In the July 24 edition of the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano , a couple of articles related how Italians are reading less than their European counterparts, with 62 percent of the population failing to read even a single book during the year. “Above all, reading increases innovative capabilities, the ability to understand phenomena and in the ultimate analysis, worker productivity,” said Federico Motta, president of the Italian association of publishers. According to Motta’s article, only 31 percent of Italian 20-29...

The fifth week of the CRC’s Sea to Sea bike tour has pleted. The fifth leg of the journey took the bikers from Denver to Fremont, a total distance of 553 miles. The “Shifting Gears” devotional opens the week by focusing on the poor. “Consider this: each one of us has far less to worry about than those living in poverty who often do not know where their next meal ing from.” This week’s Grand Rapids Press religion section had...

The Business and Media Institute highlights House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s response to a question about why conservatives and advocates for the free market degrade San Francisco as a city out of step with mainstream America. Pelosi believes it’s all about economics, and she points to the fact that government regulation and government programs in San Francisco are the model for America, and advocates for free markets are afraid of other citizens recognizing that. Pelosi says: In San Francisco, every child...

When Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad makes a public claim it’s typically controversial. So the AP filed a story with this headline in the Jersualem Post, “Ahmadinejad blames West for AIDS.” Clearly the JP went for shock value, as most other outlets chose to title the story something like, “Iranian president: ‘Big powers’ going down.” But there it is among a bunch of other accusations that Ahmadinejad leveled at a meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). According to the AP, “Ahmadinejad’s...

Acton Research Fellow and Director of Media Dr. Jay Richards was on The Frank Pastore Show on KKLA in Los Angeles last night. Frank and Jay discussed the attempt to redefine the term “pro-life” in such a way that a pro-abortion candidate can claim to be “pro-life” in spite of their support for abortion; they also took a look at Barack Obama’s legislation that mit billions of dollars to the reduction of global poverty. You can listen to the discussion...

Robert Stackpole of the Divine Mercy Insititute offers a thoughtful analysis of the positions of the major presidential candidates on health care at Catholic Online. I missed part one (and I don’t see a link), but the series, devoted to examining the electoral responsibilities of Catholics in light of their Church’s social teaching, is evidently generating some interest and debate. Stackpole’s approach is interesting because he tries to steer a course between the two dominant camps that have developed over...

The fourth week of the CRC’s Sea to Sea bike tour has pleted. The fourth leg of the journey took the bikers from Salt Lake City to Denver, a total distance of 478 miles. The “Shifting Gears” devotional at the beginning of this week focuses especially on the relationship of the church to culture. On day 22, the devotion notes that the “crucial pillars of civilization–education, family, government, and science–are in a state of decline and disrepair.” This may seem...

The Summer issue of City Journal features a piece worth reading by Guy Sorman titled “Economics Does Not Lie.” The paper includes weighty arguments favoring a free market economic system and the author does a good job explaining the rationale of those who criticize a free economy. Sorman says: If economics is finally a science, what, exactly, does it teach? With the help of Columbia University economist Pierre-André Chiappori, I have synthesized its findings into ten propositions. Almost all top...

In his weekly column, the National Catholic Reporter‘s John Allen notes Pope Benedict XVI’s references to the environment during the recent World Youth Day events in Australia. Allen writes: Although the point didn’t get much traction amid the pageantry of World Youth Day, it’s a striking fact that the most frequent social or cultural concern cited by Pope Benedict XVI in Australia was the environment. The pope talked about ecological themes seven times. [snip] If there was a distinctive twist...

Solzhenitsyn “During all the years until 1961, not only was I convinced that I should never see a single line of mine in print in my lifetime, but, also, I scarcely dared allow any of my close acquaintances to read anything I had written because I feared that this would e known. Finally, at the age of 42, this secret authorship began to wear me down. The most difficult thing of all to bear was that I could not get...