A capacity crowd of professors, students, and opinion makers attends the April 20 2016 Acton Conference in Rome “Freedom with Justice: Rerum Novarum and the New Things of our Time”. In an article published Fridayby Zenit’s Rome correspondent, Deborah Lubov,we find an excellent summary of Acton’s recently concluded Rome conference: “Freedom with Justice: Rerum Novarum and the New Things of Our Time.” Lubov writes in here roundup article: Pope Leo’s encyclical on ‘revolutionary things,’ many [speakers] noted, also had much...

Alvino-Mario Fantini, editor-in-chief of theThe European Conservative,and Michael Severance, operations manager of Istituto Acton, co-wrote an op-ed for The Catholic World ReportAre Pope Leo XIII and Pope Saint John Paul II “feeling the Bern”?The article was published yesterday as a concluding reflectionon Acton’s April 20 Rome conference “Freedom with Justice: Rerum Novarum and the New Things of Our Time“. The op-ed summarizes some of the main moral theological and anthropological points expressed last Wednesday — especially those made by the...

Boston Common Asset Management bills itself as “a leader in global sustainability initiatives.” Why would an investment portfolio pany label itself with the appellation “Common” when it carries such negative baggage? As it turns out, BCAM embraces mon” as something positive. From the BCAM website: Beginning in 1634, the Boston Common served as mon pasture for cattle grazing. As a public good, the Common was a space owned by no one but essential to all. We chose the name Boston...

Americans are growing in their distrust of the U.S. government and its leaders, with polls typically showing approval of Congress somewhere around 11%. As Senator Ben Sasse put it in his first remarks to the U.S. Senate, “The people despise us all.” “No one in this body thinks the Senate is laser-focused on the most pressing issues facing the nation,” he said, “No one. Some of us lament this; some are angered by it; many are resigned to it; some...

Since today is Earth Day you’ll be hearing even more discussions than usual about the problem of anthropocentric climate change. What you aren’t likely to hear is sufficient consideration of the question, “What kind of problem is it?” Many people claim that it is an environmental problem. Some claim that it is a technological, scientific, or even moral problem. Others vigorously contend that is it not a “problem” at all. I believe that, first and foremost, anthropocentric climate change is...

We all need help thinking more clearly — you, me, U.S. Senators like Barbara Boxer, says John Stonestreet. And denying it sometimes proves the opposite. A hearing that was held last week of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works consisted of Senator Barbara Boxer of California, Alex Epstein, the President for the Center for Industrial Progress, and Father Robert Sirico, a priest and president of the Acton Institute, among others. The topic was how the president’s climate policies...

During the drought that struck the United States from 1934 to 1937, the soil became so badly eroded that static electricity built up on the farmlands of the Great Plains, pulling dust into the sky like a magnet. Massive clouds of dust rose up to 10,000 feet and, powered by high-altitude winds, was pushed as far east as New York City. When the “black blizzard” hit Washington, D.C. in May 1934, Hugh Hammond Bennett — the “father of soil conservation”...

Over the years, many of us here at Acton have been engaged in long-running(and mostly congenial) feud with distributists. Family squabbles can often be the most heated, and that is true of this rivalry between the Christianchampions of distributism and the Christian champions of free markets here at the Acton Institute. We fight among ourselves because we have an awful lot mon. For example, we share the afocus on encouraging subsidiarity, self-sufficiency, and entrepreneurship. We also share arespect for rule...

Although Earth Day 2016 has officially ended, the call for Christians to care for the Earth continues. For us, every day is Earth day. Too often, though, we Christians don’t have a robust enough understanding of how to care for the environment or how that duty is connected to economics. A decade ago, Acton research fellow Jordan Ballor wrote the best, brief explanation you’ll ever find on the connection between economics and environmental stewardship. As Ballor says, economics can be...

Rev. Robert A. Sirico, second from left, takes time to chat with participants at the April 20 Rome conference “Freedom with Justice: Rerum Novarum and the New Things of Our Time” French journalist Solène Tadiépublished an exclusive interview today with Rev. Robert A. Sirico: “Entretien avec le père Robert Sirico pour le 125e anniversaire de l’encyclique Rerum Novarum“. Rev. Sirico was in Rome as thefinal speaker at Acton’s April 20 Rome conference “Freedom with Justice: Rerum Novarum and the New...