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Audio: On NPR, Samuel Gregg Discusses Pope Francis and Economics

National Public Radio did a roundup of views on what to expect from Pope Francis on economic issues. Reporter Jim Zarroli interviewed Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg and mentators on the Catholic left. NPR host Audie Cornish introduced Zarroli’s report by observing that the new pope es from Argentina, where poverty and debt have long posed serious challenges. In the past, when thrust into debates about the country’s economic future, Francis had made ments about wealth, inequality and the markets....

Women of Liberty: Feminine Brigades of St. Joan of Arc

(March is Women’s History Month. Acton will be highlighting a number of women who have contributed significantly to the issue of liberty during this month.) According to the religious liberties established under article 24, educational services shall be secular and, therefore, free of any religious orientation. The educational services shall be based on scientific progress and shall fight against ignorance, ignorance’s effects, servitudes, fanaticism and prejudice. All religious associations organized according to article 130 and its derived legislation, shall be...

Samuel Gregg: What Tocqueville Knew

In the Wall Street Journal, Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg turns to French political thinker Alexis de Tocqueville to show how democratic systems can be used to strike a Faustian bargain. “Citizens use their votes to prop up the political class, in return for which the state uses its power to try and provide the citizens with perpetual economic security,” Gregg explains. This, of course, speaks to the current catastrophe that is the European welfare state. French workers, for example,...

Faith-Based Proxy Resolutions and GMOs

The Dow Chemical Co., along with E.I. Du Pont de Nemours, e under fire from the Adrian Dominicans and the Sisters of Charity due to panies’ production of genetically modified organisms. No, the sisters aren’t mounting the barricades outside the two corporations to protest what they might term “Frankenfoods,” but they have submitted proxy shareholder resolutions to demand, among other things, panies review and report by November 2013 on: Adequacy of plans for removing GE [genetically engineered] seed from the...

The Hidden Welfare Program for the Low-Skilled and Uneducated

There are 14 million Americans who are out of work yet don’t show up in the monthly unemployment statistics. The federal government spends more money each year on cash payments for this group than it spends on food stamps and bined. They are part of the hidden social safety net. They are the disabled former workers. NPR’s Planet Money has produced a fascinating report on the growth of federal disability programs and what disability means for American workers. Here are...

Work Is More Than a Means to Evangelism

As already discussed, Matthew Lee Anderson’s recent Christianity Today cover story on “radical Christianity” has been making waves. This week at The High Calling, Marcus Goodyear offers a healthy critique of one of Anderson’s key subjects, David Platt, aligning quite closely with Anderson’s analysis about the ultimatechallenges such movements face when es to long-term cultural cultivation. Focusing on Platt’s latest book, Follow Me, Goodyear notes that, despite Platt’s admirable efforts to get Christians “off their seats,” he often “emphasizes the...

Pope Francis and the Christians of the Middle East

“Every public gesture and word of the Holy Father tends to have meaning,” says Charles J. Chaput, the archbishop of Philadelphia. “So what was the pope saying with this symbolism as he began his new ministry?” Chaput believes Pope Francis focus is the persecuted church: The Chaldean and Syriac Catholic Churches of Iraq and Syria, while differing in rite and tradition from the Latin West, are integral members of the universal Catholic Church, in munion with the bishop of Rome....

RELIGION & LIBERTY

Our Ultimate Hooray

　　Our Ultimate Hooray 　　by Charles R. Swindoll 　　John 11 　　What gives a widow courage as she stands beside a fresh grave? What is the ultimate hope of the handicapped, the abused, the burn victim? What is the final answer to pain, mourning, senility, insanity, terminal diseases, sudden calamities, and fatal accidents? 　　The answer to each of these questions is the...

Mar 16, 2026

Signs of Jesus’ Return

　　Saturday, April 5, 2025 　　Signs of Jesus’ Return 　　“Later, Jesus sat on the Mount of Olives. His disciples came to him privately and said, ‘Tell us, when will all this happen? What sign will signal your return and the end of the world?’” (Matthew 24:3 NLT) 　　The Jerusalem temple was a magnificent structure, one the Jewish people were exceedingly proud...

Mar 16, 2026

Cultivating Conversations

　　In America, it’s difficult to argue against anything described as “open.” We are the land of the cowboy, the open road, the big sky, the 24-7 convenience store. Everything is open all the time, for better or for worse, including but not limited to our hearts, our borders, and our pocketbooks. The siren call of America is the dream of...

Mar 16, 2026

A Hardened Heart

　　A Hardened Heart 　　By: Michelle Lazurek 　　Jesus replied, 'Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning.'Matthew 19:8 　　The year 2020 was one of the most challenging years for my marriage. Not only did COVID profoundly impact our lives, including the lives of our church, but also work...

Mar 16, 2026

The Open Campus?

　　Should a university strive to be an open society? 　　Many will feel an immediate impulse to answer in the affirmative. Universities should be places of exploration and discovery. They should foster lively intellectual exchange. They should create a space in which people feel emboldened to pursue the truth to surprising or unexpected places, potentially moving against the grain of the...

Mar 16, 2026

On the Hypocrisies of the New American University

　　I understand the resolution—a university should be an open society—in the sense made famous by Karl Popper in his influential book, The Open Society and Its Enemies, rather than in the sense of George Soros’ Open Society Foundation, where the phrase is given a quite different and, I believe, un-Popperian meaning. 　　As far as I understand Popper’s positive argument in...

Mar 16, 2026

A Prayer to Prepare Our Hearts for Spring

　　A Prayer to Prepare Our Hearts for Spring 　　By Lynette Kittle 　　Bible Reading: 　　“Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there He put the man He had formed” - Genesis 2:8 　　Read or Listen Below: 　　Winter can seem extremely long with its cold hours of darkness, barren trees and bushes, not to mention...

Mar 16, 2026

Resting in Gods Care

　　Resting in God's Care 　　By: Jennifer Slattery 　　Bible Reading: 　　Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” Hebrews 13:5, NIV 　　For me, it’s easiest to feel content when I’m in a financially secure place. I find this much...

Mar 16, 2026

C. S. Lewis and Progressive Pathology

　　“Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour, / England hath need of thee, she is a fen / of stagnant waters” begins a famous sonnet by William Wordsworth about the spiritual troubles of two hundred years back. Of course, things seem just as catastrophic today as they did in 1802. After the English people voted for Brexit, the elites...

Mar 16, 2026

Beyond the Battlefield of Ideas

　　My position is that a university cannot be an open society in all respects and that it must be bounded in certain ways in order to achieve its fundamental mission. That mission, I believe, requires us to draw lines and make distinctions. To that end, it would be helpful to define what people generally mean by an “open society.” At its...

Mar 16, 2026