Search the Catechism, the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, or indeed the entire Vatican website—search as much as you like—and you will find no teaching on what we call the “national debt.” You can find teaching on the debt that poorer nations owe to richer ones, the “external debt,” but not on the debt a government accumulates by financing deficits.
A bit of context: each year the U.S. federal government spends roughly two trillion dollars more than it takes in and issues bonds to finance that deficit. Each year’s deficit, when not paid off, is added to the “national debt.” Last week this accumulated debt made headlines for surpassing 40 trillion dollars. In about four years it will reach 50 trillion. The current debt represents about seven times the government’s annual revenue. The ratio is like a husband and wife who together earn $50,000 a year carrying $350,000 in credit-card debt.
Imagine such a couple who almost never paid attention to their massive debt. When they did, they could never agree on a plan to stop the debt from growing, because they fought constantly and each had favorite projects of their own. That is our government.
People say: “But the government is not a household; it can raise revenue at will through taxes, or print money.” Political society, however, is a household. Our nation is a household. The government is not. It is, rather, the leadership over a household, invested with sovereign authority.
Sovereign authority, by natural law, comes from God. It is a creature’s participation in God’s authority. Therefore, because it is a creature’s authority, the last thing it can be is unlimited; and because it is a participation in God’s authority, the last thing it can be is arbitrary. The government is not a Leviathan. The government cannot make something out of nothing. It must exercise responsible stewardship over the household. The analogy holds.
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