Reaction to Pope Benedict XVI’s long-awaited social encyclical “Caritas in Veritate,” is starting to pour in. In it, Benedict calls for a reformed United Nations with policing power and a new financial world order to enforce business ethics. USA Today has a nice summary of the dense and wide-ranging encyclical, billed as a major Vatican teaching, here.

Already, Catholic progressives are embracing the document:

John Gehring of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good called it a “bold critique of free-market fundamentalism…Pope Benedict is going where many U.S. politicians fear to tread in his call for equitable distribution of wealth, robust financial regulations and a strong role for government in promoting the common good.”

Terrence Tilley, professor of theology and chair of the religion department at Fordham University, said: “The encyclical makes it clear that Benedict XVI does not think the ‘free market’ is a ‘fair market.’ He calls for ‘new forms of engagement’ of governments and international agencies in light of the current economic crisis.”

Steve Schneck, director of the Life Cycle Institute at the Catholic University of America, called the encyclical a “powerful warning to the modern world — especially the West….We are charged to take up anew the demands of distributive and social justice, put the health of the planet ahead of profit, civilize the economy by addressing the excesses of globalization and vigorously defend workers’ rights to livable wages and the right to organize.”

The Rev. Thomas Reese, a Jesuit priest and political analyst, says Benedict “sounds like a union organizer” and “amid the dense prose there are indications … that he is to the left of almost every politician in America.”

Of course, Catholic progressives have much to gain by arguing that this document makes it clear the pope backs their side on key issues: health care, climate change, tax policy, etc. — some of which, not incidentally, are moving through Congress right now. And with President Obama set to meet with Benedict on July 10, the political stakes are all the higher. Obliquely touching on that point, Catholic writer Michael Sean Winters says: “At one point, Benedict sounds like he hired one of Obama’s speechwriters for a day.”

I expect an imminent backlash, or, at least reinterpretation, from the Catholic right.

For an excellent accounting of how Catholic conservatives successfully framed the late Pope John Paul II’s encyclical “Centesimus Annus,” as an endorsement of “the new capitalism,” see Damon Linker’s book “Theocons.”