popes have an economic liberal bias

Before beginning, I must make a side-note. When talking about what popes teach we ought to clearly source our quotes. The context, type of intervention (audience, locution, apostolic letter, motu proprio, encyclical...) that we are referring to, as they have different relevance in defining pontifical teaching. I am not inclined to directly mention the particular quotes Pro brought up in the first round as it would likely take me more time than it is worth to find the original context and address it.More to the point, however, is defining what it is to be liberal. In my own country, "liberal" is taken to mean anything from anarco-capitalism to more orthodox free-market conservatism passing through libertarian minarchism. We can be pretty sure this is not what Pro is referring to, as her profile states she is from the United States and there the word "liberal" is used as a synonym of "progressive" or "leftist", which in turn require definition, as no one seems to be able to quite put their finger on exactly what everyone means by them. To truly understand the term we needs must take a more historical approach to see where this political, intellectual and economic movement takes root.Political liberalism is often considered to have begun in France during the Revolution, the response to the absolutism of the Ancien Regime. Their economics, however, were far from liberal by today's standards. Though not as doctrinally developed as today's neo-conservatives, they defended property rights and a Free-Market with few regulations. Quite contrary to what is understood as liberalism in the United States today. What is considered economic liberalism owes itself more to the socialist movements, from Utopian Socialism to Marxism. The emphasis on the workers and the roll of government in regulating the economy would stem from these philosophical and political ideologies.Can the same be said about the Social Doctrine of the Church, which mostly draws from the writings of the popes in their papal encyclicals from Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum to Benedict XVI's Caritas in Veritate? I think not.The Church takes a longer view on these issues than most people are inclined to consider when speaking on the subject. The focus of the Social Doctrine of the Church (SDC) is the dignity of man (1) the foundation of which is the creation of man in the image and likeness of God. The first social encyclical shows this long view of history when it laments that the traditional safeguards of this dignity have been set aside by modern society: "the ancient workingmen's guilds" and the "ancient religion" (2). Hardly a leftist proposition.A mark of liberal thought is that man can be self-perfected. Reform is sought in order to create a perfect human society. This is also quite contrary to what the Church teaches. As His Holiness now Pope-emeritus Benedict XVI said in closing his social encyclical Caritas in Veritate: "Development needs Christians with their arms raised towards God in prayer, Christians moved by the knowledge that truth-filled love, caritas in veritate, from which authentic development proceeds, is not produced by us, but given to us."The writings of the Popes, like all Church doctrine, cannot be pigeonholed into the modern categories of "left" and "right", "liberal" or "conservative". Many of the things they propose will agree with one side, and many others will agree with another. As a whole, however, it quite simply does not agree with either. Sources(1) http://www.vatican.va...(2) http://www.vatican.va...(3) http://www.vatican.va...