Teaching and Its Implications for Economic Thought: A Meaning Clusters Approach

by
Anna Horodecka
1 and
Andrzej J. Żuk
2,*
1
Institute of International Economic Policy, Warsaw School of Economics, 02-554 Warsaw, Poland
2
Institute of Economics and Finance, The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, 20-950 Lublin, Poland
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Religions 2026, 17(5), 566; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel17050566
Submission received: 14 April 2026 / Revised: 1 May 2026 / Accepted: 5 May 2026 / Published: 8 May 2026
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Catholic Social Thought in the Era of the Un-Common Good)
Versions Notes

Abstract

This article examines Pope Francis’s concept of the common good and its implications for economic thought, addressing the need for a richer evaluative framework than those centred on public goods or efficiency-based welfare. It identifies five recurrent meaning clusters in Francis’s use of the term: governance criterion and institutional obligation; peacebuilding, dialogue, and civic reconciliation; social justice, inclusion, and protection of the vulnerable; integral ecology and intergenerational responsibility; and the moral–epistemic conditions of social cooperation. The analysis is based on a mixed-methods design applied to all official, publicly available papal sources in which the term common good appears explicitly, combining quantitative mapping of occurrences with qualitative interpretation of their semantic contexts across documents and public statements. The findings indicate that, in Francis’s teaching, the common good functions as a normative-institutional meta-criterion for evaluating whether economic and political arrangements support dignified human development, inclusion, and ecological viability across time horizons. In dialogue with welfare economics, public economics, social choice theory, and selected common-good-oriented approaches, the article argues that this framework offers a broader evaluative vocabulary for economic analysis, integrating justice, ecological limits, institutional structure, and moral formation.

1. Introduction

In recent years, the common good has re-emerged as a key concept in public debates on climate governance, inequality, political polarisation, and market failure. Across disciplines, the term is used to denote shared conditions of social life that cannot be reduced to individual preferences or private benefit; yet, in many cases, it remains conceptually under-specified. The pontificate of Pope Francis (2013–2025) gave renewed prominence to this broader debate by placing the common good at the intersection of ecological crisis, social exclusion, and institutional responsibility, most notably in the encyclicals Laudato si’ and Fratelli tutti (Francis 2015, 2020b). Francis’s death in April 2025 invites renewed reflection on the significance of his pontificate and the conceptual contribution of his teaching. This article reconstructs Francis’s understanding of the common good. In Catholic Social Teaching (CST), the common good is treated as an interdisciplinary category, drawing on moral theology, political philosophy, sociology, and institutional analysis, and serving as a criterion for evaluating social and economic arrangements.
The current literature reveals two divergent tendencies. On the one hand, some authors argue that Francis’s account of the common good functions primarily as moral exhortation and therefore has limited analytical or operational value for economics (cf. Chalupnicek 2021). On the other hand, a growing body of scholarship treats Francis’s contribution as significant for debates in sustainable development and political economy (e.g., Maier and Monti 2023; McCallum 2019; Molina and Pérez-Garrido 2022; Ittekkot and Milne 2016). Within ecological economics and sustainability governance, Laudato si’ has been read as convergent with integral approaches to ecology, particularly in its treatment of justice as a central ethical criterion for action and in its critique of development models grounded solely in economic growth (Daly 2021). In political economy and business ethics, scholars have emphasised Francis’s critique of the “economy of exclusion”, consumerism, and the “throwaway culture”, through which he links the marginalisation of vulnerable groups with the consequences of climate change (Clark and Alford 2019). In corporate social responsibility and corporate ethics, Laudato si’ has been interpreted as challenging models of responsibility centred primarily on compliance or reputation, while encouraging forms of responsibility oriented towards socio-ecological limits (Cremers 2016). Scholars have also identified affinities between Francis’s approach and macromarketing, especially in relation to environmental stewardship, concern for social justice, and a common-good orientation that supersedes economic advantage (Klein and Laczniak 2021). In addition, scholarship associated with the Economy of Francesco (EoF) and civil economy traditions introduces the distinction between “common goods” and “common bads”, highlights the role of relational goods in the constitution of the common good, and supports specific research programmes (including sustainable entrepreneurship and inclusive finance), as well as economic practices and local initiatives oriented towards integral development (Bruni and Zamagni 2017; Ciambotti et al. 2023; Pietraszewski 2021; Zamagni 2021).
A key methodological limitation of the existing literature on Pope Francis’s teaching on the common good is its concentration on a small number of major texts—most often Laudato si’ (primarily in the context of ecology) and only occasionally Fratelli tutti. Far less attention has been paid to how the term common good functions across Francis’s broader corpus of writings and public statements, including apostolic exhortations, messages, addresses, homilies, and prayers. Without a wider cross-textual analysis, it is difficult to determine whether particular interpretations of the common good are isolated to specific documents or recur across genres and contexts.
Although Francis did not formulate an explicit, standalone definition of the common good, an implicit conception can be reconstructed from his publicly available writings and statements (Vatican.va 2025). This is the aim of the present article. More specifically, we (i) identify recurrent meanings of the term across different types of sources, and (ii) relate these semantic patterns to economic conceptions of the common good, thereby showing where Francis’s understanding extends beyond standard economic accounts in anthropological, institutional, and normative terms. Section 2 presents the method and corpus. Section 3 reports the findings. Section 4 relates the results to economic debates on welfare, public goods, institutions, and purposive governance. Section 5 concludes by outlining the article’s contribution to debates on the common good in Francis’s teaching and by indicating directions for future research at the intersection of CST, common good theory, and economics.

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Method

This study uses a mixed-methods approach to analyse official documents and public statements by Pope Francis in which the term common good appears explicitly. The design combines a quantitative component with a qualitative analysis of the meanings attributed to the common good in Francis’s teaching. The statistical analysis examined the frequency with which particular meanings of the common good occurred in papal official documents and public statements (see Section 3). The qualitative stage proceeded at three analytical levels: meaning domains, meaning codes, and, on that basis, meaning clusters.
(a) Meaning domains: A meaning domain identifies the principal substantive area within which the term is used in a given document or statement. Domains were assigned inductively on the basis of the text itself and served primarily as an interpretive reference point. Each domain was recorded as a short label reflecting the dominant thematic context of use.
(b) Meaning codes: Meaning codes capture the argumentative function of common good within a sentence or a longer textual passage. Coding was non-exclusive: a single occurrence of common good could receive more than one code where the passage clearly expressed multiple meanings. Accordingly, several codes could be assigned within a single observation. At the same time, one dominant code was identified for each observation (primary code).
(c) Meaning clusters: To address the study’s principal objective, five meaning clusters were identified in Pope Francis’s use of the term common good. These clusters were derived by synthesising recurrent patterns of co-occurrence between meaning domains and meaning codes across different types of papal documents and public statements. More specifically, each cluster brings together instances in which the term performs a comparable argumentative function and is grounded in similar justificatory considerations (e.g., institutional legitimacy, the inclusion of the poor, or ecological constraints), even when the relevant passages occur in different textual genres or communicative settings.
The identification of these clusters made it possible to compare Francis’s understanding of the common good with economic conceptions of the common good (see Section 4).

2.2. Corpus and Unit of Analysis

For the purposes of this study, an observation was defined as an official document or public statement by Pope Francis containing an explicit reference to the common good. A total of 366 observations were identified (N = 366). The corpus comprised the following types of document and statement: encyclicals (4), apostolic exhortations (5), apostolic letters (12), messages (80), video and audio messages (18), other written texts (4), and a large body of official papal statements, especially addresses (172), as well as homilies (24), prayers (22), general audiences (13), greetings (10), and press conferences (2).
The unit of analysis was the occurrence of the phrase common good within the text of a document or statement. For each occurrence, the analysis considered the smallest textual segment necessary to identify the role played by the phrase in the argument and the semantic context in which it was used.
For each observation, the dataset includes, in particular, the following elements: document type, document title, meaning domain, meaning coding of the common good (see Section 2.3), meaning cluster or clusters, and the immediate context of use (see Supplementary Table S1). Structured in this way, the dataset enhances transparency and supports the replicability of the study.

2.3. Meaning Domains and Meaning Codes of the Common Good

To compare the meanings attributed to the common good across different types of papal documents and statements, each observation was coded along two analytical dimensions: a meaning domain and a meaning code. Ten meaning domains were distinguished: education/culture/media, climate/ecology, peace/conflict, solidarity/poverty/inclusion, church/mission/spiritual, economy/work/finance, health/care/bioethics, law/institutions, governance/politics, and general/mixed. Twelve meaning codes were identified; these are defined and illustrated with examples in Table 1.

3. Results

3.1. Meaning Clusters of the Common Good

Based on the meaning domains and meaning codes, five meaning clusters were identified (Table 2).
  • Cluster 1: The common good in the context of governance and institutional obligation
A substantial share of references to the common good is situated in the context of politics, governance, and institutional responsibility. In this cluster, the term functions as a normative standard for evaluating public authority, legal frameworks, and policy choices: the legitimacy of authority, law, and public action depends on whether institutions protect the shared conditions of a dignified life, especially for those most vulnerable to exclusion.
  • Cluster 2: The common good in the context of peacebuilding, dialogue, and civic reconciliation
The second cluster concerns the common good as a condition for peace. Reconciliation, social cohesion, and the prevention of polarisation are treated as preconditions for any society capable of pursuing shared goals. Accordingly, when Pope Francis addresses peace, he does not refer only to the absence of armed conflict. He also emphasises social peace, which, in his account, depends both on the moral support of the Church and the engagement of its members and on institutional support expressed through appropriate legal frameworks and the actions of public institutions.
  • Cluster 3: The common good in the context of social justice, inclusion, and the protection of vulnerable persons
The third cluster links the common good directly to poverty, inequality, and social exclusion. Here, the common good is inherently inclusive: it entails improving the conditions of life for all, with particular attention to groups that are frequently marginalised, including the poor, migrants, and persons excluded on grounds such as race or sexual orientation.
  • Cluster 4: The common good in the context of integral ecology and intergenerational responsibility
The fourth cluster relates the common good to climate stability and biodiversity, as well as to the need for their long-term stewardship by present and future generations.
  • Cluster 5: The common good as a moral–epistemic condition of social cooperation
Finally, Pope Francis relates the common good to trust, truthfulness, reciprocity, and moral formation. Without shared norms and a minimum level of trust, public action becomes ineffective, and social fragmentation becomes self-reinforcing. In this sense, the common good includes the moral and epistemic conditions of social cooperation.
These meaning clusters provide the empirical basis for the subsequent analysis of economic conceptions of the common good and for their comparison with Pope Francis’s thought, presented in Section 4.

3.2. Statistical Analysis of Meanings Attributed to the Common Good

Using the meaning domain assigned to each observation, the four most frequent categories referred to by Pope Francis are: church/mission/spiritual (23.5%), governance/politics (15.3%), solidarity/justice/inclusion (13.9%), peace/conflict (11.5%). Therefore, the Pope primarily addressed issues of the common good in the context of the role of the Church and the Christian vocation, as well as in relation to political and social issues. Lower shares were recorded for education/culture/media (9.6%), economy/work/finance (8.5%) and law/institutions (7.1%), while all remaining categories account individually for 5.2% or less of observations.
The above conclusions are confirmed by research on meaning codes. When all assigned meaning codes are counted (i.e., allowing multiple codes per observation), the most frequent codes are G (14.7%), M (13.3%), S (13.1%) and P (10.0%), followed by U (9.4%) and Pe (9.2%). Similarly, taking into account the dominant meaning codes (primary codes), the largest shares are held by: P (15.3%), G (13.7%), M (13.1%), Pe (11.5%) and S (10.7%).
At the level of meaning clusters (see Section 3.2), the distribution of dominant clusters is as follows: the common good as a moral–epistemic condition of social cooperation (Cluster 5: 47%), the common good in the context of governance and institutional obligation (Cluster 1: 21.9%), the common good in the context of peacebuilding, dialogue and civic reconciliation (Cluster 2: 14.2%), the common good in the context of social justice, inclusion, and the protection of the vulnerable (Cluster 3: 12.2%), and the common good in the context of integral ecology and intergenerational responsibility (Cluster 4: 4.7%). This distribution indicates, first, the predominance of the moral and social context in Pope Francis’s teaching on the common good, confirmed above with respect to meaning domains and codes. Second, it highlights the importance of the institutional dimension in his understanding of the common good, a point further reflected in Table 3 below. Third, although environmental protection is an important theme in Francis’s teaching and has been widely discussed in the literature, it appears comparatively less frequently in his official documents and statements when the term common good is used explicitly.

4. Discussion

4.1. Pope Francis on the Common Good and the Limits of the Public Goods Framework

Section 2 and Section 3 have shown that Pope Francis uses the concept of the common good across a wide range of documents and public statements, and in diverse contexts. Some of the meanings attributed to the common good, and the contexts in which the term appears, relate directly to economic issues. Francis invokes the common good to diagnose economic pathologies (including exclusion, commodification, and short-termism), to criticise technocratic reductionism, and to assign responsibility to powerful economic actors and institutional structures. His understanding of the common good is therefore not confined to doctrinal concerns. Rather, it functions as a cross-cutting evaluative principle: a meta-criterion for assessing whether economic and political arrangements enable human development, especially for vulnerable persons, across different time horizons (see Francis 2015, paras. 156–59; 2020b, para. 182).
To relate the common good to economic thought, it is necessary to distinguish it from adjacent concepts and usages. In ordinary language, the common good generally refers to what benefits society as a whole (Lee 2025). In philosophical discussion, it refers more broadly to shared institutions, conditions, and arrangements that are maintained because they secure common interests (Hussain and Kohn 2024). At the intersection of economics and public policy, however, the term is often replaced by conceptually thinner equivalents—either implicitly, through welfare aggregates and efficiency criteria, or explicitly, through the technical concept of public goods, defined by non-rivalry and non-excludability (Varian 1992).
These narrower approaches are useful for modelling market failures and collective-action problems, but they risk flattening the normative depth of common-good reasoning in CST. Although public goods may constitute one component of what societies treat as the common good, the technical category of public goods does not exhaust the concept’s meaning in Francis’s teaching. In his texts, the common good is repeatedly linked to human dignity, distributive justice, inclusion, institutional responsibility, ecological integrity, and intergenerational responsibility (see Section 2.3 and Section 3.1, and the associated tables).

4.2. Economic Perspectives on the Common Good: A Structured Synthesis

4.2.1. Classical Political Economy and Welfare Economics

Classical political economy held that, under appropriate institutional conditions, the pursuit of self-interest could generate socially beneficial outcomes—an idea associated with the principle of the “invisible hand” (Smith [1776] 1976). Welfare economics later formalised social evaluation in terms of aggregate welfare and efficiency criteria. Pareto efficiency provides a minimal criterion for welfare improvement (Pareto [1906] 1971), but it remains normatively narrow with respect to justice. Social choice theory, in turn, shows that preference aggregation itself faces fundamental difficulties: Arrow’s impossibility theorem demonstrates that no social welfare ordering can simultaneously satisfy a set of apparently reasonable fairness conditions (Arrow [1951] 2012). These limitations have led economists to rely more explicitly on normative inputs when specifying what counts as socially desirable and, therefore, what may be treated as the common good.

4.2.2. Public Economics: Correcting Market Failures

In public economics, the common good is most often operationalised in terms of public goods, externalities, and collective action. Samuelson’s model, for example, explains why certain socially valuable goods are underprovided by markets (Samuelson 1954). However, the market-failure framework is normatively narrow insofar as it justifies public intervention primarily in terms of efficiency gains, while leaving broader questions of social purpose outside the analytical frame. This becomes especially clear in relation to climate, which Francis treats as a common good whose protection is grounded in principles of justice and intergenerational responsibility (Francis 2015, paras. 23, 159).

4.2.3. Contemporary Economics of the Common Good

Within economics, some approaches engage more directly with the category of the common good, moving beyond a narrow focus on aggregate welfare or on state intervention understood merely as a correction for market failure. At the same time, the concept of the common good has not been extensively theorised in mainstream economics, despite attracting the attention of such influential economists as Sen, Tirole, and Ostrom, all recipients of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (Horodecka and Żuk 2023).
The capability approach evaluates social arrangements in terms of the freedoms and opportunities they provide for people to choose among alternative “functionings” (“beings and doings”), rather than solely in terms of GDP or preference satisfaction (Sen 1992, 1996, 1999, 2008). It is implicitly related to the idea of the common good, as Sen (1992, p. 40) defines capability as “the various combinations of functionings that a person can achieve”, that is, as the freedom to choose among different forms of beings or doings.
Tirole refers explicitly to the common good, describing it as “our collective aspiration for society” and as the “well-being of the community” (Tirole 2017, pp. 2, 5). He argues that economics can contribute to the common good by distinguishing ends from means and by designing institutions capable of reconciling private incentives with collective goals (Tirole 2017).
The relationship between private and collective interests is also central to research on the governance of commons, which shows that communities can develop durable rules for managing shared resources and thereby avoid the “tragedy of the commons” described by Hardin (1968). This requires individuals to adhere to shared rules and to act in ways oriented towards the common good, where such rules are in place (Ostrom 1990, 1999).
A more developed and explicitly common-good-oriented framework is proposed by Lutz (1995, 1999). He defines the common good as “good that is equally shared or equally belonging to each and every member of society” (Lutz 1999, p. 137) and links it to principles such as personal freedom, basic well-being, and respect for human dignity. In his account, an “economics of the common good” (Lutz 1999, p. 139) entails translating these principles and moral norms into economic rights, social policies, and institutions. This includes, in particular, rights to the necessities of life, “economic democracy” (i.e., treating workers with dignity on the basis of respect for human dignity), and the right of future generations to material sufficiency and respect for human dignity (Lutz 1999, p. 139).
These economic rights are embedded in a specific social vision of the market economy. First, Lutz advocates a “humanistic enterprise system”, in which human and social capital are given particular emphasis in the organisation of the economy, while free capital markets are treated as instrumental to social welfare rather than as ends in themselves (Lutz 1999, p. 141). Second, he argues that the economy must remain embedded in society, rather than the reverse, so that social decisions are not subordinated to impersonal economic competition. Within such a framework, the achievement of the common good depends on a proactive and protective role for government (Lutz 1999, p. 141).
Other strands of economic thought also engage with the category of the common good, as noted in the Introduction. In particular, the Economy for the Common Good (ECG) model proposes multidimensional criteria and reporting tools (common good balance sheets) for evaluating firms and public policies in terms of their contribution to dignity, solidarity, sustainability, justice, and democratic participation (Felber 2015, 2024; Dolderer et al. 2021). Similarly, mission-oriented approaches grounded in public value stress that governance oriented towards the common good requires moving beyond a market-failure logic towards collectively defined public goals, with the state helping to shape markets in pursuit of shared missions (Mazzucato 2018, 2024).
Taken together, these approaches show that the common good is not understood uniformly within economics. They differ, among other things, in whether normative commitments are treated as derivable from preferences or as independent of them. The central point of contention is whether the common good should be understood as (i) an outcome metric (e.g., welfare, efficiency, capabilities), (ii) a category of goods (e.g., public goods or common-pool resources), or (iii) a meta-criterion specifying the institutional and moral conditions under which societies can flourish collectively—especially under conditions of ecological constraint and intergenerational responsibility.

4.3. Economic Approaches and Their Similarity to Francis’ Concept: Tabular Summary

Table 3 summarizes (i) how different economic approaches characterize a specific analogue of the common good (as an evaluation object), (ii) the main criterion by which this analogue is assessed, and (iii) how each approach relates to institutional issues. Similarity to Pope Francis’s approach is primarily assessed in relation to the five meaning clusters identified in Part 3.
Table 3. Economic approaches to the common good and their alignment with Francis’s evaluative framework.
Table 3. Economic approaches to the common good and their alignment with Francis’s evaluative framework.
Economic Strand/AuthorCore Common Good AnaloguePrimary Metric/CriterionInstitutional ViewProximity to Francis (Based on Meaning Clusters)
Classical political economy (Smith [1776] 1976)Social prosperity emerging from self-interest under rulesGrowth/prosperity; unintended social benefitsInstitutions enable marketsPartial: compatible on rule importance; weak on justice/ecology as constitutive
Welfare economics (Pareto [1906] 1971)Social welfare as aggregation/efficiencyAggregate utility; Pareto improvementsInstitutions as constraintsLimited: too “thin” on dignity, exclusion, intergenerational justice
Social choice (Arrow [1951] 2012)Difficulty of aggregating plural preferencesConsistency/fairness of aggregationInstitutional design for collective choiceIndirect: clarifies the need for normative criteria beyond preferences
Public economics (Samuelson 1954)Public goods/externalities and market-failure correctionEfficiency under market-failure correctionState as corrective providerPartial: overlaps on climate/public goods; narrower than justice framing
Capability approach (Sen 1999)Flourishing as substantive freedomCapabilities (opportunities to be/do)State/institutions expand freedomsHigh: close on flourishing and inclusion; Francis adds thicker relational layer
Commons governance (Ostrom 1990, 1999; Hardin 1968)Sustainable collective outcomes via rulesSustainability of resource usePolycentric rules, trust, monitoringHigh: close on institutions, cooperation, long-horizon stewardship
Humanist/social economics (Lutz 1995, 1999)Dignity and sufficiency as welfare foundationsUniversal dignity; material sufficiency thresholdsEconomy must secure basic rights/needsHigh: strong fit with dignity and exclusion critique
Economy for the Common Good (Felber 2015, 2024; Dolderer et al. 2021)Explicit common-good orientation of firms/policyMultidimensional common-good criteriaInstitutionalised accountability toolsHigh: operational bridge to normative claims; fits inclusion and ecology
Governance for the common good (Tirole 2017)Institutional design reconciling private incentives with general interestGoal/means separation; incentive compatibilityRules align private and general interestMedium–high: overlaps on governance; Francis adds stronger justice/ecology commitments
Mission-oriented public value (Mazzucato 2018, 2024)Collective purpose; market-shaping for shared endsMission outcomes/public purposeState co-creates/shapes marketsHigh: close on purposive governance
Integral ecology reception (Daly 2021)Socio-ecological compatibility of economic orderBiophysical limits and justice-linked sustainabilityInstitutions/culture shape growth pathwaysHigh: aligns strongly with Cluster 4
“Throwaway culture” political economy (Clark and Alford 2019)Common good undermined by systemic discardabilityReduced disposability; inclusion; ecological–social repairInstitutions/culture generate discardabilityHigh: matches Cluster 3 and Cluster 4
CSR in light of Laudato si’ (Cremers 2016)Firm-level participation in the common good beyond CSR-as-reputationSystemic responsibility; socio-ecological orientationCorporate governance as moral–institutional siteMedium–high: strong on institutional responsibility; depends on justice/ecology depth
Macromarketing critique (Klein and Laczniak 2021)Common good as corrective to consumption systemsJust/sustainable market outcomes; reduced harmMarkets as cultural-institutional systems shaping desireMedium–high: aligns with Cluster 4 and parts of Cluster 3
Civil economy (Bruni and Zamagni 2017; Zamagni 2021)Reciprocity, relational goods, fraternity as organising principlesRelational goods and inclusion; plural metricsInstitutions embed markets in relational normsHigh: converges with Clusters 3–5
Economy of Francesco agenda (Ciambotti et al. 2023)Programme for re-designing entrepreneurship/finance toward common goodAgenda-based outcomes (inclusive finance, purpose, sustainability)Institutions and organisations as design objectsMedium–high: strong on purposive design; varies in justice/ecology explicitness
Source: own elaboration.
Analyzing the results in the last column of Table 3, a dichotomy of economic approaches becomes apparent when compared with Pope Francis’s perception of the common good in the form of the meaning clusters described above. More traditional and mainstream economic theory, which does not explicitly refer to the common good, touches little on the scope of meaning that Pope Francis assigns to the common good. In turn, newer economic approaches that more directly or explicitly refer to the category of the common good largely refer to specific elements of the concept of the common good according to Pope Francis.

5. Conclusions and Future Research Directions

5.1. Contribution of the Present Study

This article has reconstructed Pope Francis’s understanding of the common good and related it, in particular, to contemporary economic thought. Using a cross-genre analysis of official papal documents and public statements, the study identified the contexts in which Francis uses the term and produced a structured synthesis of recurring meanings across different types of source material. The findings indicate that, in Francis’s teaching, the common good functions as a stable evaluative principle (a meta-criterion of assessment), enabling both diagnosis and normative guidance in social, political, economic, and ecological domains.

5.2. Implications for Economics

Pope Francis’s understanding of the common good has three main implications for economics. First, it highlights the need to evaluate social arrangements in ways that go beyond efficiency and aggregate welfare, treating justice and ecological sustainability as constitutive elements of the evaluative objective rather than as external constraints. Second, it underscores the institutional dimension of the common good. On the one hand, institutions are presented as co-constitutive of inclusion, social norms, and long-term sustainability; on the other hand, exclusion, ecological degradation, and the erosion of social cohesion are interpreted as consequences of institutional configurations and failures of governance. Third, it frames the common good in a long-term perspective under conditions of ecological constraint, integrating intergenerational responsibility into social evaluation (including questions of justice) and into principles of governance. This implies the need for a long-term economic policy that is not limited to correcting externalities but is grounded in the principle of intergenerational responsibility.

5.3. Limitations

Two limitations of the present study should be acknowledged. First, although the analysis of official papal documents and public statements systematically identifies uses of the term common good, the assignment of meaning codes and the construction of meaning clusters remain interpretive. Second, papal documents and statements differ in status, audience, and rhetorical purpose, and these differences are not fully captured by the quantitative analysis.

5.4. Directions for Future Research

Future research may proceed in several directions. First, it could operationalise specific components of the common good in Francis’s teaching, for example, by examining how inclusion, ecological integrity, and related dimensions can be incorporated into empirical and evaluative frameworks. Second, it could investigate the institutional mechanisms that enable or undermine the common good, drawing on political economy and institutional analysis. Third, it could develop models of climate governance that integrate considerations of justice with efficiency criteria. Fourth, it could examine firms’ contributions to the common good by combining stakeholder theory, corporate governance, and reporting frameworks. Finally, it could compare Francis’s meaning framework of the common good with a broader range of economic paradigms in order to identify more precisely where these approaches converge and where they diverge.

5.5. Summary

This article has reconstructed Pope Francis’s understanding of the common good and shown that it cannot be reduced either to the economic concept of public goods or to the market-failure framework associated with that concept. In Francis’s teaching, the common good functions as an evaluative and institutional concept that is constitutively linked to justice and expanded to include ecological and intergenerational responsibility. This framework overlaps, albeit only partially, with contemporary economic approaches to the common good while at the same time challenging approaches that treat moral criteria and other non-economic considerations as external to economic reasoning.

Supplementary Materials

The following supporting information can be downloaded at: https://www.mdpi.com/article/10.3390/rel17050566/s1.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, A.H. and A.J.Ż.; methodology, A.H. and A.J.Ż.; formal analysis, A.H. and A.J.Ż.; investigation, A.H. and A.J.Ż.; writing—original draft preparation, A.H. and A.J.Ż.; writing—review and editing, A.H. and A.J.Ż. Both authors have equal contribution to the article. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

The publication of the article was financed by the Publishing Fund of the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin (KUL) for 2026, managed by the KUL Plenipotentiary for Science.

Institutional Review Board Statement

Not applicable.

Informed Consent Statement

Not applicable.

Data Availability Statement

All data used in the article is available at: https://www.vatican.va/content/vatican/en/search.html?q=common%20good#79, accessed on 1 May 2026.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Table 1. Cross-genre meaning codes relating to the common good according to Pope Francis.
Table 1. Cross-genre meaning codes relating to the common good according to Pope Francis.
CodeLabelOperational DefinitionTypical IndicatorsIllustrative Example
PPublic ethics/governance/politicsCriterion of legitimacy or duty for public authority, policy, governance, diplomacy, or leadership.legitimacy; authority; policy; state; leaders; governance; responsibilityAuthority as “service of the common good” (Francis 2013c, para. 55)
SSolidarity/justice/inclusionCommon good anchored in distributive justice, social inclusion, and the rights/dignity of the poor and excluded.poor; excluded; migrants; dignity; rights; option for the poor; inclusionJustice for the poor as constitutive of the common good (Francis 2015, paras. 156–58)
PePeacebuilding/dialogue/reconciliationCommon good framed as the aim or condition of peace, dialogue, reconciliation, and conflict resolution.peace; dialogue; reconciliation; negotiation; fraternity; non-violenceCooperation for the common good as basis for peacebuilding (Francis 2013a)
UUnity/cohesionCommon good invoked to strengthen social cohesion, unity-in-diversity, and shared belonging.unity; cohesion; together; encounter; social bonds; communityInterreligious cooperation for the “common good of humanity” (Francis 2013a)
EnvEcology/climate/creationCommon good applied to shared ecological conditions and ‘our common home’ (climate, water, biodiversity) including long horizons.climate; creation; common home; environment; water; future generations“The climate is a common good” (Francis 2015, para. 23)
LLaw/institutions/regulationCommon good used to justify legal/institutional frameworks (rules, treaties, reforms, regulation) that protect shared goods and curb abuse.law; institutions; regulation; treaty; reform; rules; accountabilityInstitutions safeguarding the global common good (Francis 2020b, paras. 172–75)
GChurch mission/spiritual anthropologyCommon good linked to faith, evangelisation, and the Church’s public witness as a social good.faith; evangelisation; mission; truth; charity; Church“Faith… is a common good” (Francis 2013c, para. 51)
ACritique of corruption/idolatry/abuseCommon good used contrastively to condemn corruption, organised crime, idolatry of money, exploitation, and abuse of power.corruption; mafia; idolatry; money; exploitation; abuse; violenceMafia as “contempt for the common good” (Francis 2014)
EduEducation/formation/culture/mediaCommon good framed through education/formation, cultural practices, and the formation of judgement (including media responsibility).education; formation; culture; universities; youth; discernment; mediaEducation as forming agents who contribute to the common good (Francis 2024)
EEconomy/work/finance as vocationCommon good used to frame work, entrepreneurship, finance, and economic policy as service/vocation beyond profit-first criteria.work; business; entrepreneurship; finance; vocation; labour; investmentEconomic policy/business vocation for the common good (Francis 2013b, para. 203)
HHealth/care/bioethicsCommon good tied to health, care systems, pandemic ethics, and bioethical responsibility.health; care; pandemic; vaccination; patients; medicine; vulnerabilityVaccination as promoting the common good (Francis 2021)
MMoral examination/civic virtueCommon good anchored in conscience, civic virtue, moral self-scrutiny, and everyday practices sustaining social life.conscience; virtue; examination; daily gestures; conversion; responsibilityCatechesis on love and the common good (Francis 2020a)
Source: own elaboration.
Table 2. Meaning clusters in Francis’s usage and their dominant meaning code profiles.
Table 2. Meaning clusters in Francis’s usage and their dominant meaning code profiles.
ClusterInterpretive CoreDominant Meaning CodesTypical DomainsIllustrative Examples
1. Governance criterion and institutional obligationCommon good as the legitimacy test of authority and the duty of institutions to secure dignified social conditions.P, L (often with S)governance; diplomacy; institutional reform; regulationLumen fidei (Francis 2013c, para. 55); Fratelli tutti (Francis 2020b)
2. Peacebuilding, dialogue, and civic reconciliationCommon good as the practical aim of dialogue, reconciliation, and non-violent cooperation across divides.Pe, U (often with P)peace/conflict; interreligious dialogue; social cohesionAudience with religious representatives (Francis 2013a); Fratelli tutti (Francis 2020b)
3. Justice, inclusion, and protection of the vulnerableCommon good tested by whether the poor/excluded have voice, rights, and real participation in social life.S (often with P, E)poverty/inequality; migration; work; social rightsLaudato si’ (Francis 2015, paras. 156–58); Evangelii gaudium (Francis 2013b, paras. 189–201)
4. Integral ecology and intergenerational responsibilityCommon good as shared ecological background conditions and long-horizon duties to future generations.Env (often with S, L)climate/ecology; common home; resources; sustainability governanceLaudato si’ (Francis 2015, paras. 23, 156–59)
5. Moral–epistemic conditions of social cooperationCommon good as dependent on truthfulness, trust, civic virtue, and moral formation sustaining cooperation.M, G (often with U, Edu)moral formation; culture; education; civic virtue; truthLumen fidei (Francis 2013c, paras. 25–34); General audience(Francis 2020a); Jesuit education address(Francis 2024)
Source: own elaboration.
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Horodecka, A.; Żuk, A.J. The Concept of the Common Good in Pope Francis’s Teaching and Its Implications for Economic Thought: A Meaning Clusters Approach. Religions 2026, 17, 566. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel17050566

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Horodecka A, Żuk AJ. The Concept of the Common Good in Pope Francis’s Teaching and Its Implications for Economic Thought: A Meaning Clusters Approach. Religions. 2026; 17(5):566. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel17050566

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Horodecka, Anna, and Andrzej J. Żuk. 2026. "The Concept of the Common Good in Pope Francis’s Teaching and Its Implications for Economic Thought: A Meaning Clusters Approach" Religions 17, no. 5: 566. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel17050566

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Horodecka, A., & Żuk, A. J. (2026). The Concept of the Common Good in Pope Francis’s Teaching and Its Implications for Economic Thought: A Meaning Clusters Approach. Religions, 17(5), 566. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel17050566

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