Last week the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights issued it decision in a much-anticipated case involving the right of Romanian Orthodox priests to unionize against the wishes of their church. According to the Center for Law and Religion Forum, the proposed union was meant to promote members’ ability to obtain representation in the Holy Synod, the Church’s highest authority, and to strike in order to advance members’ interests within the Church. By registering a union with...

President Barack Obama, during a recent trip to Northern Ireland, decried the segregation of denominational churches and schools: Issues like segregated schools and housing, lack of jobs and opportunity — symbols of history that are a source of pride for some and pain for others — these are not tangential to peace; they’re essential to it. If towns remain divided — if Catholics have their schools and buildings, and Protestants have theirs — if we can’t see ourselves in one...

Over at Think Christian, I reflect on an “authentically Christian” view of work, which takes into account its limitations, failings, and travails, as well as its promises, prospects, and providential foundations. The TC piece is in response to a post by Simon Critchley and Jamieson Webster, in which they juxtapose the pscyhologizing of work as subjectively authentic self-expression with their own preferred view of work as something done simply “for the sake of sustenance.” Critchley and Webster are right to...

If you’re a Cardinal working at the Vatican, you may want to leave your Porsche at home – the boss is checking the parking lot and isn’t keen on seeing luxury cars. Inspection – The Pope declared war on the Vatican’s luxury cars. First, he attacked wastefulness, underscoring that “it bothers me when I see a priest or a sister with a brand new car”. Then, a few days later, he put into practice what he had stated during a...

According to Breitbart, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Thursday was caught making claims about “Bible Folks” that weren’t exactly accurate: Pelosi told the assembled media: ‘The fact is that many Republicans in our country prehensive immigration reform.The badges, law munity; the munity; the Bible folks — many of them are Republican, they have been very enthusiastic over time and [are] getting impatient about Congress taking action.” Mark Tooley, an evangelical Christian and President of the Institute on Religion and...

In a sermon to the class of 1864, Williams College President Mark Hopkins addressed the intimate and inevitable relationship between character and destiny, “Settle it therefore, I pray you, my hearers, once and forever, that as your character is, so will your destiny be.” Within the academy, this basic prescription for earthly happiness, says Lewis M. Andrews, reigned supreme for almost three centuries, from Harvard’s founding in 1636 until the early twentieth century. The typical centerpiece of the moral curriculum...

Anyone who’s driven across the American landscape knows that there will be a familiar string of fast-food chains, gas stations and box stores along the expressways. You could virtually eat the same meal as you drive from one coastline of America to the other. Michael Matheson Miller, Research Fellow and Director of PovertyCure at the Acton Institute, takes up this issue, asking, “Does capitalism destroy culture?” [S]ince the cultural es from political observers at almost every point on the political...

When walking through an airport or shopping mall the aroma hits me before I even see the store. If happiness had a scent I suspect it would smell like Auntie Anne’s soft pretzels. From the first whiff my knees go weak and my brain tells me that I will never know joy again if I pass up this salted, buttery, baked goodness. They are so good that I fully expect St. Peter hands them out at the Pearly Gates. While...