On Friday the Obama administration proposed a rule that it says will appease the concerns religious organizations have about the controversial abortion/contraceptive mandate issued last year by the Department of Health and Human Services. Here’s what you should know about the mandate and the proposed changes. What is this contraception mandate everyone keeps talking about? As part of the universal health insurance reform passed in 2010 (often referred to as “Obamacare”), all group health plans must now provide—at no cost...

Since the 1970s, Black History Month has been a time to focus on some of the highlights of the black experience in America. In 2009, Jonathan Bean put together a wonderful book recounting the vital role liberty played in the American black experience. In Race and Liberty In America: The Essential Reader, Bean demonstrates that from the Declaration of Independence to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to the 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision banning school assignment by race, classical...

In the Wall Street Journal, Cardinal Timothy Dolan explains how Catholic Schools bat falling enrollment while keeping standards high: I have heard from many leaders in business and finance that when a graduate from Catholic elementary and secondary schools applies for an entry-level position in panies, the employer can be confident that the applicant will have the necessary skills to do the job. Joseph Viteritti, a professor of public policy at Hunter College in New York who specializes in education...

The Acton Institute recently partnered with the Christian History Institute to produce the latest issue of Christian History magazine. The issue (which you can download as a free PDF) examines the impact of automation on Europe and America and the varying responses of the church to the problems that developed. Topics examined are mission work, the rise of the Social Gospel, the impact of papal pronouncements, the Methodist phenomenon, Christian capitalists, attempts munal living and much more. Check out these...

If there is one day where young and old, Republican and Democrat, black and white, the 99% and the 1%, put down their weapons and disputes, it is on Superbowl Sunday. The game, the ads, the food, and so on, turned Superbowl Sunday into a major spectacle. The spectacle has not gone unnoticed among religious leaders. In fact, as Superbowl viewership has increased to over 100 million in recent years so has the fort about the game and the spectacle....

Last night millions of young Super Bowl viewers were introduced to one of the most influential conservatives in modern America. And it was done with mercial. Rush Limbaugh is often credited with the dubious honor of bringing conservative talk radio to the masses. And it is certainly true that Rush paved the way for Hannity, O’Reilly, and other pundits by perfecting the three-hour babblefest. But the true pioneer and undisputed king of conservative radio is Paul Harvey, a man who...

The Emperor Constantine with his mother Helen, both memorated as saints of the Church. This month marks the 1,700th anniversary of the Edict of Milan. While much debate surrounds the relationship of Church and state in Christian Rome, even key figures like the Emperor Constantine (traditionally considered a saint by both East and West), the Edict of Milan is something that anyone who values liberty, religious liberty in particular, ought memorate as a monumental achievement. While a previous edict in...

Over at Fieldnotes Magazine, Matthew Kaemingk offers a good reminder that in our social solutions-seeking we needn’t be limited to thinking only in terms of market and state. By boxing ourselves in as such, Kaemingk argues, Christians risk an overly simplistic, non-Biblicalview of human needs and human destiny: When presented with almost any social problem (education, health care, poverty, family life, and so on), today’s leaders typically point to one of two possible solutions—a freer market or a stronger state....