This week has seen some pretty substantial Constitutional drama unfold in the chambers of the United States Supreme Court as the constitutionality of President Obama’s signature legislative plishment is put to the test. Relevant Radio host Drew Mariani called upon Acton’s Director of Research, Dr. Samuel Gregg, to give his thoughts on the course of the arguments so far and his thoughts on how Catholic social teaching applies to the issue of health care in general. The interview lasts about...

If you weren’t able to attend last week’s Acton Lecture Series event here at Acton’s Grand Rapids office, we’ve got you covered. we’re pleased to present video of Rudy Carrasco’s lecture, entitled “Business as Mission 2.0,” below. ...

In today’s Acton Commentary, “Secular Scapegoats and ‘The Hunger Games,'” I examine the themes of faith and freedom expressed in Suzanne Collins’ enormously popular trilogy. The film version of the first book hit the theaters this past weekend, and along with the release e a spate mentary critical of various aspects of Collins’ work. As for faith and freedom, it turns out there’s precious little of either in Panem. But that’s not necessarily such a bad thing, as I argue...

Thanks to George McGraw, Executive Director of DigDeep Right to Water Project, for his kind and thoughtful Counterpoint to my original post. He and his organization are clearly dedicated to the noble cause of providing clean water and sanitation to all, a cause which everyone can and should support. It is also a very sensible objective that would aid the world’s poor much more than trendier causes such as “climate change” and “population control” which tend to view the human...

“The state’s appetite to find solutions from the center lures it to create positive rights out of thin air,” says Ismael Hernandez, president and founder of the Freedom and Virtue Institute, “even at the expense of a narrower space for civil society.” prehensive nature of religious thought often tempts religious bodies mand society from the center. Their tendency is to suffuse the system with a holistic vision of reality because such vision is seen as true and good. A social...

In a political climate dominated by debates about individual mandates and restrictions on religious freedoms, an issue like road privatization isn’t likely to be on the top of anyone’s list of major concerns. But theexcellent post on “The Mirage of Free-Market Roads” byTimothy B. Lee, a writer with Ars Technica and the Cato Institute, is worth reading even if you don’t care about toll roads. Leeprovides an intriguing example of why we need to think clearly about how we apply...

“Does the Vatican think water should be ‘free’?” asked Kishore Jayabalan in his post examining the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace’s latest document on water. Although he is now the director of Istituto Acton, the Acton Institute’s Rome office, Jayabalan formerly worked for the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace as the lead policy analyst on sustainable development and arms control. In his post, Jayabalan referenced the analysis of George McGraw, the Executive Director of DigDeep Right to Water...

On The American Spectator, Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg examines how the left wages “a war of rejection and rationalization against whatever contradicts their mythologies.” Which explains why leftists get into a snit when you point out factual details like how Communist regimes “imprisoned, tortured, starved, experimented upon, enslaved, and exterminated millions” throughout the 20th century. And it makes it so much harder to wear that Che Guevara t-shirt without being mocked in public. Gregg: Overall, the left has been...

Andrew MorrissJoin us for the next Acton Lecture Series on Thursday, April 26, when Andrew Morriss, the D. Paul Jones, Jr. & Charlene Angelich Jones Chairholder of Law at the University of Alabama, will speak on “The False Promise of Green Energy.” Register online here. Here’s the lecture description: “Green energy advocates claim that transforming America to an economy based on wind, solar, and biofuels will produce jobs for Americans, benefits for the environment, and restore American industry. Prof. Andrew...

The fine folks at Cardus, the noteworthy thinktank north of the border, have posted a review of The Best of the Reformed Journal. John Schmalzbauer, who teaches in the Department of Religious Studies at Missouri State University where he holds the Blanche Gorman Strong Chair in Protestant Studies, concludes about the situation sixty years after the founding of the Reformed Journal: Though the surnames remain the same, American politics has changed. Defending Franklin Roosevelt, Lester DeKoster once wrote that “laissez...